Colleen Hroncich
After graduating college and working as a CPA for a large accounting firm, Chrystal Bernard quickly realized accounting wasn’t her calling. “I don’t want to do this,” she remembers thinking. “It was fun. I met some really great people, but I really wanted more one-on-one with people.”
Her husband suggested she try teaching, and she found herself moving from college-level accounting courses to high school classrooms. That’s where everything changed. “I started building relationships with the students and that was great. But I saw the system is not really set up for a lot of people to succeed. Lots of people fall through the gaps, and I really saw it from some students,” she recalls. “A lot of them told me they had checked out way back in third grade.” Her frustration led her to think about starting her own school.
When she had children, Chrystal couldn’t put them in the school system. “I knew I did not want them to have the environment that I saw,” she says. “Schooling has changed even since I’ve been in school, and I really don’t want that for them.” They started at a private school and then switched to homeschooling.
During the pandemic, while other families struggled with virtual learning and masked classrooms, Chrystal’s family was thriving. “Our kids were doing great. People saw that and they were like, ‘Hey, can you homeschool our kids too?’ And I thought, ‘Well, I probably can.’ And that’s literally how it started,” she explains with a laugh.
In fall 2021, Braveheart Christian Academy opened its doors in Arlington, Texas, with just nine students from kindergarten through third grade. The name came from her husband’s existing boys’ after-school mentoring program. “My husband was really into kind of the boys-to-men model and would pour out and mentor boys,” says Chrystal. “We took the name Braveheart, which is strong as a bear, but you have the heart of Christ, and we turned it into Braveheart Christian Academy.”
What makes this school different isn’t just its small size—it’s the fundamental philosophy that drives every decision. “Instead of putting kids in a box, let’s bring education to them,” Chrystal explains. “So we have students who, you know, maybe they’re a couple of grade levels behind in English or math. But we also have some kids who weren’t being challenged very well, and so they come to our school too. And we really just give them what they need.”
The school operates on a hybrid model with a unique structure. Mornings are dedicated to “power hours,” when they focus on core subjects like math and English language arts. Afternoons bring what they call “BCA Academy,” which includes Spanish, life skills, gardening, cooking, music, and PE. “That’s your motivation,” she says. “You get all your work done. Boom. You are done, and you’re good to go. So the kids are like, ‘Okay, because I do not want to miss making tomato soup with our homemade basil in our garden.’”
The school has grown to around 27 students ranging from pre‑K through seventh grade, with plans to expand through high school. Parents volunteer for tuition credits, cleaning buildings, and landscaping. “Our parents are very normal people who just want something different,” Chrystal says.
The approach seems to be working. “The kids don’t want to leave,” says Chrystal. One mother shared a dramatic change she’s seen in her kids since switching them to Braveheart, saying, “Oh my gosh, my kids want to come to school. When there’s an off day like Labor Day, they’re like, ‘Why are we here? Why aren’t we going to school?’”
The school has also become a refuge for teachers burned out by the conventional school system. Most of their teachers come from public schools, bringing valuable experience but also ingrained habits. “They’re constantly saying, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t have to do it that way,’” Chrystal says. They appreciate their new autonomy and flexibility and like knowing they can speed up or slow down depending on what the individual kids need.
The school recently achieved accreditation, which will enable it to participate in Texas’s new education savings account (ESA) program. “One of the things that we always hear from people is, ‘I would love to come to your school, but I can’t afford it,’ ” Chrystal explains. “This is going to have a huge impact on our community.”