by Bill Boerman-Cornell, Steven Harrison, and Neil Okuley
When we taught in various Christian schools, there were moments when each of us thought, “What must it have been like for the founders of our schools to start afresh, with no preconceptions, no established traditions, no tried and true ways of doing things?” You may have thought that same thing in your teaching or administrative career. Starting about six years ago, we had a chance to do just that. When an established Christian high school moved out of our area, there was a need for a new school to fill the void. Local residents formed a board, which worked hard for several years until three years ago when Unity Christian Academy of South Holland, Illinois, welcomed its first freshmen class.
Starting a Christian school presents many of the same challenges that established Christian schools face: enrollment, development funds, recruiting faculty, and making sure the vision is clear to faculty, staff, parents, and others. It also presents some challenges that established schools don’t have to face: finding a space for your school, writing brand new policies, convincing parents to take a chance on a new thing, and surprising things that have to be done almost every day.
The great gift of starting a new school is thinking intentionally about what Christian schools are, what they can be, and what they ought to be.
But the great gift of starting a new school is thinking intentionally about what Christian schools are, what they can be, and what they ought to be. Three of us got together on Zoom to do some reflecting. Bill Boerman-Cornell has been on UCA’s board for at least six years (he has lost count) and is chair of the education committee. Neil Okuley served as the academic dean for the school for its first two years and became principal at the beginning of this school year. Steven Harrison was hired as the assistant principal of UCA this year. In reflecting on the three-year start of our journey, we came up with several aspects of our school that many Christian schools already have, that some schools might want to think about adapting for their contexts, and that some schools might find themselves called to try outright.
We are conscious that there is much more we do not know about running a Christian school than we do know, but we believe our perspective can offer some insights. So here are some approaches that have worked well for us as we have been building our school and might be helpful for established schools that are thinking of remodeling.
Be Grateful for and Honor Your History and Context
Long before Unity opened its doors, community members were working on building a common vision for the school. The vision was, necessarily, responsive to the community we live in. South Holland is located in the Southeast suburbs of Chicago. Nicknamed “A Community of Churches,” the town began with deep roots in several denominations belonging to the Reformed tradition, but it also had a significant Catholic population. In the two decades before Unity started, that population welcomed significant African American and Latinx residents, along with new churches from these traditions.
It was not only a board that was racially, ecumenically, and gender diverse but also a board with deep ties to the community.
When Unity began, its board included the town’s mayor, a farmer, educators with strong connections to the Reformed tradition, a banker, a nun, and the director of a charity with roots in the Catholic tradition, pastors, an IT director, and African American educators from a variety of denominational backgrounds. That meant it was not only a board that was racially, ecumenically, and gender diverse but also a board with deep ties to the community.
Some decisions that the early board made worked very well. The early planning board decided that the governing board should not be elected from the parent association (as is common in many Christian schools) but recruited by the existing board members on the basis of clear commitment to the school’s mission. This was to ensure that the mission of the school would continue and that the board could provide more continuity over the years. They also determined that the board would be a working board and a policy board but would leave as many decisions as possible to the school’s administration and faculty, relying on recruiting and hiring people the board can put their trust in, then letting them do their jobs.
The board also learned some important lessons. It is important to regularly revisit and recommit to the mission. In short, everyone needs to be able to ask why we are here and why we are doing this—and every voice needs to be heard in response to those questions.
There is no value in being different for difference’s sake. Especially when starting a school, it is important to carefully consider the roots you are putting down, both in terms of your foundational beliefs and in terms of policy and procedural decisions.
And all of this goes more smoothly if the board, faculty, and staff are connected to, representative of, and committed to their community and context.
Open the Recruitment Pipeline to Anyone Interested in Christian Education
Christian schools have seen declining enrollment for well over a decade. The usual complaint uttered by faculty, administration, and board members is the same in many Christian schools: “We don’t get the loyalty we used to have in the good old days.” Back then, you could count on every member of a church to send their children to the local Christian school. In some communities, church membership was used to estimate enrollment. Now, the complaint runs, those same churchgoing folks are apt to send their children to the well-funded public school down the street or to a charter school. That this observation is true does not mean that declining enrollment is inevitable or that there is nothing we can do to stop it. In fact, some of the most fervent seekers of Jesus at UCA are teenagers from public school backgrounds and outside of the traditional pool that Christian schools draw from.
Depending where your school is located, thousands of Christian families are likely within a half-hour drive who would love to take advantage of what your school offers. So why don’t they, we might ask? Our doors are open, after all.
Opening the recruitment pipeline involves more than not locking the doors. We need to live up to who we are as Christians and welcome our neighbors by going to them, talking with them, listening to their stories, visiting their churches, and being considerate of their social situation. And that means recruiting students from a wide ecumenical and culturally diverse group. It means recruiting board, administration, and faculty from a similarly diverse group.
For an example of being considerate to a wider social situation, consider a recent Veterans Day Celebration at UCA.
Once everyone was seated, the speaker explained that the group had gathered to honor American men and women who had given their lives for this country. There followed a prayer of thanks for the sacrifice of those people. Next, a History Channel video explained what Veterans Day celebrates. Then, there was a time to say their names—to speak the names of relatives and friends who had served in the military.
So far, the assembly sounds like any other such observance. But there followed a space for other understandings of democracy. Those in attendance were given white index cards and encouraged to answer the question, “Considerate of your social location, what does it mean to be an American living in ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave’?” The large group then broke up into smaller groups to discuss what they had written. This approach opens the door for those with different opinions or understandings to express themselves and to work toward an understanding of the common good—something that we desperately need in these divided times.
Ideally, when students walk through the doors every day, they should have a sense that the school space is for them, that they are not breaking into that space. That should be true for every student, regardless of denominational affiliation, cultural identification, and economic status. It should be true for parents as well. This is their school.
The good news is that Christian schools have always been places of hospitality—but frequently that hospitality has been focused on a denominational or cultural context. It takes work to break out of those dispositions.
Discipline Should Be Life-Giving, Not Diminishing
It is important to understand cultural divides between the dominant white culture and the less dominant culture in the way each views discipline. When a white student is punished for an action, there may be a question of whether that student was actually participating in bad behavior, but that is usually the only essential question of justice.
For a student who is part of a less dominant culture, there is always the question of whether the accusation is the result of bad behavior or of an assumption of bad behavior. And no matter how careful the white teacher is to remain objective, the student can never know if they are being singled out because of their culture or race simply because it is so much a part of North American society. While things are changing a bit, generally Black and Hispanic people are still shown on the news as alleged criminals, in movies and television shows as bad guys or poor or desperate. A significant proportion of white culture views these groups with suspicion and mistrust. So even though teachers and administrators might not see them that way, a student from a less-dominant culture will always wonder if the accusation is based on something other than justice.
Life-giving discipline sees each student as a child of God and sees correction as a way of helping the child be that child of God, not as a means of diminishing them. For example, if a student is wearing a hoodie in class, the teacher needs to see the hoodie not as a rules violation (and thus the student as a rules violator) but as an obstacle to learning. The hoodie, if it is pulled over the student’s eyes, is getting in the way of the student participating in the class. This distinction might seem unimportant, but students notice how we see them. As teachers and administrators, we need to see the student rather than the infraction, whether it is a simple procedural issue (wearing a hoodie) or a matter of injustice to others (bullying, for example). In each case, we are dealing with a child of God, not a delinquent.
Invite Students Out and Invite the Community In
Sometimes Christian schools, and schools in general, can become isolated from the communities of which they are a part. They can become a closed academic system. Getting involved in the community makes good sense from an academic perspective as it ignites interest, helps apply lessons in another context, and provides experiences that can link to learning. But from a Christian perspective it is even more important. Our community is where we do our work of transforming the world.
There are many safe ways to invite the community into the school: chapels, guest speakers, tutors, lunch help, volunteers, school gardens, and so on. There are also many safe ways to get students out into the community: mock city government events, factory tours, using local community college facilities for science classes or theater space, having the Spanish class attend a Spanish-speaking church, having students work on the design of a town park, and more. In three years, UCA students have participated in all of these ways of connecting.
Choosing to find a place for your school that is in the midst of a town center rather than on the outskirts can make this easier. It is also better stewardship. It uses more resources to build a new facility than it does to use a pre-existing building, if you can find one that meets your needs.
There is another reason for this connecting. It allows people in your community to see your students learning, engaging in acts of service, and participating in community activities. This would go a long way toward showing the world that Christians do more than squabble among themselves, pass judgment on others, and talking more than they listen. Instead, it shows Christians as engaged, caring for their community, and showing love for its residents.
Find Ways to Celebrate Diversity of Learning
We live in a world obsessed with quantifiable measurement in general and standardized tests in particular, but while such tests are good for giving us numbers we can compare across classes and they allow us to compare our school to other schools, they also reduce all of the amazing thoughtfulness, talent, and curiosity that God has packed into each of His children to a handful of numbers. Grades do the same thing, taking an entire semester of wonder, struggle, triumph, discovery, and revelation and turning it into a single letter. We have to ask ourselves if reducing God’s children and the work they do to a narrow set of measurements is in keeping with who we are as Christian educators.
Unity Christian Academy has been searching for the right way to do this since before the first class arrived. We have found that narrative report cards honor the students’ learning but involve a lot of extra work for teachers. We have recently begun moving toward a mastery credit approach beginning with our grading system. What we like about this grading system is that it has room to recognize a much wider range of talents and intelligences. It is a system that acknowledges what makes students smart rather than focusing on what earns them good grades.
Other approaches include a January term that provides ways for students to demonstrate knowledge and talents not usually reflected in conventional academic disciplines—like courses in baking, innovative engineering, service, and creative cooking. This sort of innovation can also be worked into regular classes as well. UCA has found that by using a module system rather than following semesters, it is easier to make room for interesting units and even courses like Cricket and Imperial Power, Music and Poetry, English and Movies, and so on. These courses fit into a student’s schedule alongside Algebra, Spanish, Biology, and regular English and History.
This scheduling change and encouraging faculty to consider more innovative courses connects to two ideas that educational philosopher John Dewey identified as being central to learning: interest and experiences. More importantly, though, they allow the school community to celebrate the gifts of each of its members.
Unity Is a Real Thing
Different Christian schools are working in different contexts with different mission statements. In sharing these reflections, we do not mean to imply that every school should be just like UCA. Rather, we recognize our debt to your school and all the other Christians schools in the world. It makes sense for any school to try to be as clear as possible about who they are and what their mission is and to live into that.
We would argue, though, that Christian schools have a responsibility that goes beyond tribes, cultural backgrounds, denominational affiliations, and economic levels. In imitation of Jesus, we need to reach out to a diversity of neighbors, gather them together in a place that belongs to everyone, help students recognize the interpretive traditions they bring to the Bible (and from there to everything else), and help them learn to wrestle with other interpretations, seeking always the wisdom of God. Far from diluting our beliefs or threatening our traditions, remodeling our schools to open the door wider and let in all God’s children will strengthen our understanding of our God and our place as siblings in Christ.
Steven Harrison joined UCA this year as the assistant principal. Neil Okuley served as academic dean at UCA for two years and this year assumed the position of principal. Bill Boerman-Cornell is a professor of education at Trinity Christian College and has been on the board of UCA since before the school opened. All three of them care deeply for Christian education and really good pizza.
