Some Reflections on a Career in Christian School Education

My first encounter with Christian school was when I enrolled at Grand Canyon University as a freshman.  I'd been in public school in a small, rural community all my life, and GCU, which was, at the time, a small Baptist affiliated college known mainly for its educational, business and training and development majors, was the first school experience I had where the professors opened class with prayer, and where I actually had to take courses in Biblical studies as a graduation requirement.  So I majored in hisstory and  English to prepare for teaching,  and also earned a minor in Biblical studies.  

I did my student teaching at a large public high school about two miles from the college campus, and when that was finished, I was called to serve on the staff of a small Baptist church in Tucson as their youth pastor.  It was a part time job, so I supplemented my income as a substitute teacher, but wound up getting offered a full time job on the second day of school, when I was called to substitute for a teacher who had resigned on the first day of school.  I worked four years in that school, before the opportunity came to take a cut in pay, move to Texas and teach in a Christian school.  

God has his way of moving things into place to achieve his will.  I went to Broadway Baptist School in Houston because my wife, who was my future wife at the time, was also teaching there and she let me know of the opening that was available.  I ultimately taught there for four years, and we were married in the Broadway Baptist Church auditorium with an audience made up mainly of our students and their parents.  

With the exception of a period of about six years, when I served on the staff of a local church in its education, discipleship and small groups ministry, and a year teaching at an alternative high school in Houston, I've been in Christian schools--three in Texas, one in Pennsylvania, and now MCA.  

And at this point, I get asked more and more frequently to talk about what this has been like and what have been some of the most meaningful experiences I've had during these almost forty years in Christian schools.  A lot of it goes well beyond the expectations of what might happen in a school setting with students.  

I would have to say that among the experiences I consider to be the "best" ones, would be the mission trips I took with students to involve them in some hands on ministry experience that really helped some of them find themselves and their calling.  

When I was a teacher at Fort Bend Baptist Academy in Sugar Land, Texas, our high school had a community service requirement for its students.  They had to get 40 hours of community service over the four years of their high school experience.  A few students were in places where they could do this, but some struggled with it.  The school didn't really offer a lot of help.  We were talking about this in a Bible class one day, what does Christian community service look like, when I recalled some experiences I had working with World Changers, an organization connected to the North American Mission Board that organized short-term construction ministry service for high school and college students in conjunction with community organizations that sponsored the work.  

It was a week of volunteering for hard labor.  Crews of students put up siding, put on composition roofs, painted, built wheelchair ramps and porch steps and roofs, for low income homeowners.  One of the students said, "Why can we put a group together from out school and do this?"  And I thought, "Why not?"  

Not only did my administrator heartily approve, but she made the time to accompany this group on several trips.  It really was a great example for the students to see their principal up on the roof of a house nailing shingles, or wielding a paint roller on an outside wall.  And after our first year, when 12 students signed up, the number grew to where we had to set a maximum.  These were students from an affluent, upper middle class suburb, who had not been exposed to hard work or to the living conditions in places like Savannah, Georgia, Charleston, South Carolina, the Eastern Kentucky Appalachian Mountains or Muskegon, Michigan.  

Many of those students experienced spiritual conviction and transformation, seeing themselves for the first time as servants of the Lord, his hands, showing love to neighbors they'd never met before.  And many of them, after returning home, began to look on their own for people and places they could serve in their own communities.  

When I left Fort Bend, we'd taken more than 250 students on these World Changers construction ministries projects.  In addition to the service, they were also exposed to a diverse group of neighbors.  We made two trips to Savannah, working in some of the poorest black neighborhoods in the city, among some of the most delightful people.  We helped families in the old slave quarters area of Charleston, South Carolina.  We sweltered in the cotton fields of the rural area of the Mississippi delta.  We worked in the hollers of the Appalachian region of Eastern Kentucky, and in the industrial town of Muskegon, Michigan.  And we spent a week among the Cherokee in Eastern Oklahoma.  We learned that faith in Jesus brings us together.  

Those students made friends with the residents they served, and with their family members, and in many cases, they've kept up those relationships.  That kind of learning experience is as valuable as anything we could teach in the classroom.  And from those experiences, many of those students began to seek out opportunities to serve in the same way in their own communities, realizing that there are people who have needs that can be met by someone who desires to "do unto the least of these," as the hands and feet of their savior.  And I still see an occasional social media post about someone who recalls those construction mission experiences and is still inspired and motivated by them. 

The intention behind the community service requirement was a good one, and this is how Christian school works.  We connected the idea to something that helped make it happen and it provided the benefit for students for which we were looking.  Anbd even though Fort Bend hasn't been to a World Changers project for a while now, they have an active community service program that works to provide their students with the opportunity, at least, they did the last time I checked.  

 

Accredited Schools Are Excellent Schools and Excellent Schools Seek Accreditation

The idea behind accreditation is to provide students and parents with an assurance of quality and safety in operation, and to determine whether a school is actually accomplishing what it says it is achieving, and if it is being consistent with its stated mission and purpose.  The process of accreditation , especially among schools in higher eduation, has been around since the mid-1800's.  It mainly involves an evaluation of school performance to ensure that the students are not held back from advancement opportunities and choices which affect their success in life.  This includes making sure that academic standards lead to success, but also that the school's environment is safe, its staff is trained and qualified in the field of education, its extracurricular programs are challenging and beneficial and any special education or advanced programs meet those expectations.  

And for religious-based private schools, accreditation also includes whether they are delivering on providing the spiritual atmosphere and the Biblical education parents expect.  Accreditation is not, and never has been a requirement of the state.  All of the six regional accreditation agencies which perform team visits and evaluations are private, as are those who exclusively grant private school accreditation.  In fact, our accreditation commission, which is affiliated with ACSI, is also able to grant regional accreditation, since most of the standards are the same.  

Why Accreditation is Valuable for Christian Schools

In most states, Illinois included, private education is virtually unregulated.  Aside from laws regarding building occupancy and safety, a private school can be established and operated without any oversight from the state at all, and there is no way to determine whether the students will be prepared for the next level of education when they graduate.  And while most Christian schools understand that being Christian means they must do their best for their constituents, in the eyes of the Lord, the history of the Christian school movement is not always a good one when it comes to the outcomes for students.  

We have seen Christian schools started in order to provide a place for parents and students to avoid public school integration.  These "segregation academies," started in the 60's, mostly in southern states, used church buildings to hold classes, couldn't afford to pay certified, trained teachers, and the academic outcomes were poor.  The whole of the Christian school movement has been tagged with the reputation for poor academics, and for graduating illiterate students because of the existence of these schools.  The one good thing that came out of this era was that most Christian schools now are very self-conscious and meticulous when it comes to academic standards and excellence. 

We've also had churches and parent groups start small Christian schools using a self-paced set of workbooks, providing instruction almost entirely by this method.  The academic outcomes of these schools also contributed to the perception that Christian schools aren't good at academics.  There are still a few of both kinds of these schools left, but for the most part, the emphasis on school accreditation that is a central theme for Christian schools who are affiliated with ACSI has helped not only improve public perception, but has helped parents make good choices when it comes to enrolling their children in a Christian school.  

What Accreditation Says About a School 

I've served on several accreditation teams over the course of the twenty years I have spent in Christian school education.  I've been a member of teams that were providing accreditation for the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, and for ACSI commissions.  The only difference is that ACSI places a higher emphasis on the school's mission and purpose, as it relates to their identity as a Christian school, and it contains standards which are directly related to the school's spiritual emphasis.  The standards, as far as academics, curriculum objectives, extra-curricular programs, facilities and grounds, and financial integrity, are basically the same.    

What accreditation says is that a school is providing everything parents expect fro enrolling their children based on the school's stated mission and purpose.  It is doing what it says it is doing, and children who are students are progressing at a level that meets or exceeds the standard expectations of any school.  

One of the things accreditation has shown about Midwestern Christian Academy is consistency in both spiritual atmosphere and academics.  We've had some significant disruptions in educatin across the board in recent years, with the Covid pandemic causing an entire year's worth of education to be complletely altered.  Virtually every state in the union has changed its standards and objectives because, as research now shows, e-learning was a massive failure.  We were fortunate that we returned in the fall, and that our students continued with their education.  

We received our initial accreditation in 2022, after the pandemic, and our commendations, for the spiritual atmosphere of our campus, and for our academic progress, say everything we need to say about the excellence of our school.  

Sometimes, it may seem routine.  But we have alumni in high schools all over this part of the city who are at or near the top of their class in their high school experience.  There are improvements we can always make, some of them based on recommendations left behind by our peers on the accreditation team, but our accreditation says that MCA is an excellent school, and we have achieved a milestone that marks our excellence.