Editor’s note: The following is 20th in a series of articles previewing the school year at each public and private school in Athens and Limestone County.

School name: Athens Bible School

Principal: Randall Adams

Year established: 1943

Amount of time as principal: 7 years

Grades: K-12

Total number of students: 240

Total number of teachers: 30

Total number of support staff: 20

New programs: “We’re continuing with our really strong dual enrollment program,” Adams said. “We’ve had students graduate from community college simultaneously with graduating from high school. We start every day devoting one hour to Bible instruction. I guess what some people have as an elective, we have as an requirement. Where some schools have Core 4, we have Core 5, where Bible study is a fifth core requirement.”

What makes Athens Bible School special: “The answer to that always is the spiritual instruction, the religious instruction, and the Bible instruction we have here. We do it extremely well. Spiritual is always first, and then the academic. I’ve been in the public school system for 30 years, I’ve been in every secondary school in Limestone County, and I just think this is unique in contrast to what else is available, at least in our area. Excellent kids, excellent parents — it’s a really good place to be.”

Primary objectives for 2017-2018: “To provide the moral, the spiritual instruction — which I think is the foundation for everything else — along with a safe, quality environment. Quality athletic programs. Improve in places that crave it.”

What the principal is looking forward to: “The excitement here is that we are on the verge of building our new campus and moving down the highway. This has been the original campus, it started as a farmhouse in 1943, but to think about being at the 75-year point and being able to move to a 42-acre campus where we have enough room for our ballfields and having room for a new facility. That’s a big focus for this year, to have the groundbreaking and by the middle of the ’18-’19 school year be in our new building. We want to ensure our future, our presence in the community for another 75 years. I think that’s exciting not just to our people but to the entire region, and certainly the Athens community.”