Is there a market for this school in Jax?

[jax-native68]

The calendar year will have four 13-week academic terms with each term having 1 week for student vacation and one week for standardized testing, field trips, holidays and student parties and make-up work.  The vacation week can come at the start or the end of an academic term to accommodate holidays so students will have at least one 2-week vacation period during each calendar year.

The school will be a Christian school- primarily Protestant but otherwise non-sectarian.

Students will be prepared to take at least 8 AP exams by the time they graduate.

Students in grades 7-12 will have only 4 courses per academic term and most classes will have a daily lecture and a weekly lab period.  Whenever a course does not have a lab component the time can be used for homework, tutoring or in-school recreation.

PE will not be required.

[Garden guy]

Personally...i think a christian school is the last thing this city needs...there are plenty to cover all groups of christians. If any state or city money is used for any school it shouldn't be a religious school...let the church pay for it...not the citizens.

[vicupstate]

PE will not be required?  The state doesn't require it? 

Hello, Childhood Obesity

[jax-native68]

PE will not be required?  The state doesn't require it? 

Hello, Childhood Obesity

The state does not regulate the curriculum or the accreditation of private schools.

[Garden guy]

PE will not be required?  The state doesn't require it? 

Hello, Childhood Obesity

The state does not regulate the curriculum or the accreditation of private schools.

Which is just another reason why not one of them should revieve a dime of any public cash...tax breaks and all. Remember..the church doesnt have to pay taxes...so they get off not only teaching rubish they do it at the cost of the nation...end the tax exemption status for all religious groups now.

[tufsu1]

personally, I believe there is significant value in the summer camp experience....and the calendar proposed here would not allow it

[Tacachale]

PE will not be required?  The state doesn't require it? 

Hello, Childhood Obesity

The state does not regulate the curriculum or the accreditation of private schools.

No, but their accrediting bodies certainly do. I've never heard of a private school that didn't require PE. Otherwise that course schedule sounds pretty solid.

In terms of whether there's a "market" for a new private school here, you have to consider what it would be up against. Jax/North Florida already has a number of private Christian schools, and some of them are excellent. You'd really have to have a substantial support and financial base in place before even beginning.

[jax-native68]

personally, I believe there is significant value in the summer camp experience....and the calendar proposed here would not allow it

I am an only child of divorced parents and my mother worked 50-60 hours a week.  So I was never a big fan of summer vacation because it meant intense loneliness and extreme boredom.

The calendar I propose would give high school graduates the equivalent of 2 years of college.  Students will take AP classes for English lit; Foreign language; American History; European History; Calculus; Statistics; Biology; Chemistry and physics, and they’d also be able to take the AP exam for Art History and U.S. Government and Politics. 

So in economic terms alone a year-round school is worth it.  We could add a 9-week academic term to the existing public school system during the summer and cut 2.6 calendar years off the standard 13 year K-12 public school schedule even without making any changes to the standard public school K-12 curriculum we now have.  At current spending rates for Duval County public schools this would save over $19000 per student over the course of a K-12 education- over $2 billion for the entire school system.

Year-round school would also eliminate the need for remedial work at the start of each school year to compensate for what students forget over the summer.  Modifying the curriculum to eliminate course repetition would allow time for AP courses.  This would allow you to cut by half the amount of time needed to get a bachelor's degree so you'd save even more money per student.

[buckethead]

Your attempts to broaden educational options will not be well received here, so long as there is a religious component. Any challenge to the status quo of government indoctrination education should always be rebuked.

What is the curricular stance on evolution/creationism?

Who may go to heaven?

I did time at Trinity Christian Academy during my sentence. (Public schools were far worse, but for very different reasons) therefore, I have little personal fondness for the concept of religious/dogmatic "education" but I'd like to hear your views.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Students who attend Paxson Advanced Magnet school can already receive close to two years of credits - depending on the classes they take.  A friend's daughter enrolled at UNF this year as a sophomore in the Nursing program.  It's done, it just depends on how hard a student is willing to be pushed (by the parent, not the school)

In regards to the year round program, I'm all for it.  Due to the nature of my and my wife's jobs, I'm busy when she's not and vice-versa, so we usually end up taking our son out of school for family trips.  We can't take them in the summer and we can't take them in the spring, so we take them when we can.  I'm all for structuring the school system based on a 7 weeks on / 2 weeks off or something similar, throughout the year.

At least this way, he (mini-me) can do some travelling with his extended family when it's not the dead of summer.

[jax-native68]

Hello, Childhood Obesity

We have childhood obesity anyway, so why waste money on PE?

My school will have a hands-on environmental education component so students will have to spend time doing gardening work.

The state does not regulate the curriculum or the accreditation of private schools.

No, but their accrediting bodies certainly do.[/quote]

State law requires public schools in Florida to be accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.  But I don’t know of a single private school in Jacksonville that is also a Christian-based school that has SACS accreditation. Furthermore SACS does not regulate curriculum to any great extent.  Public school curricula in Florida are determined by state law and local school board requirements.  If SACS controlled public school curricula, the government wouldn’t have to.

In fact SACS gives individual schools broad leeway to design their own curriculum:

http://www.advanc-ed.org/webfm_send/10

QUALITY SCHOOL INDICATORS
In fulfillment of this standard, the school:
3.1 Develops and implements curriculum based on clearly-defined expectations for student learning
3.5 Offers a curriculum that challenges each student to excel, reflects a commitment to equity, and demonstrates an appreciation of diversity

I looked into SACS accreditation back in the 1990s when I first thought about opening a school.  At the time SACS was more concerned with teacher and school administrator training than anything.  A private school essentially had to hire people who qualified to work in a public school in order to get SACS accreditation.  So SACS was mostly concerned with supporting the public school teachers’ union.

The school I envision would require its teachers to have at least a bachelor’s degree with at least 40 credit hours of college work in the subject area in which they teach.


I've never heard of a private school that didn't require PE. Otherwise that course schedule sounds pretty solid.

Jax/North Florida already has a number of private Christian schools, and some of them are excellent.

Most of them are not.  Most are McKay Scholarship baby-sitting services for brats that cannot or will not do the work required in public schools.

You'd really have to have a substantial support and financial base in place before even beginning.

I have about $100,000 in cash and another $70,000 or so from a life insurance policy I can cash in along with property I can sell and no debt.  But my health isn’t good and I am the only caregiver for my disabled mother, so I don’t know that I could commit to being a full-time teacher let alone run a school.  My other option is to leave the state, buy land and try to set up an organic farm that can serve as an environmental education center, but I have the same problem with my health.  But either way I need to do something because the money isn’t earning me anything sitting in the bank earning less interest than the inflation rate.

[Garden guy]

You better get a heck of alot more cash than that...and as it sounds from your post it seems that you are ok with trying to get around standards which sounds like a scam...

[jax-native68]

Your attempts to broaden educational options will not be well received here, so long as there is a religious component. Any challenge to the status quo of government indoctrination education should always be rebuked.

What is the curricular stance on evolution/creationism?

Who may go to heaven?

I did time at Trinity Christian Academy during my sentence. (Public schools were far worse, but for very different reasons) therefore, I have little personal fondness for the concept of religious/dogmatic "education" but I'd like to hear your views.

My school will compare the Theory of Evolution with Creationism, but neither will be given the status of science because both are based on conclusions that cannot be tested by science meaning they are both faith systems.  Note: I am a Creationist Christian who graduated from Stanton in 1987 and I have a bachelor’s degree in biology (along with 40 credit hours in history) from Emory University.

Various religious beliefs would naturally be covered in the history curriculum, but the school would not expressly endorse any particular doctrine because my personal doctrine is not compatible with any existing denomination or sect of Christianity.  Imposing my doctrine on the school would likely mean an enrollment of zero. 

[Garden guy]

Umm..does that mean that you will promise to never teach that the only way to heaven is to believe in Jesus chirist as the son of god?

[avs]

Personally, I would not send my child to any school that did not teach about living a healthy lifestyle.  That includes fresh food and PE.  The obesity epidemic in the US begins in childhood so teaching kids healthy living from a young age is critical.  Great for adding art history (what I actually have my degree in) but music is important too, especially for helping develop math skills.   Raising kids to appreciate quality of life and not just facts and figures is what I would look for in a school for my child.