Pre-Kindergarten Offers Students Their First "School" Experience

Early childhood education in the United States is the result of an increased number of households of younger families with children in which both parents work.  It is something that has evolved, from providing basic day care and play time for children into some experimentation with the addition of basic learning objectives and instruction in social skills that students would normally learn at home.  The research that was done showed that children as young as three can benefit from an early learning experience.  

There have been some early education programs around for quite a while.  Head Start, which is primarily for children from lower income families, has been operating for over 60 years.  And while many public school systems have only recently added pre-school programs for four year olds, child development centers, early ed programs and "junior kindergarten" or pre-kindergarten programs operated by private, religious-based schools have a long history.  

MCA Operates a Pre-Kindergarten Program for Three and Four Year Olds

Pre-Kindergarten, which was once known as "junior kindergarten," is what we offer in early childhood education at MCA.  We are not a child development center, by definition.  Our program operates under full recognition of the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) as an academic extension of our school program.  Our curriculum incorporates basic learning objectives, primarily related to language development and early reading skills through some phonics objectives.  Students also learn to write letters and numbers, identify colors, count, and in the four year old class, do some basic reading.  

The structure of the class provides some practice in learning readiness.  Students get used to being around other students their age, they learn some basic socialization skills, they get used to being away from their parents for a few hours a day which helps prepare them for their school experience and they learn some social skills.  

The Pre-Kindergarten students also participate in the same "out classes" as the older students, including Physical Education, vocal music and art.  

There is research which indicates that being involved in pre-kindergarten education gives students an academic advantage all the way through their educational experience.  Early development of language arts skills leads students to a clearer understanding in all subject areas by improving their vocabulary, reading comprehension and communication skills well above the expected grade level performance.  At MCA, over 80% of our Pre-Kindergarten students are proficient at the Kindergarten level in reading and language arts skills before they enter Kindergarten. That advantage goes with them all through school.   

You Have Chosen a Quality Program For Your Child

MCA offers a high quality early learning program in pre-kindergarten 3 and 4.  And while our program is an academic boost, our primary goal is to provide a Christian atmosphere for students and families, where children are cared for and loved during the day.  Our staff is quite experienced, one of our teachers is now a grandmother, who has more than 20 years of experience in Pre-K instruction, and the other three are long-term parents of students here at MCA, so they are dedicated to helping provide the same kind of caring, safe, nurturing environment they have received for their own children.  

Our school operates on a philosophy of education that begins with the acknowledgement that the greatest commandment is to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind," and the second is like the first, to "Love you neighbor as you love yourself."  We desire for all of our students to see the love of God in their teachers.  We have succeeded if we accomplish that goal.

Our academic standards are high.  We have a low student to teacher ratio, with a qualified instructor and a teacher's aide in each classroom, limited to an enrollment of 15 students.  We use Abeka curriculum, which is one of the top providers of pre-kindergarten curriculum materials and which has a language arts program that is aligned with objectives from Pre-K4 through 12th grade.  We see a high level of success among our students in English/Language Arts using Abeka materials.  

MCA is an Illinois-Recognized private school meeting ISBE standards, and operates our Pre-K as an academic extension of Kindergarten for ages 3 and 4 as a religious-based school program.  As such, our staff is fully qualified under those standards.  We do not offer specialized programs or instruction in social skills such as might be found in a school labelled as a child development center.    

MCA is also fully accredited by the Commission of the Association of Christian Schools International, which is nationally recognized, and which offers dual accreditation through NCASC, MSACS and SACS-CASI, and Cognia.    

Midwestern Christian Academy Begins it's 68th Year of Service on August 26

In Christian school education in the United States, schools that have been operating for 68 years are not all that common.  In 1956, when MCA was founded, private, religious based schools not affiliated with the Catholic, Lutheran or Episcopalian churches numbered fewer than 300.  There is not a lot of information available about how many, or where, Evangelical Christian schools were located in the city of Chicago, but from what we know about our fellow schools in the city, only MCA has existed continuously since 1956.  Any of those that existed back then, or prior to that date, are now closed and gone.  

MCA was started as part of the Youth for Christ movement, founded by the pastor of Midwest Bible Church at the time, Torrey Johnson.  The church had established Phantom Ranch Bible Camp in Wisconsin as a ministry to children and youth two years earlier and establishing a Christian school in Chicago on the church campus was the second part of that ministry's growth.  Billy Graham's ministry also started as he worked with Youth for Christ, and he preached his first sermon on the radio from what is now our Pre-K building. 

The Ministry of a Christian School

From the scripture, we can discern five clear functions of a Christian church, a local body of Christ, made up of believers in him who have confessed their sin and their acknowledgement of the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross, and have been transformed by the renewing of their mind, and sanctified by the cleansing of their souls with the blood of Christ into the Kingdom of God, his church.  Churches worship God, they make disciples of Jesus by educating their members in scriptural principle and practice, they reach out to the world with the message of the Christian gospel as a mission of evangelism, they provide ministry to their members and to others based on their spiritual needs, and they come together in fellowship.  

The primary ministry of a Christian school is Christian education, which meets the discipleship function of a church.  We also introduce students to the Christian gospel, which means that evangelism is also one of our functions.  

Over the 235 years since the Constitution was ratified, and the almost 200 years of existence of public schools, a series of court rulings based on the first amendment's establishment clause has created a public school system that does not provide any religious instruction.  Since the public schools are supported by public funds, the courts have determined that the establishment clause of the first amendment prohibits those schools from providing religious instruction.  The sectarian nature of American Christianity would make it impossible for a public school to properly and accurately teach all aspects of every religion practiced by all students.  So it takes a position known as "religious neutrality," by not providing any religious instruction to students. 

Christian schools were founded to come along side parents and help them provide the kind of Christian discipleship and education for their children that would help them grow and develop into mature believers in Christ.  It is difficult to counter the influence of the secular humanism that dominates public school curriculum in just a few hours of activities in the local church during the week.  So Christian schools have been providing instruction which not only includes Biblical studies and worship each week, but which integrates Biblical principles into all aspects of education where it is relevant.  

Generally, Christian schools also provide a solid, quality academic experience for students.  We don't have a lot of "bells and whistles," but our curriculum objectives focus on skills, leaving the social issues and social philosophy to parents.  We spend seven solid hours a day in mastering academic objectives and our students excel in the measurements used to determine the level of their progress.  Our most recent measurement of average yearly progress shows that 89% of our students are proficient in reading and English-language arts skills, and 87% are proficient in mathematics, which is considerably higher than the public education system achieves.  

There Are No Guarantees

Evangelical Christian churches have been struggling for the past four decades as membership and attendance have been in a steep decline.  Since the later years of the 20th century, more than 70% of the children and youth who have been raised in our churches, involved in our youth groups and attending our children's ministries will leave the church entirely by the time they graduate from college.  It has become very difficult for churches to provide the kind of discipleship ministry necessary to compete in the "marketplace of ideas," and keep the interest of those who may not be solidly committed before they graduate from high school.  

But among the children and youth who have attended a Christian school for at least five years of their grade school educational experience, that figure turns almost completely around.  More than 70% of those children will remain engaged in a church, and become active in its ministry, into adulthood.  Part of that is the time invested in studying the Bible, and engaging in fellowship with other Christians in the same school definitely has a strong impact on their faith.  At MCA, every student is involved in a study of the scripture every single day.  And they are taught critical thinking skills which help them find a way to apply what they read and are taught.  

When the time comes and a child or young adult experiences the conviction from the Holy Spirit of their own sinfulness, we hope that the time they have spent in Christian school will have a big influence over the decision they make at that point in their lives.  We also hope, through this study, that they realize God does have a purpose for their life, and that he will provide a way for them to fulfill that purpose.  Whether that is serving as a missionary in a foreign country where people may have never heard about Jesus, or as the pastor or a leader in a local church, or if it is to be the Christian who sets an example by their life in the office where they work, we want them to be ready for that experience as a result of having been taught here.  

There are few Christian schools located in the urban areas of the United States.  So even though we are a small school, we have an opportunity to have a big impact.  Pray for our students, as they come each day, that they will become aware of God's calling on their life and respond.  That is our mission and purpose, and what we hope to achieve each school year.