Under the umbrella of its ParentEd. program, Mount Paran Christian School created a new parent education series this academic year entitled P.E.P. Talks - Parents Engaging Purposefully. These P.E.P. Talks were intentionally designed to strengthen the school's partnership with the home, in alignment with the school's mission:

“Providing academic excellence in a Christ-centered environment, Mount Paran Christian School unites with home and church to prepare servant-leaders to honor God, love others, and walk in Truth.”

The purpose of the P.E.P. Talks series was to provide helpful information to parents as they navigate different stages of their children’s lives. Three unique sessions were developed and presented for each school division, from lower school through high school. This first part of this blog series focuses on managing the challenges of the high school years. 

Strategic planning is a process that independent schools, non-profit organizations, and for-profit businesses and industries typically undertake on a regular basis to ensure they are meeting their mission, acting upon their core values, and appropriately setting goals around those strategic initiatives. As such, over the course of the 2019-2020 school year, MPCS is engaging in the strategic-planning process. This process is meant to be comprehensive and allow every stakeholder (students, alumni, parents, grandparents, board, faculty, and staff) to provide input into the direction of the school over the next five years. By engaging our people, our goal is to inspire and unite our community through the process, allowing us all to be a part of something bigger, so that our students may flourish.

 

One of the many benefits of an independent school education is that school leadership has the freedom to choose curricula, which can include biblical teaching and religious discussions. The benefits of such an educational opportunity have an eternal impact on young lives, with students deepening their faith and developing servants’ hearts.

In this final installment of the “Letter to My Alma Mater” series, alumni share how their relationship with God transformed during their time at MPCS and how developing a strong belief system has shaped their future.

For this third installment of the “Letter to My Alma Mater” series, former MPCS athletes offer their perspectives on making the transition from the field to the real world. Along the way, these alumni have made the MPC Way a part of their core values, demonstrating humility, passion, integrity, relentless pursuit, and a commitment to excellence in all they do.

          Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images

Over the past sixteen months, the Mount Paran Christian School Board of Trustees and Executive Council have spent extensive time discussing the mission of the school, the culture of our community, and the direction we are going in the future. As we head into the winter and spring quarters of this school year, we will engage the entire community in the strategic planning process (my next blog post will explore this process).  However, before we get there, we knew we would need to first examine the school’s mission as it was written years ago and determine the core values that will help us consider and make decisions about every area of the school for the coming years.

 

From encouraging creative thinking to working collaboratively, from honing skills to building confidence, the arts provide both an outlet for expression and input for developing innate artistic talent.

For the second part of the “Letter to My Alma Mater” series, MPCS alumni share how participation in the arts at the school changed their lives and offer advice for aspiring artists.

To accomplish its mission of uniting with home and church to prepare servant-leaders to honor God, love others, and walk in Truth, Mount Paran Christian School focuses on four pillars in everything we do: Academics, Arts, Athletics, and Christian Life. Through participation in these key areas, MPCS students graduate with a strong foundation for beginning their adult lives. For this “Letter to My Alma Mater” blog series, we asked several alumni to share their experiences at MPCS and how their time at the school made an impact on the path they took upon graduation.

If you’ve never been to a robotics competition, you need to go. You would be amazed—not just at the fascinating robots that are on display, the enormous amount of intelligence present, or the surprisingly satisfying smell of aluminum, plastic, and rubber—but by the way robotics teams have to strive to be the best they can be as a team. It’s also about how they can use their strengths to help other teams be successful.

Barbeque. Hurricane. Canoe. Though you may not realize it, these commonly used English words—among many others—originated from the language of the Taino people, indigenous to Puerto Rico and several other Caribbean islands. Beyond language, the Spanish culture has deeply influenced our society today. Chips and salsa have become so popular they are now one of the highest-selling snacks in the U.S., according to Interexchange.org. The rise of soccer as a popular sport in America can be partially attributed to its popularity within the Spanish culture. Famous Latin names are easily recognized, such as musician Jennifer Lopez, film star Antonio Banderas, actress Sofia Vergara, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and sports star Cristiano Ronaldo. And, so, for these—and many more—important contributions to America’s story, each year the U.S. government recognizes Hispanic Heritage Month.

Often, we wonder, “What does it take to be a good Christian?” In response, we may think about right versus wrong: saying the right thing, doing the right thing, thinking the right thing. Christianity is, however, more accurately summed up as love. It is our response to the love that God has for us that should compel us to want to do the right things, say the right things, and think the right things—not the other way around.

Over the last two decades, our society has been transformed by technology, especially high-tech tablets and smart phones. Technology touches our lives in so many ways that the children of today are surrounded by it at every turn. It is not uncommon for today’s elementary-aged children to have their own personal tablet, smart phone, or wrist watch that communicates with parents. Toddlers can often navigate a tablet with ease. Even new kitchen appliances are incorporating smart communication technology into their design. The challenge facing our society is how to best navigate this high-tech culture in a healthy manner. How can we balance our use of technology in order to avoid falling into negative patterns of too much screen time?

GUEST STUDENT AUTHORS

A recently developed leadership program at Mount Paran Christian School is providing high school students with the opportunity to learn, practice, and reflect on leadership. Developed by Jason Beard, Assistant Head of High School, the goLEAD program’s goal is to develop and empower today’s servant-leaders by teaching essential principles of leadership, collaborating with community and school leaders, and providing authentic experiences in leadership.

The goLEAD program has officially launched as a two-year curricular program, designed to prepare servant-leaders by teaching leadership principles, collaborating with community and school leaders, and providing authentic experiences for students to learn, practice, and reflect on their leadership. The thought of doing leadership intentionally was the spark that created a leadership-development program that incorporates a balance between learning about leadership and actually experiencing it.

the past

For well over a decade, one of the greatest days each year at Mount Paran Christian School has been our day of service. It was on this day that the entire staff and students would stop their normal routine of teaching and classes and spend the day serving our community. Through that annual experience, we have formed great partnerships with ministries in our community, exposed our students to the needs of those around us, and were able to focus on one of the things we want most for our kids — teaching them to show God’s love through serving others.

With its official beginnings in 1987, Women’s History Month is celebrated in March to honor the contribution of women to American History.  Jimmy Carter, who issued our nation’s first Presidential proclamation of National Women’s History Week in 1980 explained, “From the first settlers who came to our shores, from the first American Indian families who befriended them, men and women have worked together to build this nation. Too often the women were unsung and sometimes their contributions went unnoticed. But the achievements, leadership, courage, strength and love of the women who built America was as vital as that of the men whose names we know so well.”

A COMMITMENT TO THE LIBERAL ARTS PART 3:

At MPCS, we see the study of the liberal arts (humanities, science, mathematics, and the arts – broadly categorized) as a vehicle for enabling our students to develop as well-rounded individuals and to mature in community with one another. We see the liberal arts as a means of delivering truly important information and providing the tools that enable our students to think and process that information, so that upon graduation they have become well-informed, civically minded, flourishing humans.