2006-07: Great Events

So, tell us.  Now that it’s just about over, what was the highlight of your school year?  Click on comments and share with us.  You need only leave your first name or initials, and the school and location where you teach. 

You can also email your comments to kingdomeducator@yahoo.com.

The Issue of Affordability

How many times have you heard these statements?

“If God wants you to put your kids in a Christian school, he’ll help you provide the money.”

“If a quality education in a Christian environment is a priority for you, you’ll find a way to budget so that you can afford it.”

“How can you afford not to make this kind of investment in your child’s education.”

While I agree, in principle, with all three of those statements, the practicality of putting them into action is a much more difficult proposition.  On the other side of the coin, if God doesn’t provide the money, or the means to earn it, does that mean he doesn’t want your children in a Christian school?  I don’t think that’s the case.  Affordability is a practical matter, and I think the vast majority of families seeking a Christian education for their children do an excellent job of working out the priorities to accomplish it.

This is a monkey that falls squarely on the back of the school administrators and church leadership, at least, in my opinion it does.  That’s especially true when an overwhelming number of Christian schools are virtually tuition-dependent when it comes to the majority of their resources.  Schools depend on 1] the willingness of families to make financial sacrifices to send their kids to Christian school, and 2]the willingness of their staff, and particularly of their faculty, to make financial sacrifices with regard to their salary and benefits, in order to support their belief in Christian school education.  In some cases, they are also dependent on the willingness of a church to make some sacrifices when it comes to operation and maintenance of a facility used by the school.

When tuition and fees at the Christian school where I served as an administrator reached $7,800 per year, it started me on a more serious approach to finding ways and means to increase the school’s resources without increasing tuition.  Raising salaries from the base level of $23,500 with meager insurance benefits also became an issue.  What that means is that a family with two kids in the school will pay $15,600 to send their kids to school, and each teacher is sacrificing an average of $12,500 per year in salary and benefits to keep the school operating.  So, what are the solutions? These are just a start.

Church Cooperatives.  There are several models around the country where groups of churches have come together to provide leadership and resources for a single Christian school.  In some cases, the cooperatives are made up of churches of different denominational backgrounds united around a common purpose.  The diversity of their function varies, but the general idea is that the churches provide a level of resources, including board members, facilities, and even financial and tuition grants.  In exchange for their participation, families from each cooperating congregation receive discounts and benefits by enrolling their students in the school connected to their church.  In some instances, the number of board seats elected by a congregation is directly tied to the amount of their annual contribution to the school, in other cases it is based on a formula of the number of participating families and resources.  There are several successful models of this approach.

Community Christian Schools.  These schools work well in smaller and medium sized communities.  The entire Christian community, everyone who wants to participate, in a particular county or city, or region, gets together to participate in a single Christian school for the whole community.  The churches utilize resources within their membership, including members of the local business community, to underwrite the school’s expenses.  The whole community benefits by having the school, and its pool of potential community and business leaders, and prospective future employees available. 

Church-Based Education.  Most church facilities sit empty five or six days per week, or at the very least, underutilized.  While it is nice for a Christian school to have its own campus, athletic facilities and classrooms, it is also an added expense.  You can count on anywhere from 20 to 40% of your tuition and fee payments going to indebtedness at a Christian school that has built a facility of its own.  Sharing church facilities that are already constructed, and in most cases, already paid for, saves a tremendous amount of money and resources.  Sharing expenses for building maintenance and upkeep with a church is efficient.  A “feeder school” system can also work very well, with two or three churches in an area hosting a K-8 program and feeding their students into a school at a fourth church that is better equipped to host the 9-12 level.  In some communities, the K-4 students are at one church, 5-8 at another, and 9-12 at another in a connected system. 

The tuition and fees in the last school where I served as an administrator were more than $3500 per year less per student than they were at an independent school which owned its facility on the same side of the city.  Our academic progress was almost identical, in terms of Stanford Achievement Test scores. 

Denominational Cooperation.  Catholic families who send their children to Catholic schools generally pay far less per student in tuition and fees than evangelical Christians who send their children to Christian schools.  That’s because, in most Catholic dioceses, the lion’s share of the Christian Education budget goes to the schools.  The denominational subsidy also includes the use of highly educated, well trained teachers which come from convents and orders dedicated to the education of their students.  Lutherans and Episcopalians in many parts of the country also have educational cooperatives and associations which underwrite a large part of the expense of operating their schools. 

Most evangelicals are newcomers to private Christian education.  Those kinds of resources have been divided up among other things.  It is a matter of convincing denominational leadership that Christian school education is not only a major benefit to the future of the denomination, but is, at this point, probably crucial to it. 

I can think of many instances where families made major sacrifices in order to educate their children, and were strengthened as a result of it.  I’ve seen families put off the purchase of a larger, newer home, or drive the wheels off a vehicle and put 150,000 miles on it before trading it in on another used one, or take on the operation of a small, in-home family business in addition to the jobs that both parents already work in order to pay tuition and fees.  I’ve seen grandparents get involved.  For three years, I watched one of our faculty members take home a paycheck of $60 every two weeks after the tuition and fees for her three children were deducted from it.  That kind of sacrifice, on the part of families wanting a Christian education for their children, is certainly worth an equal one in return on the part of the schools.

Welcome!

I’m glad you found this site. 

I’d like this site to be a place where people involved in Christian school education, teachers, parents and students, come together and find strength in each other.  I’d like to have people come here, read articles, contribute comments, find resources and share valuable information about life in Christian schools.  This can be sort of an “internet crossroad” on the information highway for people who are involved in what I think is a very valuable ministry of the Christian church. 

Be affirmed in your choice of a Christian school education for your child.  If a school is doing its job, its students are receiving a quality education from dedicated professionals who know Christ as their personal savior, which is the best reason for choosing a Christian school if no other advantage exists.  If a school is doing its job, then students are seeing the relevance and validity of the Christian faith integrated into all of their subjects as the full application of the principles of scripture is taught along with the content.  If a school is doing its job, then it is a Biblical community in which all of its members come together and worship regularly, minister to each other, are motiviated to serve others in the community, and fellowship together along with the learning that takes place. 

The purpose of Christian school education is to raise up disciples who will be leaders in the kingdom.  The church needs these future leaders, and Christian schools today are one of the primary places where they are being trained.  Thanks for coming here.  I hope you find it helpful.