In 1899 the RCA Women's Board of Domestic Missions (WBDM) commissioned two teacher-missionaries from New York to scout out where in
Appalachia they should start a mission school. In 1900, they chose
McKee, Kentucky for their new school and RCA church. In 1902 the Board's Executive Committee hired Catherine Kastein and Ruth Kerkhof to serve as permanent teachers in the new day school. :In 1905 the McKee Academy, a school building with light, cheery rooms, comfortable seats, and neat desks, was completed and opened to a group of eager children who never before had had an opportunity for regular schooling. In 1907 the Women's Executive Committee of the WBDM commissioned Mrs. Henrietta Zwemer Te Kolste (1881–1944) to teach and serve as principal at McKee Academy. Within a year she had expanded the school to offer the first high school class. By 1909 the RCA missionaries had also established several Sunday Schools in the area. That winter the Worthingtons were married and came to live in a log cabin that was already on the farm until their new parsonage was built. ] In 1910 the new settlement school building, called Lincoln Hall, opened. Within two more years, besides the "Manse" for the Worthingtons, two more buildings went up: the girls' dormitory (Worthington Hall) and the Christine Tracy Memorial Hall (for vocational training schoolrooms and more dormitory space). Twelve boy students laid the foundations, raised the walls and roof as well as a stone wall for their new dormitory (Wooster Hall). Finished in 1915, it housed 24 boys and an apartment for the Dean of Boys along with three rooms for workers. Classes included agriculture, plumbing, auto mechanics, mechanical drawing, sheet-metal work, electrical plant operation, weaving, cooking, sewing, canning, and home nursing. The settlement school finally closed in 1978. ==After 1978==