Partnership, Part 1

With all the hustle and bustle of the last month of school, it’s easy to lose track of all the amazing things going on (almost daily) that serve as culminating events for our students, staff, and parents. From the fun and memorable experiences of history days to the humbling and gratifying completion of senior thesis, these moments shine a particular spotlight on the importance of the parent-teacher partnership. At our recent State of the School and Parent Ed Night, I highlighted a number of practical ways we can strengthen that partnership from each side.

For this first part, we’ll take a look at how the school specifically partners with parents, and we’ll examine next time how the parents share that partnership specifically with teachers. Consider these 7 C’s of teacher partnership for starters (it’s by no means an exhaustive list).

Curriculum - We aim to provide a number of things to help you reach your goal of raising godly children in wisdom and the fear of the Lord. This includes our curriculum. The curriculum certainly refers to books, lessons, assessments, classical methodologies, and the like, but it also includes important habits, chants, songs, practices, and skills developed by traveling a certain path toward graduation. One great advantage to sending children to a brick-and-mortar classical Christian school is the enrollment of those children alongside other children from other families who can travel that path together, following the well-worn roads of our fathers and mothers in faith and education. The road is long and complex, and it can be overwhelming for parents to navigate and manage on their own. We can help you chart a course from the earliest years to high-school graduate.

Correction - If it’s true that education is repentance, a turning away from that which is wrong to that which is right, then parents should expect teachers to offer their children a great deal of correction. If we don’t want our children to be stretched, changed, and grown into a certain kind of person, then why do we have them in school at all? When you look at the amount of time your kids are spending with teachers, you should expect them to have many opportunities for correction. This is exactly what you’ve signed up for, not just to affirm (though that is important) but also to direct and correct! Rejoice in it! Whether it’s about how to spell certain words or mastery of math facts or loves, morality, habits, and character, we’re here to help correct errant ideas, errant actions, and errant hearts, all made possible only by the Holy Spirit through God’s grace, of course.

Communication - Good relationships depend upon trust and open communication, and you should expect to hear from your children’s teachers on a regular basis. This shouldn’t be limited only to times of correction or poor performance, but also for praise, for invitation to involvement, or even just plain information or relationship building. Teachers have many means of partnership to help you stay engaged in your kids’ education, including weekly newsletters, emails or phone calls home, conversations in the parking lot, parent-teacher conferences, deficiency notices, homework practice, volunteer or event or field-trip sign-ups, and more. And if you feel for some reason that you are missing each other, there’s always opportunity to communicate about communication. Be dedicated to making the connection!

Character and Commitment - When sending your kids to CCA, you’re making a decision to surround your children with committed Christian teachers and staff who care deeply about serving Christ by lovingly serving them. The vocation of a classical Christian teacher is a unique calling, and your kids have an opportunity daily to be shaped by men and women of character who share your values and reinforce the example you as parents are called to set and live out before your children. This aspect of the partnership communicates to our students that mom and dad aren’t the only ones who believe and live this way, lending power and deeper credibility to the claims you make about the world and God’s work in it. Like you, we’re not perfect. But we’re committed to a common cause and to one another.

Community - While this isn’t just a school-driven aspect, participation in a partnership with CCA means joining a community of like-minded people, believers in Christ who share many of your own priorities, commitments, struggles, triumphs, goals, dreams, and more. No man is an island, but parenting can be arduous and lonely, and it’s a comfort and encouragement to know that others are in it for the long haul with you. We get to read and study and learn together, right alongside our kids and other parents as well. Over time, the relationships that form around a school community like CCA can become some of the most influential, shaping, and deep friendships between families that you could ever hope to find. God often uses this kind of community to bless His people and even their various church communities through the grace of life together around the things we hold most dear, our faith and our children.

Consistency - Partnership with a school also brings structure into the lives of students and families that helps shape our habits and prepares us for the rest of our lives. While we’re always working on improving in this area, we intend that a school setting like CCA will give parents predictable systems, routines, expectations, procedures, deadlines, and feedback. Students learn about justice, fairness, mercy, love, and all sorts of things about God’s character by interacting with others in a place with consistent expectations. And when we are doing it well, we will provide both high expectations and high support to meet those expectations, setting standards that are hard FOR the students, not hard ON the students (as Bryan Lynch and Douglas Wilson would put it). If you’ve ever had the experience of trying to teach your own child something (like a musical instrument) and have discovered that they respond much better to another teacher, even though you may be perfectly capable in terms of your own proficiency, then you know how helpful getting consistency from others can be.  

Christianity - Finally, not to state the obvious, partnering with us at CCA means walking together in the Christian faith, following our Lord Jesus Christ in everyday life. It means you will find real opportunities to ask and to extend forgiveness, to lovingly confront and at other times to let love cover sins. It means confessing things in common and rallying around the faith handed down once for all time to the saints. It means singing and harmonizing together, carrying one another’s burdens, praying for one another, serving one another, and exhorting one another. And all this we do so that we may see Christ honored and glorified not only in our own children but in our neighbors’ children and in ourselves together as well. God helping us, we will strengthen one another and our churches by the way we live life together not just on Sundays but in between also.

We could probably think of even more C’s (let alone all the other letters at our disposal) to outline the advantages of seeking a partnership with a school like CCA, and it’s certainly not the only way to accomplish the paramount goal of raising faithful Christian children. But I hope it helps you appreciate and be reminded of the many aspects of our partnership that we can tend to take for granted. In part 2, I’ll share a few thoughts on what parents can do to strengthen the partnership even more from their side. That Hobbit Hole is just a short (and full) month away.

May Christ continue to grant you grace in believing and in seeking Him in the raising of your children. Thank you for letting us partner with you in that sacred endeavor at CCA! Here’s to a fantastic finish in the last month!

In Christ,
Bill Stutzman
Headmaster