by Todd Perkins, Head of School
As we enter the second month of the school year, we want to highlight some of the program and facility improvements here at Friends Christian School.
One obvious improvement is the new turf field on our elementary playground. We’ve installed a high quality artificial turf surface and also leveled the field to give all students a safe and cleaner play surface. We’ve also made some improvements for students safety by installing gates at the top of The Terrace stairs and a secondary exit gate from our enclosed PE field. One additional safety measure is the implementation of a keyless entry system on the south entrance for Friends Christian Preschool (FCPS). This step has helped to ensure that all public entries are now made through the church’s main entrance which is manned throughout the school day.
Two additional improvements are underway this week. First, we’re replacing all of the rubberized surfacing on our FCPS playgrounds. Work on the Ocean playground began Monday morning and we’ll have both sides fully renovated by mid-to-late October. Second, installation of our new kindergarten playground shade structure is scheduled to begin this week. This work should move quickly and we hope to have everything completed by the end of next week.
On the program side, both preschools are now using an upgraded writing curriculum to better prepare students for kindergarten. This year marks the second year of implementation for our new math curriculum with an expansion to K-3 after last year’s roll out in 4th-8th grade. We’ve also introduced a new science curriculum in 5th-8th grade with a plan to extend this to K-4th grade next fall. With these new roll outs, we will have introduced new math, science, and ELA curriculum in all grade levels since 2019!
Finally, this year marks our 5th year in our current accreditation cycle so we’ll be working on our school’s self study in advance of the next ACSI/WASC accreditation visit in spring, 2024. The self-study will document all areas of school operations and will involve input from all stakeholders including staff/faculty members, families, church officials, and students.
Our focus remains on providing the best possible program for all of our 1,200 students! Let’s have a great school year!