Fall Questions for Students and Parents

As week seven of school gets underway today, I can’t help but notice the symphony of autumn colours on display across the street through my office window. Time moves along quickly in a school year and we trust that you and your children have experienced a positive initial beginning to the 2015-16 school year that is nearly 20% complete. We believe each day and each moment counts as we move through the year. We are thankful for the fresh new opportunities the Lord provides us with each morning to live and learn together as a community of faith.

Last Friday marked the first of many times this year that your child will be given a formal and more
summative indication of how learning and growing at LCES is going for them. Teachers in grades
one through eight sent home a Learning Skills Rubric with your child which was a checkpoint on the
journey from September to June. They are designed to confirm and celebrate great patterns of stu-
dent conduct already observed, and to pinpoint areas for personal growth that can be areas of focus
before we get to the first report card which is sent home on November 27. Our hope and prayer is
that they stimulate productive conversations with parents, students, and teachers that help a student
to flourish.

It can be challenging to dialogue with your child about school and get meaningful answers. Here are
some examples of great questions that I have encountered in various places that encourage stu-
dents to process their day with their parents:

• If I was your teacher tomorrow, what would you want me to teach?

• What happened today that you wished would happen everyday?

• Did you have a chance to help or encourage someone today?

• What was the funniest thing that happened today?

• Was there anything that frustrated you today?

• Tell me about three different things you did in your classroom today.

• When were you happiest today?

• Was there a question you or your teacher couldn’t answer today?

• Is there a part of today you wish you could do over?

We are excited about working with our students, your children, every day. We do so in the sure
knowledge that God goes with us in this most important task. SJ

Cost, Value, and Christian Education

Cost, Value, and Christian Education

Around the age of 10, I spotted it. A sophisticated flashlight that I thought was the neatest thing ever. It was a door-crashing deal at bargain store that nearly sold out immediately. I think I got one of the last on the shelf and felt myself fortunate in my timing. I bought it. With much anticipation, I packed it along with my other items on a family trip. It brilliantly lit my pathway for all of 3 minutes before it broke. Since it was a promotional item, there were no returns. I was in the dark, out my hard earned paper route money. Life lesson learned.

Since then, more than once I have stood at a checkout counter and decided to abandon a purchase after thinking through its financial implications. Other times, I have wished I had reconsidered a purchase longer when, like a dishwasher I own, items break and become unusable 6 weeks after their
warranty period is over. Sometimes, I’ve regretted my choice to pass by what would have been a
great purchase.

A campfire or coffee table discussion will flush out the fact that everyone has a story like this in their
life. Why do these things bother us so much? I would suggest that they irk us as they do because we
feel the cost of things was out of alignment with value. When we see great value in the product or ser
vice we celebrate, when we feel like there is low value we grumble and complain.

Sometimes we need to compare our situation with the alternative. We don’t love paying what we feel
are really high prices for hydro, water, or natural gas. But do we really want to make candles, dig a
well, and stack wood? An investment opportunity comes our way and we hesitate, but perhaps the
missed opportunity cost is too big to pass by?

Over the weekend I noticed an exceptional editorial discussing these questions of value, opportunity,
and trust as they relate to Christian Education and its cost. I encourage you to spend just a few
minutes to read through Dave Koetje’s article and see if it might help you along the financial pathway your family is on. I trust that even if you don’t fully agree with all of it, that it will challenge and invigorate you as it did me. SJ

Grateful Thinking

Baking apple muffins in JK classroom

I was challenged by an author recently to ensure that the calendar event of Thanksgiving is not only a quantitative listing of items that we have received in the last year from the Lord, but also a

reminder to live looking forward with a mindset of thankfulness and gratitude. When we live grounded in gratitude, we face challenge and tragedy with an underlying faith that there is also hope. This kind of gratefulness opens our hearts and assures us our God is with us in ways far beyond what we can imagine. God is good, of that we are sure. Living
in gratitude helps us realize that we live in grace
before the Lord who looks on us with love.

I think that is good advice for a person, and also for an organization.

Looking backward, I am thankful for:

• A legacy of faithful parents and leaders who have nurtured, protected, and guided LCES
• planned and spontaneous moments of fantastic learning that bring joy to our days at LCES
• a network of financial supporters who give generously and sacrificially
• the time and talents given by volunteers
• challenges our board has faced that have been eclipsed by evidences of God’s great provision.

Looking forward, I am grateful for:

• committed and industrious staff, working in unity and truth to achieve our school’s vision
• the space and freedom we have to operate a Christian school in our city and province
• the areas of growth and change that we will encounter to continue to make us flourish
• the energy and excitement new families and new staff members bring to our school
• growing interest in young parents in the parental choice of Christian Education
• the “Bright Futures” campaign and its future benefit for our school.

May God bless our families as we pause with gratitude and thankfulness on our hearts and praise
our great God. SJ

Running Out of Letters in JK

The happy noises of learning and living in community are always around me, especially so at my desk in my office since both the JK and SK classrooms are immediately across the hall. While I am busy with my work I frequently hear the pulse of play, social trials and successes, joyful songs, and sometimes loud complaints and frustration. Once I overheard two students waiting to go outside for recess just outside my door. One commented to the other “So many letters. Why couldn’t they just make five of them?” immediately answered by “Then we would run out of things to learn too quick.”

In the middle of it all, the positive, encouraging voices of our teachers steering the group on their
safari of learning keeps things going where they need to go. I’m amazed at their ability to create the
order and atmosphere they do. I had the opportunity to become another voice in the room when I
read a book to JK two weeks ago. The book was on creation, telling the story of God’s handiwork
with beautiful artwork. We had fun reading through the story and trying to imagine all these things
happening for the first time. “I am one of God’s creations!” shared a jubilant child with me. That was
a highlight of the week for me – both in its truth and its spontaneous offering.

Watching and listening to our youngest learners at the start of the year is exciting to me. With fresh
eyes and in circumstances and surroundings very new to them, they are experiencing the gift and
challenge of living in a community of learning. They are learning to look with their eyes in a more
focused way at God’s world and recognize with their heart God’s claim and purpose for them. I really don’t mind the noise that process creates and it is a sound I won’t grow tired of soon.

SJ

Strong Roots, Clear Vision

A Christian school is wise to pay attention to both of these parts of the “tree” that the organization represents. Deep roots become a solid foundation for daily life where purpose and practice have been honed well, sometimes easily, sometimes at great price. A clear vision orients future growth toward continued health and strength as it faces new opportunities and challenges.

The Bright Futures Campaign represents what the LCES Board of Directors believes to be our best foot forward as we tend to the needs of our school. The pathway to this campaign started with a desire to ensure the health and fiscal viability of our school in terms of daily operations, enrollment of new families, and the excellent facilities and learning environment we currently benefit from daily. Working with a consulting company who specializes in fundraising in Christian school communities, a feasibility study was completed with a test group in our community early in 2015. Last Thursday night at the Back-to-School barbecue, Pete Hamstra, chair of this campaign, announced its launch and shared some specific details about this 1.65 million dollar fundraising campaign.

There are three main goals for this campaign:

Capital funds for learning tools, building maintenance and upgrades, and other immediate needs. While the LCES staff always are our greatest asset in offering excellent education, we believe we need to maintain our facilities well and ensure we have great tools for learning.

Bursary funds that will be added to a managed fund whose annual dividends can be used to provide greater financial assistance to area families desiring access to Christian education.

Debt Reduction in order to bring greater financial health and stability in the future.

Please join many others already committed to praying for the campaign, its leadership, and the specific goals that have been outlined. We are very excited about the prospect of what this combined effort will mean for our present and our future LCES families as we consider our very bright future!

For our school, SJ

Playing with puzzle pieces

“Why did God makes wasps anyway?” was the question of the day as a few students helped me bundle up apples falling and attracting them in large numbers at the edge of our property. The question seemed to be asked believing that there was no possible answer that could place these stinging pests as part of something good for us. As we carefully boxed up the fruit to make them go away we talked about God’s design in creation, pollination, controlling other insect populations, and other details. One of the students came back to me this morning and shared with me that she learned on the weekend that a wasp nest can catch five tons of insects in one year. I don’t know if she is correct, but I am excited she chose to look in to it and share her findings with me.

Those in education call this inquiry learning – following the questions and learning opportunities life presents. Children are keen to figure out their world and makes sense of it. In the normal rhythm of our daily activities we have so many opportunities to guide our students to understanding, rather than simply “dumping” information their way. In addition to gathering facts, figures and processes, students are busy building their way to an overall means to put all the puzzle pieces of knowledge together in a meaningful way. This includes answers to questions like: What is good? What is valuable? What is important? What is true? For what purpose did God make ____? Giving our children a means to “put it all together” is one of the best tools we can give them to navigate the wide ocean of information they have available to them.

I am thankful for the ability Christian education affords us to make our students master puzzlers. With the help of adults around them committed to the truth of  God’s promises, students are able to not only absorb content, but to connect and arrange what they learn in a way that shows biblical wisdom.

Perhaps I’ll have to change my yard duty instruction. “Watch out for the wasps. They may teach us something about God.”

SJ

Shoes That Light Up

“I’m so happy to see my friends again.”
“I missed math.”
“I have a special snack for today.”
“I get to sit at a desk – like all the time!”
“I have a male teacher.”
“I’m excited to learn more about God this year.”
“My shoes light up when I jump.” 

These were some of the answers I got this morning outside when I asked students what they were excited about during the first recess break. The range of answers tells us what we perhaps already know; the school year launch means many things to many students – none exactly the same. For many of our newer students, today is a first tentative step into a new world. For others, coming back to LCES feels like returning to the comfort of your favorite pair of shoes. Either way, it
the prayer of the LCES staff that the everyday experience of school – all 183 of them - will be a source of continual delight of learning and fellowship.

The fact we ran out of chairs this morning in the gym confirms for me that many of our parents were just as excited to start a new school year as the students were. We are thankful to have your children back with us in the hallways and classrooms which were abuzz with the newness brand new school year this morning. How exciting for us all to be back together to share missing teeth, summertime stories, and new beginnings.

We look forward to working with our new school theme for 2015-16, SRL or “Serve, Respect, Love” which comes from 1 Peter 2:16-17. Students were challenged this morning that how we conduct ourselves can be a sign of what God is building among us - a strong community of faith whose conduct helps others know how to live life God’s way.

Remember to pray for our board of directors, teachers, and staff throughout this year as we work in faith with your children. To God be the glory.

SJ

P.S. Be sure that you reserve time next Thursday evening, September 17, for our Back-to-School BBQ. There will be something new and different this year – stay tuned for more details!