Establishing the Culture of Your Christian School

This is part 2 of the series. You can read part 1, Creating the Culture of Your Christian School here.

Once you’ve created the culture of your Christian school, you have to take steps to establish it. Every interaction with students, with families, and with staff give you opportunities to establish what your Christian school will be known as. Your school should reflect the attributes and the characteristics of Jesus ultimately, but it should also reflect the quality of education you are hoping to instill in the students you serve. Let’s start with the characteristics of Jesus.

The Characteristics of Jesus Should Be Reflected In Your School

Our interactions with students, families, and other school personnel give us an opportunity to reflect Jesus. First, we have to love like Jesus loved. Jesus said in John 13:34, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” We have to have genuine love and concern for every student, every parent, and every teacher that walks through our door. At your school, you’ll likely have smaller class sizes than public schools do. This provides a great opportunity to develop strong interpersonal relationships with both the students and their families. The more the students and families know their principal, their teacher, and other school personnel, the more they will trust them.

Second, Jesus stood firm on the Word of God. The Bible tells us in John 1:1-3 that Jesus and the Word of God are the same. Our interactions, our policies, and our decisions should reflect the truth of God’s Word. I’ve worked aftercare in public school settings, and we had one school in the county that had the extreme behavioral disorders. My coworker and I had some very tough children and would frequently get cussed at, hit, etc. and I had the thought, “Man, I wish we could just kick this student out. They’re too much to handle!” But my boss, at the time, never did that. She always kept those difficult children. Years later, I’m a principal and I would have less serious situations in my office and still had teachers in my ear screaming, “How long are you going to put up with this?” And you would think that with my experience with those situations, I’d be more apt to just kick them out quickly and be done. But years after I was an afterschool director, I got a chance to talk to one of those difficult kids that I was “forced” to keep and he was able to remember the rewards I used to give him for appropriate behavior and he told me how much that meant to him. And now I was talking to him as a youth pastor (at the time) and he was looking to get saved. I’ve had other children that coworkers were like, “They should kick them out, I don’t want anything to do with them” and they’ve gone on to serve in ministry. We never know the impact we have on a child. We have opportunities every day to not just teach grace and forgiveness, but to show it. Under the Old Covenant, we forgave others to be forgiven. Under the New Covenant, we forgive because Jesus forgave us. We have an opportunity to show that love and forgiveness every single day in our schools and establish a culture that reflects the love of Jesus.

Third, Jesus tells us He will send a Helper in John 15:26. This is the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5:22-23 tells us the fruits of the Spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Does your school or your classroom reflect those characteristics? Or do parents enter into the building and their teacher is yelling or griping about behavior or complaining about this or that? That can be hard to reflect on and convicting, but if we’re going to represent Jesus as a Christian school, we need to make sure we represent Jesus ourselves as teachers or administrative staff.

Strive for Academic Excellence, Not a Glorified Vacation Bible School

As a school, you need to also strive for academic excellence and not just simply bring children together and do small VBS lessons. As a Christian school, you likely have several advantages:

1. Smaller class sizes: Most private schools either cap their classes or don’t have enough enrollment to fill a class with 25-30 students. We decided early on to cap our classes at 16 students. This allowed for us to develop strong interpersonal connections with our students and families and create an atmosphere that was more “family-like.” The opportunity to have a smaller student to teacher ratio is something that most teachers dream of and you can make it a reality in your school. Smaller class sizes also tend to lead to less disruptions in the classroom and a more suitable learning environment for students.
2. You can choose your own curriculum: You don’t have a larger entity telling you exactly what materials to use or what curriculum to use. We chose BJUPress as our core curriculum and love how it challenges our students to achieve their highest academically, the resources available for teachers, and how it enables our students to think critically as they mature and tackle some of the difficult topics from a biblical perspective. We’ve also supplemented some curriculum based upon the needs of students using things like Simple Solutions, and specific courses from Abeka. You get to choose what best fits the needs of your students and families and can customize curriculum as needed. Academic success is fantastic, but you need to make sure you’re not compromising the biblical worldview for a stronger academic worldview. Academics are rooted in biblical truth and integrating biblical truth and principles throughout your curriculum is important for discipling children in the truth of scripture. Choosing what curriculum you will use is such an intricate process. We were presented with an opportunity to use a virtual curriculum in partnership with our local public school system for free. But what about subject areas like science or history that are centered on a secular perspective versus a biblical perspective? It would have saved us tons of money, but it compromised the mission and goals of our school. We did partner with the local school system for certain electives for our middle and high school students using this virtual curriculum, but we wanted to ensure that our core curriculum was centered on biblical truth and not dilute it in any way.
3. Increased parent involvement: Parent involvement will likely be greater because parents are invested in your school. Studies show that parental involvement in education leads to higher student achievement. Parent investment in your school – beyond monetary investment – will help with student retention, getting word out about your school in the community, and help establish your school as an academic institution of excellence. Once word gets out about the advantages of your Christian school, that reputation will precede you and you’ll be established as a high-quality Christian school.

Establishing the culture of Christ-like obedience and excellence in your Christian school will take time, but once it’s established, you’ll be looked on as the authority of Christian education in your community. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 6:33? Seek first the kingdom of God. Seem God first, obey the commands of Jesus in every way as you establish your Christian school, and He will provide everything you need to be successful.