While school “houses” are well-known across Europe and have been popularized in film, community-building house systems are steadily making their way across the pond to American schools. Mount Paran Christian School finished another year of its middle school House system and shares lessons learned, key wins, and future plans for the program.

Welcome to Y’allywood! The state of Georgia has become a booming location for the entertainment industry. Building on its long history as a musical powerhouse, Georgia has become the undisputed “Hollywood of the South,” with film and television generating billions of dollars each year - an astounding $9.5 billion in 2018, according to the Georgia Department of Economic Development. The economic impact extends even further when considering the thousands of jobs that are created as a result of the Georgia entertainment industry. This is due, in part, to one of “the most competitive tax incentive programs in the country, along with a broad network of production and recording facilities, a large and skilled workforce, the latest production equipment and suppliers, gaming and interactive media developers, and technology and support services.”

This skilled workforce is being trained at schools across the state. While it is unusual for a K-12 school to have a recording studio, an increasing number of high schools and career centers in America are creating audio education programs to give students a head start on entertainment-centric college curricula and careers.

Innovation may be the buzzword du jour, but, for forward-thinking schools, innovation is ingrained within curriculum, allowing for the exploration, creation, and implementation of solutions to real-world problems. For Mount Paran Christian School, innovative learning takes many forms in the classroom, including a very real, hands-on approach for high school business students through the Roost Coffee Co.

Often, when we hear the word innovation, our minds immediately journey to the realm of technology. However, innovation should not be limited to technology integration. Rather, innovation should be an innovative mechanism for advancing areas a school community deems important.

Look anywhere in education today. The words innovate and innovation are displayed everywhere. For some, innovation in education is a fashionable trend. For others, innovation ensures students are prepared for jobs in a world of work where science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) are dominant. For Mount Paran Christian School, we have taken a different approach to innovation, STEAM, and education as a whole. 

 

When teachers from various disciplines combine their efforts and plan course curriculum to coordinate across fields of learning, students are the beneficiaries. While it takes time and effort, cross-disciplinary collaboration offers students the opportunity to deepen their understanding of a subject. For Mount Paran Christian School third-graders, appreciation for nature has only strengthened because of a collaborative butterfly project between Spanish and Science classes.

After a lot of preparation, lower school students at Mount Paran Christian School now hear the charming call of dozens of baby bluebird hatchlings around the 68-acre school campus. February was bluebird month in Georgia, when the brilliantly-hued Eastern Bluebird began the process of seeking nesting spots and crafting its signature cup-shaped nest in anticipation of warmer weather. MPCS students are now front-and-center this spring, supporting the bluebirds and witnessing the entire hatching process.

How does a growing high school — with 450 students learning in a space originally designed for just 250 — plan for a building expansion that captures the imagination of its community, while also implementing thoughtful design to prepare students for a 21st-century education? Mount Paran Christian School asked this very question as the school undertook the seemingly insurmountable task of creating a new, purposeful educational facility that would house radical spaces to learn, test, collaborate, and grow. The process for designing the new Murray Innovation Center was itself an unconventional exercise, with key takeaways that other schools and organizations might not consider before embarking upon large-scale initiatives.

Real classroom innovation at Mount Paran Christian School starts from within; from the open hearts and minds of the teachers, students, parents, and school leadership. Never has this been more true than during the 2020 academic year, when the coronavirus pandemic put the innovative practices of MPCS to the test.

Oh, the places they will go. The Mount Paran Christian School Class of 2020 will head off to a variety of universities in the fall, bringing with them the solid academic foundation built at MPCS. These rising college freshman will be pursuing career pathways as varied as Forestry, Athletic Training, Forensics, Vocal Performance, as well as Business, Engineering, or Medicine. Read on to learn more about how some of these seniors came to choose their career pathways. 

There’s no question that a Mount Paran Christian School graduate is remarkable. But, what exactly is it about an MPCS student that sets them apart? How can their remarkability be defined – the “secret sauce,” if you will – that characterizes MPCS alumni? 

The MPCS family is comprised of students who feature six key characteristics: MPCS students crave deeper faith; embrace intellectual curiosity; prepare completely; refuse to be bystanders; live courageously; and reach forward, pressing on toward their goals. What does this look like, in reality? The 2020 Senior Spotlights - the five students who earned the top grade point averages in the class - beautifully represent this “Portrait of a Graduate.”

Families in Cobb County and the northwest metro-Atlanta area have many options when it comes to choosing the best school for their children, from great neighborhood public schools to several private school alternatives. For those who feel certain about the value of an independent school education for their child, how should families make the decision on which school is the best for their family?

It's been a little over a week of Virtual Learning at Mount Paran Christian School. With many government mandates and suggestions that workplaces operate on a "work from home" basis, parents are also finding themselves navigating new territory. Feedback from this new experience is that families have managed the transition to working from home very well! To support parents' success at home both in supporting students as well as keeping up with work demands, we'd like to share seven helpful tips to make the most of your home office experience.  

 

We are in an unprecedented time in modern history, with a shift to virtual learning required for the very health and safety of our communities. In many ways, recent technological advances have been preparing us for this shift, with students becoming more and more adept at using smart devices and more schools incorporating technology into the classrooms via smartboards and apps. But moving to entirely online courses with children studying from home has not been the norm for American society. The question remains, how do we successfully navigate these uncharted waters?

 

With the shift towards more technology in the classroom, it should come as no surprise that the majority of states—more than 40—no longer require handwriting instruction, especially cursive handwriting.

According to a report from 11Alive news, Georgia requires instruction of cursive writing, typically beginning in grade three. However, since cursive writing is not assessed at the state level and is left to local determination for assessment, in most Georgia schools, cursive writing is no longer being taught.

CO-WRITTEN BY SHAUNDA BROOKS

Inside the quaint and cozy Sewell Cottage at Mount Paran Christian School, groups of preschoolers are clustered around a SMART Table. They’re learning about habitats- dragging virtual animals on the touch-screen to the correct environments and clicking to make the animals howl or cluck. The children’s giggles indicate they’re having a ball, and they don’t even realize how much they’re learning, or that they’re mastering cutting-edge technology at the age of three.