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Crenshaw Christian Academy has officially welcomed Becky Baggett as the school’s new headmaster.

Baggett, a Pike County native, began her career as a teacher for many years in the Montgomery school system as well as a teacher and assistant headmaster at Ashford Academy. She later took the assistant headmaster’s position at Pike Liberal Arts School before being named headmaster in 2014.

The seasoned educator said that CCA’s values are what attracted her to the position.

“I like the fact that the school is founded on Biblical foundations,” she said. “I’m a Christian first, and Christian character and principles are very important to me. I love the small school atmosphere. It’s more challenging because you don’t have all the resources for funding, so you have to be resourceful.”

Making a difference is one of Baggett’s main goals in education.

“I just love making a difference in kids’ lives, that’s why I got into education,” she said.

One of Baggett’s main goals as CCA’s new headmaster will be preparing students academically and “for life” in general. She added that preparing for the ACT for college scholarships and admittance would be crucial.

“A high priority is helping our students attain high ACT test scores, including through our ACT prep class,” she said. “We’ll do everything we can to help our students attain the highest ACT scores possible.”

Baggett added that using the ACT as a gauge for students entering college is not “necessarily fair” because some students are good test takers and other are not.

“Unfortunately, they don’t value my opinion on that,” she said. “We just have to do everything in our power to make sure (students) have the tools to make the best score possible.”

Furthermore, Baggett said that building the character of students would be a core value of CCA under her guidance.

“We’re going to have something called the Cougar Way, where each letter will stand for a characteristic we want our students to display,” she said.

CCA also hired Wayne Grant as the school’s new athletic director and head football coach.

“I’m really excited about working with Wayne Grant, he and I went to school (at Goshen) together,” Baggett concluded. “We even rode the bus together every day to school.”