Bible Stories...and ABC's
#kidmin #sundayschool #childrenschurch #teacher #homeschool #Christianschool #education
"Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education." Martin Luther King, Jr.
Children's Ministers - Teachers - Moms - Dad - Pastors - Youth Leaders...
We are ALL educators!
We must educate our children in Bible truths, Godly Character, Christian Living, Salvation, Kindness, Love, Repentance...and the list goes on and on.
But let me ask you something....
What about their actual "Education"? And YES...I do mean school education.
Have you ever considered if the Lord is calling you to help with starting a Christian school, or simply help staffing a Christian school?
I know, I know...this is completely different than my normal blog posts. LOL
I've just had this on my mind a lot lately, because so many people don't have that opportunity available to them.
So why not HELP make it possible?! :D
My husband and I were both homeschooled our entire lives, and we have experienced many different curriculums:
ACE
Christian Liberty
Bob Jones
Rod and Staff
Abeka
One thing I have learned...education matters! And (without getting political here), our world is changing. Every country, every state is different. I can't speak for what is available to you and your families in your area...but I CAN say that a well-rounded, Christian education will ALWAYS teach your children more about character and living right than any public education can do.
Now, for the record, I am NOT speaking against public education. That is entirely your decision and should be based a lot on what your local options are! So, please don't take this offensively. But let's face it, the Bible and prayer are being taken out of schools almost completely these days. So, how COULD they be able to teach your children about godly living and how to use their education successfully? It all comes from a secular, non-Biblical viewpoint. And don't we want our children to live their everyday lives according to God's Word?
Before I go into more depth, I want to quickly broach the subject of our kids needing to be in public school in order to witness.
First of all, I'm not saying that we should completely keep our children separate and sheltered, except of course if they are still too young to be able to know Biblical truths. There is nothing wrong with "sheltering" them, until they are able to determine right from wrong and strong enough to make a stand. There are many cultures that keep their children separate, until they are completely immersed in their beliefs. Nothing wrong with us doing that!
But as far as "needing to attend public school to witness"....these days the opportunities to witness are very limited! In fact, you can get jailed for doing so in some places! Many don't allow Bible studies on the grounds, or even allow you to discuss Christianity with others. So, having said that...is public education really worth it? When you MAY get a chance to witness in all your years of schooling, but otherwise, you simply hear all the secular education they want you to hear.
I have to say...NO! For me and my children, that is not worth it! I will not put their souls in the balance, just in the off chance they MIGHT get to witness a few times in those 13 years.
Having set the stage for the importance of Christian education, I would like to share some initial info about my favorite option, and how we've implemented this into our church...Abeka DVD Academy. :D
About 11 years ago, I helped to change over our church's ACE school to an Abeka DVD Academy. Lots of churches go with ACE because you don't need as many staff members to facilitate it. And it can be a good option for some! But, thankfully, Abeka now gives you an option for fewer staff, as well. Below, I will discuss what Abeka is (for those that are not familiar with it), and also what we have done to set up our K4 - 12th grade church school.
Let me first introduce you to Abeka....
Abeka is a very high performance, Christian educational option for homeschoolers and also Christian schools. They now offer DVD/streaming options for both situations as well. CLICK HERE to view the official site.
On their site, they offer lots of information, as well as a chat option. You can also view samples of all the different grades.
To view samples of video lessons, CLICK HERE.
So let's discuss how to set up a school, with few staff members...
Our school was set up as an ACE school. Lots of you will know what that looks like, but just in case you don't, here is a picture I found online of an ACE school:
Each student is at a desk with a divider between.
Because we had our school set up like that anyway, we decided to leave it this way, and divide up our Abeka classes within these rooms.
Here is what we have:
Classroom 1, doubles as the office:
K4: Tuesday & Friday from 8:30 - Noon
* This class is run by a teacher that doubles as our school secretary.
Classroom 2:
K5: Monday - Friday from 8:30 - Noon
1st - 2nd Grade: Monday - Friday from 8:30 - 3:00
* This combined class is run by a full time teacher and a rotating monitor (different person every day).
Classroom 3:
3rd - 6th Grade: Monday - Friday from 8:30 - 3:00
* This combined class is run by one full time teacher
Classroom 4:
7th - 8th Grade: Monday - Friday from 8:30 - 3:00
* This combined class is run by one full time teacher
Classroom 5:
9th - 12th Grade: Monday - Friday from 8:30 - 3:00
* This combined class is run by one full time teacher
NOTE: These classrooms are set up for the amount of students and staff that we have. They can be condensed or expanded to fit your needs. In fact, our Classroom 4 was new this year...until now, we had 7th - 12th in one room together.
This year, our enrollment was 43 students, and we facilitated all grades with 4 full-time staff, and 1 part-time...then the monitors each volunteer one day a week.
On to the fun part...
With Abeka DVD Academy, all classes are on DVD or available for streaming. We link the amount of desks for specific grades, so they can watch from one DVD player. For 7th - 12th, they will each have their own ChromeBook for 2021-2022 school year, but until now, we've simply linked each grade for the correct amount of students.
Each student then uses earbuds, wireless headphones, or simply classroom headphones...again linked to a splitter to the DVD player.
Here is an example of one of our student's desks:
Not wanting to go into too many technicalities, you can see above, how it's possible to have one staff person over an entire group of grades.
So lay to rest the idea that you have to have 12 teachers to facilitate a high standard Christian school! Oh, and I might add, our on-site classroom supervisors are not accredited. This is not a problem because all Abeka teachers ARE accredited, and they are also available for communication if needed.
Last thing I want to mention is tuition....yeah, we don't like that word! LOL
We live in a very small community, with lots of lower income families. Because of this, we have tried to keep our tuition down as low as possible. Of course, there are many things that come into play for this, but we choose to see our Christian school as an extended ministry of our church. For that reason, our full-time teachers agree to receive a somewhat lower salary than most Christian schools.
But isn't that what we are here for?! To teach, train, and work with children! :D
Also, our Christian school is a closed campus, so only here to service the families of our local church.
I hope this has gotten you thinking! Don't just assume that you don't have enough staff at your church. If you have children at your local church that would benefit from a Christian school, let's chat.
I would love to help you figure out a plan and see if this is a good fit for you.
Please feel free to email me at joelsvision@gmail.com.
Or you can look me up on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sara.vojtasek
Again, I know this was a very different blog post, but Christian schools are very close to my heart, and I wanted to share this info to get you thinking.
I look forward to hearing back from you, if I can be of any assistance!
In His Service,
Sara Vojtasek and Joel's Vision Ministries