Administrators at Steinbach Christian School (SCS) are seeking input from parents in Niverville and the surrounding area to help determine the level of interest in a private satellite school for this region.
Representatives of the school, including Principal Thor Barkman, educator Dylan Zacharias, and other administration, will host an informational town hall at the CRRC on December 3.
For convenience, two separate sessions are being offered, one at 4:30 p.m. and the other at 7:00 p.m.
Barkman says that the first step in this process began with engaging members of the local ministerial.
“We are exploring the feasibility of small-scale Christian education options that can exist farther away from a large campus,” says Barkman. “We have the organizational stability and administrative expertise to support satellite locations if other communities have sufficient interest.”
For a variety of reasons, Barkman says, interest in faith-based education seems to be growing in the southeast. The appeal for parents, he says, is in knowing their child’s school shares the same system of values and encourages participation from parents.
“[SCS] has grown by 46 percent over the last two years,” Barkman says. “We get applications from families within a 50-kilometre radius of the school, with a solid number from the Niverville area. The limiting factor for younger students is transportation. Our mandate is to be useful to our community, so if families in Niverville decide that a closer location would be useful to them then we will work with the churches and parents to make it happen.”
But Barkman says there are more benefits to private schooling than faith development. In general, he says, schools like SCS can provide smaller class sizes, resulting in calmer classroom experiences.
The opportunities for participation in co-curricular activities are also greater, he says.
“Public schools have changed significantly in the last 25 years,” Barkman says. “Parents are noticing changes in academic achievement, a dip in student ambition, and a rise in students self-reporting aimlessness. Parents are looking for ways to shift the margins of opportunity for their kids, to improve the odds of success. We step in to support families who are committed to an education that shares a worldview with meaning and purpose.”
SCS has a long-standing history in southeast Manitoba. Founded in 1949, the school celebrated its seventy-fifth anniversary this past October.
Previously operating under the name Steinbach Bible College, SCS changed its name and purpose when it evolved into a full Kindergarten to Grade 12 learning centre in recent years.
The student body currently stands at 441 and enrolment grows at an average rate of 15 percent per year. This has required the addition of more classrooms each year.
Together, the staff and student body represent more than 45 churches. Pastors from the area provide theological teaching at weekly chapels gatherings.
