So many parents have their opinions of private and public schools..... sometimes very strong opinions. I just want to share with you how we came to the decision of sending Iris and Asa to a private Christian school. When it came time for us to start preparing for our kids to start school we really began to think hard about what type of environment we wanted them in. The public school that we were zoned for was considered to be a great school in our area but we just wanted more for our kids. When I was growing up we had prayer over the intercom each morning...now that isn't even allowed in public schools...we just weren't ready for our kids to grow up without that being a part of their day at school. It wasn't about not wanting them in a school with a large amount of Hispanics(which there is a lot of in our local public schools)...it was about having them in a school where they could pray freely and learn about Jesus Christ openly and be taught by Christian teachers. Private school was a big decison for our family...it is expensive and the one we wanted them to attend was 25 miles away. We considered a local private Christian school but after having a couple of situations happen we decided that wouldn't be best for Iris and Asa. First, Kelly had a friend he grew up with tell him that we should send our kids to that local Christian school because it was like Dalton schools "use" to be just without the "brown" kids...well we knew that's not what we wanted our kids to be a part of. Also, we had some friends whose daughter was a great student with straight A's but had gotten involved with the wrong crowd her freshman year in public high school. They went to that same local Christian school asking to have her transferred there because they felt she needed to be in that environment. Well they were turned down because they weren't members of a church and couldn't provide a letter from their pastor stating that they attended church on a regular basis and were involved within the church...well all I can say to that is...WWJD??? This is the type of environment we didn't want our kids in...where a Christian school would turn their back on a child in need...those parent's were only trying to protect their child only to have the door closed on them when they were asking for help.
When we first met with the Headmaster at BBS one of the first questions we asked him was "are the students here only from Christian families?"...his answer was that anyone of any faith or religion could go to BBS...they don't even require a letter from your church or pastor. He explained that regardless of whether a child comes from a Christian home or not that while they are at BBS they are going to learn about the Bible and Jesus Christ and be taught by Christian teachers and that can make all the difference in a child's life. After hearing that we knew this was the school for us. We may not always be able to afford to send Iris and Asa to a private Christian school but as long as we can that is what we will do. If they do go to public school in the future hopefully the time they have spent at BBS will better prepare them to witness to kids who aren't Christians.
Some parents seem to think if you send your child to a Christian school you are trying to shelter them from the bad in the world. Before we started at BBS Asa's Pre-K teacher came to our home to meet us and we asked her what she thought about private vs. public school and if we were only trying to shelter our kids. I will never forget what she said, "as parents aren't we suppose to want to shelter our kids, they will learn about all the bad in the world soon enough so why not protect them as much as we can while we can"...after hearing her say that Kelly and I knew we had made the right decision.
I pray that we can continue to send Iris and Asa to BBS...watching them learn and grow as Christians each day has been such a huge blessing to our family.
