Non Denom Christian School for Catholics?

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SaintMonica

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I have a six year old son who is attending kindergarten at our local public school. I had planned to homeschool him, and we did join a co op and loosely homeschooled pre k, but my husband had asked that before we commit to homeschooling fully, we try the public school. I agreed, and here we are in March and I know that our local public school is not going to meet our needs.
I am ready to homeschool. I reconnected with some homeschool friends and I’ve looked into signing up for a new co op.
I brought this up with my husband, and he balked. We talked about it, and he does not want our children to be homeschooled.
I am now looking into private schools as our option. Our parish does not have a school and the closest parochial school is quite a commute and also quite expensive. Catholic school does not look like an option for us. We live in a rural community, but there is a small, non denominational Christian church that hosts a Christian school. It’s an easy commute and affordable.
I would not consider this school as an option if I could homeschool. But, considering my option now is either to stay with our public school, or to join the non denominational school, the non denominational school is looking to be the least awful of the two.
Feedback? Has anyone sent their Catholic kids to a non denomination Christian school? What was your experience?
 
I can’t speak to the non-denominational school. I suspect you probably just need to look into that specific school and ask lots of questions. I was wondering why your husband doesn’t want you to homeschool anymore. If you haven’t done so, maybe ask him what it is he wants for your kids that he doesn’t think they’ll get in home school. Maybe you can find some way to make that happen. For example, maybe you can put your son in half-day kindy. This is actually quite common in my school district as many parents feel that a whole day of school is too long for kindergarteners. Maybe that would be an acceptable compromise?
 
I am not willing to go too deeply into detail considering this is a public forum, but I have talked to him, I know his reasons, and while I don’t agree with him, I acquiesce to his position as to go forward without his support would put strain on our marriage.
Unfortunately, we do not have a half day option in our district. It was something that I had looked into when we registered for kindergarten.
 
If I want to raise good, non-denominational kids I would send them to a non-denominational school. They likely have a “Statement of Faith” you must sign that will be sola-Scriptura and Sola Fide.

Do you really want your 6 year old to need to defend his belief in the Virgin Mary?
 
That has been my belief as well. Protestant programs create protestants. But, what is public school creating? Is defending Mary to other Christians better or worse than defending Jesus and Catholics to people who insist that not only are Catholics wrong, but that their beliefs are harmful?
 
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My son went to public school for 13 years. Part of that in the DEEP south where Baptist books were okey dokey in the curriculum.

We as parents taught the Faith at home, we lived it all day every day. As he grew older, he became quite an apologist carrying a Catechism in his backpack, engaging in honest debate with AP History teachers, reading Belloc in class and writing theme papers on topics like “Anti Catholicism in America”.
SaintMonica said:
than defending Jesus and Catholics to people who insist that not only are Catholics wrong, but that their beliefs are harmful?
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Do you live in country that is hostile to Christianity? In the US, public school students are protected by the Constitution and hostility to Christianity is not allowed (contrary to what many outrage websites would have you believe).
 
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We live in the US. We live in a community where the majority of people are unchurched, and while hostility may not be allowed, the current climate in our public school is not warm towards people of faith. Even in kindergarten we have met parents who actively encourage their kids to say things like ‘Jesus isn’t real’. As you mentioned that your child went to a PS where Baptist books were permitted in the curriculum, likely, that would mirror our experience if we joined the private school.
 
It may not be ideal, but like any school, its the interaction between the parents and their child that has far more impact than the interaction between the teacher and the student.

Teachers only have the students 6-8 hours a day…parents have them the other 16-18 hours a day. If parents view education (secular or religious) as the duty of the teacher and not the duty of the parent, well, you get what you get.

Education (again, secular or religious) is like music lessons. The student can have the best piano teacher for an hour class each week, but without the parent encouraging practice, the money on the lessons is wasted!
 
I agree, it is not ideal. One advantage of the NDS over PS is that the NDS is welcoming of parental involvement and volunteering, wheras the PS is quite restrictive. I have the opportunity to be more involved in his daily education in that sense, as well as continuing what we do in our home.
 
Nope. I would never willing send my kid to be indoctrinated in evangelical Protestant beliefs.

Because I’ve seen the damage it does to the Catholic Faith.
 
SaintMonica said:
As you mentioned that your child went to a PS where Baptist books were permitted in the curriculum, likely, that would mirror our experience if we joined the private school.
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The thing is, we went to the administration and school board and were able to get the anti-Catholic things removed, to bring in Catholic speakers to rebut the Baptist speaker who came in as an to AP History as an expert on the Reformation.

That will not happen at a non-denominational school.
 
In my experience, it is really unlikely that a public school teacher would engage a student about their religious beliefs and while another student might express that they believe differently than what the Catholic Church teaches, I’ve always felt I’d rather have my child learn that children of other faiths believe differently than Catholics do than go to a school where they are exposed to children from Catholic-in-name-only families who will misrepresent what Catholics believe in the first place. Perhaps even encounter teachers and other adults that will mis-teach Catholic beliefs either intentionally, or through their actions.
 
Correct. That would not happen at the NDS. You also keep giving examples of your experience with high school, which isn’t very applicable to my situation. But thank you for taking the time to respond.
 
The examples went all the way back to grade school.

A 2nd grade teacher who insisted on letting Gideon Bibles (complete with the “sinners prayer” printed inside) be handed out in class.

The soft anti-Catholicism in public school was one thing because we had recourse.

Just look at the Statement of Faith, make sure that it does not contain things to which you cannot attest.
 
I agree, which is why we gave the first trial to the public school. It’s actually what makes this such a difficult thing to discern. If the only issue we had was how our faith would be challenged, public school would not be too much of an issue. While that has been addressed in this thread, and I appreciate the oppinions put forth because I share them, our issue with the public school goes beyond whether or not someone will challenge us as Catholics. We have a very disfunctional school district, in an area of extreme rural poverty. Our kids our being exposed casually, even in kindergarten, to some pretty harsh aspects of reality. The school is also failing financially, and is having problems retaining qualified staff. I could go on. The reality of our public school may not be the reality that others have experienced within their own community.
 
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I understand completely. My first teaching job was in an extremely impoverished rural area. I accepted the job pretty much sight-unseen, expecting rolling hills, country music, hard work and ingenuity, deer hunting, strong family values, patriotism, and apple butter festivals. What I got was unabashed illiteracy, complete dependence on the state, mistrust and contempt for outsiders, blatant racism, and occasional meth lab explosions. Nothing in my preservice training prepared me for working with this demographic. All of my training in understanding poverty presumed urban poverty, which isn’t pretty either, but is a completely different animal. There were not sufficient certified teachers in this community and there was basically no incentive for anyone to move there. The pay was $26 grand a year and you pay your own health insurance. They couldn’t understand why no one wanted to work there. I quit because I couldn’t afford to love on that, but I also couldn’t justify teaching in a school I would not send my own children to.
 
I don’t know about non denoms. But we had a similar dilemma years ago. Our Catholic school system leaves a lot to be desired and although our public schools are great we just wanted to provide a different education for our kids. There was an amazing protestant school close by, even named after a Catholic saint. Classical education, uniforms, the strictness we wanted and the morals to match. It was incredibly expensive but there was a huge discount for multiple children which is something our local Catholic schools did not do. We considered it and met with the teachers. I was on board. Until… I saw a pledge that the families had to sign promising to uphold the reformation and even included Catholics as non Christian. While it said they were welcome it made clear that Catholic or any other faith would not be allowed to express viewpoints in a fair environment. This school was k-12 so it would have been a real issue later. I asked the teachers and principle about this and they not only reaffirmed it but expanded on it and flat out said that part of the schools mission would be to evangelize students that may be Catholics. So, we homeschooled. We use Seton and love it. My oldest is now in 8th grade and I couldn’t be happier with the curriculum but also the quality of Catechisis of the work.

Things all worked out for the best. We have gone on to have enough kids that some of them would have gone to the other school for free.

I’d be real careful sending my kids to any religious based school that was not my religion. Even if it didn’t seem to be too evangelical. There are MAJOR differences and that will come to light later. And personally I’d rather them be great public school Catholics. But that is our family, Your job is to figure out what is best for your family. At a young age you have time and room to try different things. Early grades are very basic and forgiving. And the doctrinal issues are less prevalent in the early grades. But you will indeed always be an outsider. Know that.
 
It sucks when you enroll your kid in piano lessons and they come home having been taught the harmonica though.

And a lot of the hours you speak of the kids are sleeping. During the school year the vast majority of the time a child is alert and aware is in school. And you get to decide if that school is influencing them the way the government wants, the protestant wants, the Catholic schools want, or you want.
 
SaintMonica We were blessed with good public schools. Fully half of our parish children attend public schools. We and used them and our parish’s excellent School of Religion so we did not consider using the parochial school. However, our elementary school’s families were generally stable, sane, often two-parent, and Christian or of Christian-background. If you are concerned that the surrounding population does not sufficiently share your values, then in my view it can’t hurt to consider the nondenominational Christian school. You should ask if you could visit for a day while school is in session, and ask for their faith statement, and religious ed and participation requirements. If you like what you see, meet with the school director and ask them, point blank, if the kids are going to be taught that Catholics are going to hell.
 
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