Media Resources & Press Kit

PRESS and MEDIA OVERVIEW

Cabrera Christian Classical Academy is a K-12 classical Christian school on the Dominican Republic's north-central coast, founded in 2022 by two retired American university professors. Below you'll find our latest news, story backgrounders, downloadable photos, and video and audio interviews. For anything not listed here, reach out directly, contact information is at the bottom of this page.

NEWS and INFORMATION

| August 26, 2026 | Dominican Christian School Opens Its Fifth Year, Now Serving 40 Students | PDF | IMAGE |
| July 15, 2026 | Dominican Christian School Earns U.S. Accreditation With Formal Commendation | PDF | IMAGE |
| March 19, 2026 | Dominican Ministry of Education Honors Founders of Cabrera Christian Classical Academy | PDF | IMAGE |
| March 16, 2026 | Arizona Church Sends Two Mission Teams to Dominican Christian School This Spring | PDF | IMAGE | VIDEO |
| December 16, 2025 | Dominican Christian School Celebrates Advent With Live Nativity Performance | PDF | IMAGE |
| September 1, 2025 | Dominican Christian School Opens New Classroom Building, the "Hobbit Hole" | PDF | IMAGE |
| August 1, 2025 | Dominican Christian School Launches First School Bus Service | PDF | IMAGE |
| June 15, 2025 | Dominican Christian School Hosts Its First Eight-Week Summer Camp | PDF | IMAGE |
| September 1, 2022 | Cabrera Christian Classical Academy Opens Its Doors With Six Students | PDF | IMAGE |

Our Story

Headline: The Retired Professors Who Sold Everything for a Country They Couldn't Find on a Map

Dr. Tim Slater and Dr. Stephanie Slater spent decades in higher education before they ever set foot in the Dominican Republic. Tim had built a career studying how education works; Stephanie, a cognitive scientist, had spent hers studying how people learn. When they left the university world, they didn't exactly slow down. They built a farm in Hilo, Hawaii on the slopes of the Mauna kea volcano- sheep, ducks, pigs, and all - and ran statewide education programs from there. Then, in early 2021, that work evaporated almost overnight when COVID-19 shut it all down.

What happened next didn't come with a plan attached. Tim describes it simply as a compelling, unexplainable pull toward a country neither of them had ever visited and whose language neither of them spoke. He had to look up where the Dominican Republic was. In January 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, the Slaters sold the farm and moved there anyway, still not knowing why.

“I don't know how God talked to Jonah, but I did not want to get inside a whale,” Tim says of the decision. “So I said, okay, where's the Dominican Republic anyway?”

For nine months, they waited. Then, separately, two families in Cabrera approached them and asked if they knew anything about starting a school. Both families had been recruited internationally to work in middle management at a nearby resort hotel, part of the town's small, transient community of expatriate professionals. Neither family lives in Cabrera anymore, both moved on to jobs elsewhere long ago, but the question they asked stuck.

The Slaters said no twice. God had sent them to the Dominican Republic, they reasoned, not to a classroom. A third conversation changed their minds. In September 2022, Cabrera Christian Classical Academy opened with six students. Today it enrolls more than 40 - ages 4 to 18 years, earned U.S. accreditation, and is entering its fifth school year.

“We still didn't know why we were there,” Tim says. “And then, at some point, the two-by-four hit, and we realized we needed to start a school so children could come to love God and their families could begin to know Christ.”

Fast facts for reference

• Arrived in the Dominican Republic: January 2021, having never visited and not speaking Spanish

• Waited approximately 9 months before the first request to start a school

• School founded: September 2022 by Dr. Tim Slater and Dr. Stephanie Slater, with six students

• Today: more than 40 students - Dominican, Haitian, and International families

• Today: Donor- and Church-supported, staffed by 10 missionary teachers

• K-12, English instruction, classical Christian curriculum

• Comprehensive full U.S. accreditation awarded May 2026

• U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit, EIN 47-5608279, under the auspices of the CAPER Center for Astronomy & Physics Education

• Both Slaters previously worked as professors and administrators in higher education; left the university world for a farm in Hilo, Hawaii, and ran statewide education programs before moving to the Dominican Republic in January 2021

About Cabrera Christian Classical Academy

Cabrera Christian Classical Academy is a K-12 classical Christian school in Cabrera, Dominican Republic, educating roughly 40 students from Dominican, Haitian, and international families. Instruction is in English, delivered by missionary teachers, and grounded in a classical curriculum built to raise up wise and virtuous leaders. The school was founded by Dr. Tim Slater and Dr. Stephanie Slater, both retired university professors, and operates as a US 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Learn more at cabrerachristian.org.