New Hope Academy

Nevertheless, the Unification Church (and its founder Sun Myung Moon) is controversial.

The school was set up using a "community of religions" model of allowing expression of faith instead of banning them.

The school is legally independent of the Unification Church, governed by a board of directors set up by the founding mothers, which consists of people who have varying current relationships to the Unification Church as well as members of other religions.

[4][5] The aging building, a former public elementary school built in the 1940s, had a leaky roof until a second mortgage was taken out in 2003 to pay for $600,000 in renovations which included replacing the roof, various upgrades, automated library services, and a new science lab.

[6] Even so, not every physical aspect of the school was renovated, but the school as part of its mission to serve Prince George's County deliberately seeks to keep tuition costs low.