School from Scratch

1
The Vision Begins

When was the last time your child pushed you into doing something that you had no intention of doing? This journey on which I am about to take you begins exactly like that—with a push from our daughter.
It all began many years ago when our daughter, now forty-five, was four years old and allowed to enter kindergarten in Tucson, Arizona. At Christmas break, she decided someone had deprived her of an education. She was then five, and they had not yet taught her to read.
After we expressed our frustrations to anyone who would listen, a friend gave us copies of paperback phonics readers from Florida-based Abeka Books. Learning to read with phonics was not taught in that era. Over the Christmas break, with the help of the readers and alphabet blocks, we taught her to read things such as, “Pat the rat sat on the cat.” You get the idea.
When she returned to school after the break, she took it upon herself to read for the class when it was her turn for show-and-tell. That night, the teacher phoned me, asking why I had “made” that little girl learn to read at such an early age. My wife and I decided recently that, even now, we still haven’t “made” her do anything.
By the next school year, we had moved to San Diego County and enrolled her in the elementary school across the street from our house and our church. A few days into the school year, our daughter came home complaining that they were putting her in the library for most of the day because she was ahead of the other kids and they didn’t want her to be bored. Not believing that story, I approached the school, and they confirmed the situation. When I asked why they didn’t just put her with kids who were on her educational level, they informed me that it wasn’t done that way. That was my first encounter with managed ignorance! It still abounds in many places today.
Being very frustrated, I posted an advertisement in the local paper: “Our kids learn to read in kindergarten. Do yours?” The enormous response was astounding yet not unexpected. However, I then faced the dilemma of what to do with that response. Our church had an active weekday preschool, but we needed more. We needed an elementary school as well. I responded to those who had answered the advertisement, asking them if they were interested in a start-up school. Upon enrolling sixty prekindergarten through second-grade students, I realized I had no idea what to do to actually start a school. Bottom line, I knew I had to figure it out.
Google wasn’t even a dream in those days. However, I managed to contact Abeka, the publisher of those paperback phonics readers, without the help of the internet. “Do you have anything else?” I asked. They did, so I did, and the rest, as they say, is history (and math, and English, and science).
Vision, passion, drive—you cannot get these qualities from a book. I desire to share a bit of knowledge and a lot of experience with you. I believe God has, in current events, displayed before the entire world a tremendous opportunity for sharing the gospel through education. We can do it!