OACS News Service

Convention to address ‘tsunami-like’ changes in faith-based education
New school models offer hope 'best may be yet to come'
Monday June 7, 2010 -- Michelle Strutzenberger
The bulk of an upcoming Christian education convention will focus on the emerging realities in the sector, as well as look at some of the exciting new school models that provide hope for the future.

Christian Schools International (CSI) offers its annual leadership convention in July, to be held in Chicago this year, the birth-place of the organization 90 years ago.

The event will begin with a celebration of several inspiring Christian education stories of the past.

It will then shift to addressing what CSI CEO and president Dave Koetje calls the "tsunami-like" changes that are happening throughout education, particularly faith-based education.

Included in this discussion will be the fact that the schools, "so cherished just an evening ago, no longer have history and tradition on their side,” Koetje tells OACS News.

A Chicago-based branding and research firm that has conducted studies on several mainline CSI communities will discuss what they’re learning from the current generation of parents in terms of how they make decisions about school.

“That will be troubling,” says Koetje.

He points out that while just a few decades ago the decision, particularly in the reformed community, was fairly automatic to send a child to the local Christian school, today parents are approaching the schools with unprecedented expectations and questions.

The reality of “incredible” competition from charter schools that brand themselves as “not hostile to the faith community” in some parts of North America will also be taken into account, as will the current widespread enthusiasm for home-schooling.

As part of the the latter discussion, a husband and wife who were themselves educated kindergarten through college at CSI schools, but have chosen to home-school their own children, will share their story and thoughts on why they made that decision.

Also to be discussed will be the role of the current financial model of Christian schools in pushing away the middle class.

While this focus on the emerging realities will be less inspiring, says Koetje, the convention is intended to end on a positive note as delegates learn about some of the exciting new or expanded school models that seem to be working quite well.

“(We’ll) kind of end with a sense that just maybe the best is yet to come in Christian education as we think a little bit more differently about how we deliver this high-quality product,” says Koetje.

For full details on the convention, visit this link.

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