The Partnership

You’ll see it on our website, letterhead, internal memos, and hear it in our water-cooler conversations. Our mission starts with partnering with parents. Without successful partnership with parents, our mission will be ineffective. In any partnership, at least two parties are working together towards the same goal. For FCS families, this is often a three way partnership between home, church, and school – each of these parties seeking the physical and spiritual maturation of the young people entrusted to us. Partnership doesn’t just happen – it’s work. Sometimes partnership is awkward. Sometimes a stressed partnership causes hurt feelings. Regardless of the challenges, any parties committed to making a partnership work at all costs for the common good, that partnership will be fruitful. In the case of FCS, that fruitful partnership looks like the fulfillment of our mission which is students living effectively in God’s world – wherever they go. The testimony below comes from a new to FCS parent in the 16/17 school year and is a great example of partnership.

 

 

This year we started a partnership! Not a business partnership, but a parent/teacher partnership. After much prayer and discussion (and a lot of emotion on my part!), my husband and I decided to enroll our daughters, Abby Lynn (1st grade) and Madilyn (Kindergarten) at Faith Christian School. There were many reasons we made this decision but one of the main reasons was because we knew that at FCS we, as parents, would be considered as partners in the education process. It was a very emotional decision for me was because I had been homeschooling my daughters since preschool. It had been the three of us spending every minute of every day together. I loved it! There were days that is was challenging for sure but I loved being with my girls and seeing them learn. So it was hard for me to “give them up” and think about sending them to school all day. That’s why it was so important for me to remind myself that just because we planned to send them to school didn’t mean that I was giving up my job as their teacher. On the contrary! It is my main job! Sure, I don’t teach them every math lesson or do every art project with them now but it still my job to guide and direct them every day. My husband and I view Faith Christian School and the girl’s teachers as our partners in the education of our girls. We trust them to teach our girls the things they need to learn on a daily basis knowing that it is ultimately our job to lead our girls spiritually and academically. God calls us to take responsibility for the teaching of our children in Deuteronomy 6:6-8. We are teach our children diligently. A couple of practical ways we do this as a family are by having morning bible time together. Before we all go our separate ways in the morning, my husband takes time to read the bible and teach our girls in practical ways from God’s Word. Also, after school, we have a devoted time for homework and I view that as my time to help reinforce the academic teaching from the school day. Another way of reinforcing the parent/teacher partnership in our home is by speaking about the school and teachers to our girls in a way that honors God. We seek to teach our girls to submit to their teachers because they are the authority that God has placed in their lives and this includes fostering a thankful attitude for the school and their teachers. It is so important to remember that we, as parents, are not sending our kids to school so we don’t have to teach them but we are sending our kids to school so that we have partners to assist us in our main job as teachers of our children.

 

Denny Vauters