Parental Involvement is Key
One of the things that makes Veritas Academy unique among educational choices is the fact that it is Classical in approach, Christian in worldview, and based on a University Model that meets two to three days a week and allows families to select the courses that best suit their family’s needs. The modern trend toward university model education has its roots in the early 1990s with establishment of Grace Preparatory Academy in Arlington, Texas.
Former Grace Dean Dr. John Turner is now the Family Ministry Specialist for the National Association of University Model Schools. While we aren’t affiliated with this organization, many of the keys to successful university model education that Turner shares are also keys to success in a Classical Christian school like ours that follows this model.
Turner believes all approaches to education are strengthened when parents are meaningfully involved, but he is quick to say that the university model absolutely depends upon such participation.
“To lay the responsibility for America’s educational crisis only on the schools is to fail to understand the issues,” Turner said. “Even in the best of school situations, teachers and administrators must work with children who are products of home environments that both precede them and extend beyond their scopes of supervision. Parents are the ones responsible for preparing their children to show, at the very least, reasonable respect for authority and basic consideration of others so
that, once in school, their instruction can be accomplished in an ordered environment conducive to learning.”Because schools reflect homes, Turner finds that “University-Model Schools are accessing the most powerful known
single influence for reforming education in America –meaningfully involved parents.”Proposed solutions to America’s educational problems typically
recommend more time in class, removing students even further from the teachers they need most, Turner said, referring to parents. “University-Model Schools are not only empowering and ’employing’ parents in their teaching paradigm, they are
also demonstrating the positive differences made when parents know that they are built into the learning process — needed, wanted and expected.”
To read the full text of the source of these quotes, click here.