On behalf of Sid & Carol Verdoorn and the Center for the Advancement of Christian Education, we offer our 2014 year in review. It has been a wonderful first year, filled with blessings and opportunities to advance the cause of Christian education. We look forward to continued conversations and partnerships with you as we seek to advocate for, promote, sustain, and innovate Christian education throughout North America. May God continue to bless your work as ambassadors in His Kingdom. Happy New Year!
Pulling a good network together takes effort, sincerity, and time.
– Alan Collins.
CACE Fellow, Erik Ellefsen begins his most recent blog post on Navigating the Ed Policy Storms with this quote. CACE’s year in review shares some echoes of this quote as we relive a few highlights from 2014. A lot of effort has gone into publishing educational content worth consuming – from the sincerity of Steve Moore’s Devotions for Educators to the expertise contributed on the Innovation blog by Mitch Salerno, Chris Browne, and Michael Chen. Our goal is to pull together a great network, connecting those most passionate about Christian education and sharing the wisdom from this crowd.
A few highlights from the year:
- Launched in March
- 9,047 visits from March to December
- 177 people signed up for the monthly newsletter
- CACE published 113 new posts
- Facebook is our top social media site with 214 likes
- The CACE website has been accessed from 116 different countries
Help us continue to spread the word and share CACE.org with your network.
THE CACE ROUNDTABLE
Our blog is the most active area on the CACE website. The CACE Fellows and guest bloggers write articles here that are relevant to school leaders, church leaders, parents, and educators. The top featured blog posts for 2014 include:
- The Teachers’ Lounge: Getting Real about Differentiation
- CACE Partners with Intermountain Christian School
- Covenantal vs Missional Enrollment, Part 1
- The Disintegration of Faith and Learning, Part 1
- People, Process, Product
CACE STUDIES
September was an exciting month for CACE. The CACE Fellows had the opportunity to visit our first school, Intermountain Christian (ICS), located in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Intermountain Christian School
The CACE Fellows are currently working with Mitch Menning, newly appointed Head of School at ICS, along with his administrative team, faculty, and staff to re-story ICS. Action items include: reviewing board governance, developing the leadership team, encouraging innovative practice, and sharpening their marketing and development work.
The CACE Fellows are excited about the changes taking place at ICS. Our goal is to walk alongside ICS as they seek to create a learning environment that “spiritually equips and academically prepares students to become better servants and leaders for Christ in their homes, communities, nation, and the world” (ICS Vision Statement).
For more on this story and the intentional work of the CACE Fellows, visit our website at cace.org/cace-studies.
LOOKING FORWARD
We are looking forward to hosting our first CACE Score Group Meeting in February, centered around the theme of mission-based budgeting. We are excited to work with the following five new schools.
- The City School (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
- Deer Creek Christian (University Park, Illinois)
- Norfolk Christian Schools (Norfolk, Virginia)
- Parkview (Aurora, Illinois)
- Valley Christian School (East Bay, San Francisco, California)
The CACE Score Group will meet in Orlando, Florida, and will focus on the following items:
- Mission-centered teaching and learning
- Mission-centered marketing and enrollment management
- Mission-centered revenue generation
- Mission-centered faculty compensation
