Suggested Questions To Ask When Interviewing A School

As noted in a prior post, there is a school fair at Idlewild Baptist Church in Lutz, Florida January 16.  If you attend, or any time you interview a school, consider asking the following questions:

1. How many students attend your school?
2. If your school is affiliated with a specific church, how many students from other churches attend your school?
3. How many Idlewild [or insert name of your church] students attend your school? (Ask for references of family names.  Then call them.)
4. What curriculum does your school use for reading, math, science, etc.?
5. How does your school promote the Christian worldview?
6. How does your school teach Bible? 
7. How does your school integrate the Bible into the rest of the curriculum?
8. What extracurricular or sports activities does your school offer?
9. How does your school prepare students for college?
10. How many students have graduated from your school? 
11. What are the average SAT scores? 
12. What colleges have your students attended? 
13. Does your school permit non-Christian families to enroll their students and why or why not? 
14. How does your school teach kindergarteners and first graders to read? 
15. Do you use phonics only or whole language or a combination approach? 
16. What does your school teach about America?

The Four Dimensions On Which To Evaluate Any School

When you go to evaluate a school – whether public, private, charter, or home school -- there are 3 basic dimensions on which to measure how well a particular school is doing. These are 4 broad areas on which to evaluate how effective a school is.

1.  Academic Literacy

This dimension measures how well a school actually teaches the subjects that it intends to teach – reading, writing, math, science, history, etc.  Not much needs to be said here.  Most parents look at this dimension first.

2.  Biblical Literacy

This dimension measures how well a school does at teaching the Christian worldview.  This should be the most important dimension.  If you disagree, please go back and re-read the biblical principles and the purpose of an education. 

3.  Cultural Literacy

How well does the school teach about our cultural heritage?  We are Americans.  Does the school teach "American exceptionalism"?  This is the idea that the United States occupies a special place in the world because we were founded on principles of freedom, liberty and God's law.  In my opinion, it should.  If it does not, you will need to evaluate why that is the case.

We also live in a culture based on Western civilization. Ronald Nash said in his book, The Closing of the American Heart, “The Christian church needs young people who have been exposed to the best of Western culture and who are able to interact thoughtfully and reflectively with the literature, history, philosophy, and science of that culture.” We need “Christians who have broad minds that have been sharpened to the point of usefulness.” Obviously, the elementary school doesn’t do all this but it should point students in the direction of being patriotic, thinking Americans rather than skeptics and cynics about our country and culture. The middle school and high school should do more.

4.  School Culture

This is the dimension that moms notice immediately. This dimension broadly asks: What is the school like? Is it a caring, safe environment? Are the students smiling? Do they enjoy being there? Do they seem to accept each other? How do the teachers treat the students? Do the teachers love being with children? Or is school a drudgery to teacher and student alike? What is the basic atmosphere of the school like?

Some schools will score well on some dimensions and less well on others.  For example, all public schools will, by definition, score poorly on the biblical worldview dimension.  Some private schools will score poorly on the academic literacy dimension.  You need to evaluate a school based on all four dimensions.

Announcement: School Fair at Idlewild Baptist Church

Tell your friends and neighbors!

Idlewild Baptist Church in Tampa is holding its first school fair on Sunday morning, January 16, 2010.  A number of Christian schools from the greater Tampa Bay area will be represented.  This is your opportunity to interview a variety of Christian schools!  My own school, The Paideia School of Tampa Bay, will be there.  Why not join us!

Who Am I?

I am not a professional educator. I am a lawyer, of all things. But I am also the father of two beautiful girls, Alissa, age 16, and Ashley, age 12, and during our children’s school career thus far, my wife and I have been through the education maze. When Alissa was 3, she loved to talk. And talk. And talk. And talk. No filter. So one day, my wife got so desperate for just a bit of solitude that she went through the phone book looking for preschools for Alissa for a few hours a week. We chose a Christian preschool affiliated with a church. Unfortunately, we learned 3 weeks after Alissa had started going there that her teacher was pregnant and unmarried. That was the end of Alissa’s school adventure for that year. That was our first introduction to the school process. 

We were hardcore. We camped out all night – twice – to get at the front of the line of a different preschool so we could enroll our daughters. The first time, we missed enrolling our oldest by one person and had to settle for the waiting list.  The second time, we made it in with our second daughter, but she cried the whole time she was there and so we gave up after a couple of months.  We seriously considered homeschooling before we discovered classical Christian education, an option that we believed fit us better. Five years ago, we even started a school, along with a number of other families. We have had some bumps in the road.  I hope to help others avoid some of those bumps.  That is the purpose of this blog.

What This Blog Is All About!

This blog is for confused people.  It’s for people like my wife Konnie and me 13 years ago, when our oldest daughter Alissa was 3 years old.  We knew we had a decision to make in the next 2 years.  We knew we had to figure out how we were going to educate our daughter (and eventually her newborn sister) but we didn’t have a clue where to begin figuring out how.  We were confused.  We weren’t sure where to turn.  Should we pick up the phone book and start calling schools?  Should we send her to the neighborhood public school around the block?  Should we try to home school her?  What about a charter school?

We were in what I call the education maze.  We wondered around a lot and hit a few dead ends in our search for answers.  I wish there were answers for us back then.  We didn’t have any.  If you are in the maze, or about to enter the education maze, overwhelmed by the options, not sure what the options are, looking for direction, full of questions, you are in the right place.  The goal of this blog is to give you solid, biblical answers.

I want to tell you at the front end: We are not going to tell you how to educate your children or where to educate them. I am the president of the board of a classical Christian school. I would love to tell you about The Paideia School of Tampa Bay. But not here. This blog is not designed to try to convince you that you should send your children to this school or that school. Instead, the goal is simple: I want to equip you with honest answers about your options. Then you can make your own decision, an educated and informed decision about how to go about this awesome, God-given responsibility of educating your children. So if you are interested, read on! I hope our blog provides some answers to assist you in navigating the education maze.