Schools That Inspire and the Year Ahead

As we enter a new school year, I’m excited to continue the Schools that Inspire series on our CACE blog. I love to hear our colleagues share about the beautiful work happening in Christian schools globally.

Last year, we had the opportunity to highlight schools in England, India, Indonesia, British Columbia, Ontario, Rwanda, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and Australia. Despite the unique global context of each, there are common threads you might discover among these schools. For me, I’m drawn in by the stories of demographic and societal changes, generous use of resources to expand opportunities for students, ambitious dreams despite challenges and even dangers faced, and a hopefulness for the future of students and their communities.

My ultimate hope in curating this series is not to share exemplar schools to be modeled, but to share stories that will spur you on in your good work, renew a sense of awe in our profession, and celebrate the good work of friends and colleagues. This year you will hear from friends in Guatemala, Ghana, Memphis, England, and beyond. But to get the year started, I want to give you a taste of two schools that inspire me for very different reasons.

First, I am writing this as I complete a visit to Ontario Christian School (OCS) in California. OCS can often seem unexceptional as Christian schools in the US go, but that’s where I have been blessed to watch the school’s journey for the past thirteen years. Through multiple connections over this time, I have watched OCS move from a legendary leader to uncertainty, and more recently to stabilization with a renewed sense of energy.

“My ultimate hope in curating this series is not to share exemplar schools to be modeled, but to share stories that will spur you on in your good work.”

Despite the shifts and uncertainties, OCS incubated change in “Teaching and Learning” through a methodical adoption of standards-referenced grading, the development of a high-quality leadership team, improvement in facilities and programs, and enough organizational capacity to weather some difficult storms. Though still on a journey, OCS is inspiring because they never see themselves as “arrived”; they are always looking for opportunities to get better at what they do.

Second, I had the opportunity to return, this time in a work capacity, to my alma mater for the first time in nearly 20 years, to Timothy Christian Schools (TCS) in Illinois. The return to TCS brought back many emotions for me as I had a mixed educational and life experience during my 6-12^th grade years there. Likewise, TCS’s success can often be explained away because of the privileged community in which it is located, which wasn’t my home community and still doesn’t feel like it now.

However, TCS is where my mother taught for 26 years and where I met Mr. Roelofs, who modeled who I wanted to be as a teacher and later invited me to do my first organizational analysis and systems change project there in 2006 as they had significant decisions to make on their school’s future.

But what inspires me is that TCS articulated a sense of self, developed an ambition for its future, and led advocacy for improved educational opportunities for students throughout Chicagoland and Illinois. In my recent visit I observed a high-quality faculty prepared for the school year, heard stories of joy and success from twelve of my nieces and nephews who are TCS students, and witnessed the dramatic changes to the facility that have occurred over the past ten years. It is now the largest K-12 Christian school in Illinois, a state many would argue is not conducive to marketplace growth for Christian schools.

Therefore, as you read the Schools That Inspire series for this year, I would encourage a few things:

• Savor these stories from around the world.
• Allow your imagination to soar with dreams for your own school and community.
• Celebrate the good work of schools even when it might seem quite normal.
• Share the stories of good work wherever you can!