During the Spring of 2017, God began to plant the desire and dream of a different type of education on the heart of Amelia Chiara. With experience in teaching in both a public and private school, Amelia began to explore and dream about another option… an option that would allow more family time, a true partnership with families and a different kind of educational experience than a traditional school. Amelia had heard about different hybrid schools and began to look into finding one that could be brought to the Clear Lake area. She loved the idea of having a large role in her children’s educational formation and having more family time. Amelia also knew that she wanted more than a homeschooling environment or co-op group. She and her husband, Vinny wanted their children to have a school community to learn and grow with. 

Amelia shared the idea of starting a school with Kristin Fontana who thought she was joking. It would be another three years of God growing the dream before Kristin came on board with the idea. God revealed to Kristin her deep love of teaching and desire to help create a Christ-centered community that partnered with parents in the education of children. Together, the two women began praying fervently for the school community and dreaming of all that God could do with these desires to truly partner with families for a unique schooling experience. 

During the summer of 2020, Amelia and Kristin, with the support of their husbands, decided to partner with University-Model Schools International (UMSI) to create Deep Waters Academy, where the love of learning what is good, true and beautiful runs deep. Kristin and Amelia visited a Classical, Christian, University-Model school in the Austin area and were in awe of the possibilities! They began to have many inspiring conversations with leaders at various University-Model schools and in October of 2020 traveled to the UMSI conference to learn more about the University-Model. 

Now the dream is becoming reality… Deep Waters Academy, a University-Model® School, combines the best attributes of a home-schooling environment with the best attributes of a traditional classroom experience to create a unique partnership with families to produce life-equipped, college-worthy disciples of Jesus Christ.