Georgia Christian School Closure Points to Deeper Issues

Principal and Pastor Allegedly Tried to Stop PTA From Reporting Theft

War Hill Christian Academy, a 60-student, pre-k-12 school in Dawsonville, Georgia, caught parents by surprise with a March 15 letter announcing this will be its final semester.

Church at War Hill is affiliated with War Hill Christian Academy / Photo via Google Maps

Now, local media is reporting that some parents have called into question the school’s stated reason for closing—the availability of a “more affordable” online alternative. Former PTA members have been waging a public battle against school leadership and with the affiliated Church at War Hill. The lead pastor of the five-campus nondenominational church, Don Allen, also runs a nonprofit, RLN Global, and is executive director of Atlanta’s largest independent radio station, Victory 91.5 FM.

The conflict began months earlier, with the theft of between $1,500-$2,000 from a PTA event.

Rachael Henderson was among parents who had fronted their own money for a Christmas market fundraiser. After the first two days of the event, the PTA gave its cash box to a school staff member to secure in the office of Principal Christy Stewart. But when they returned on Dec. 14 to retrieve the box, most of the money was gone.

Henderson said the school pressured the PTA to keep the investigation in-house and offered to compensate them for lost funds. But the parents wanted something more official, so Henderson called 911.

What happened next escalated a petty theft into a larger scandal that quickly spiraled over the ensuing weeks—the principal resigned, multiple students were expelled, and two police detectives were relieved of duty.

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While Henderson and the other women waited for police to meet them at the church parking lot, Pastor Allen confronted them. An audio recording made by Henderson and shared on her “Exposing War Hill” Facebook account captured Allen scolding the women for being “rebellious” by calling the police. When the women did not relent, Allen expelled two mothers’ children. He also contacted Dawson County Sheriff Jeff Johnson to cancel the investigation.

Johnson complied, later re-opening the case and claiming he had misunderstood that the original call had come from the mothers, not the church. However, when Henderson tried to file an incident report at the police station, the officer on duty told them Johnson would not allow it.

“It feels like everybody’s banding together and we got put on the other side of this, and it shouldn’t be that way…we should feel protected by y’all,” Henderson said during a Jan. 9 meeting with Allen and investigators.

Complicating matters further, on Jan. 9, detectives Christopher Yelle and Talley Redmond entered the church without a warrant to question the principal—an action that led to their firing.

Currently, the police investigation of the theft remains open, and a separation investigation has begun:  The Georgia Accrediting Commission (GAC), alerted by multiple complaints is now looking into the school.

Phil Murphy, executive director of the GAC, said, “I can only confirm that the Georgia Accrediting Commission is investigating an allegation of the violation of one or more standards by War Hill Christian Academy.”

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