T H E A S C E N S I O N E P I S C O PA L S C H O O L P R AY E R O He av e n l y Fat h e r, w h o h a s g i v e n u s t hy S o n , Je su s C h r i s t , t o b e o u r Redeemer and friend, help us to understand his friendship and to do su c h t h i n g s a s w o u l d p l e a s e h i m . B l e s s u s i n o u r w o r k a n d i n o u r p l ay.
Make us gentle, generous, truthful, kind and brave. Keep us in purity of hear t and let the life of our school go on from s t r e n g t h t o s t r e n g t h a n d h av e i t s p l a c e a n d m e a n i n g i n t hy k i n g d o m . A l l o f w h i c h w e a s k t h r o u g h Je su s Christ our Lord.
Amen.
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ASCENSION E P I S C O PA L S C H O O L AN OUTRE ACH M I N I ST R Y O F
T H E E P I S C O PA L C H U R C H OF THE ASCENSION L A FAY E T T E , LO U I S I A N A Since 1959
T h e R e v e r e n d Jo s e p h E . D a l y R e c t o r, T h e E p i s c o p a l C h u r c h o f t h e A s c e n s i o n
Je a n e t t e P l a u c h é Pa r ke r, E d . D . Fo u n d i n g He a d , A s c e n s i o n D ay S c h o o l
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Contents INTRODUCTION_____________________________________5 THE EPISCOPAL DAY SCHOOL: A “LITTLE IMAGE” OF THE CHURCH___________________________________7 Episcopal Schools Today____________________________7 Episcopal Identity_______________________________________8 Independent Episcopal Schools _________8 Diocesan Episcopal Schools ________________9 Episcopal Parish Day Schools______________9 THE PARISH AND THE SCHOOL: A CRITICAL RELATIONSHIP______________1 1 ASCENSION EPISCOPAL SCHOOL____1 5 BLESS US I N OUR WORK & IN OUR PLAY_____________________________________1 9
INTRODUCTION Ascension Episcopal School is an unincorporated ministry of the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Lafayette, Louisiana. The church’s authority lies in the Vestry and its Rector, who delegate the school’s affairs to the Ascension School Board and a professionally qualified Head of School who is the sole employee of the Board. The Episcopal Church of the Ascension is dedicated to its Anglican heritage and identity. The church’s worship is centered around God’s gracious gift of Himself in Christ and celebrated through the sacraments. The church community is evangelical and takes seriously Jesus’ call to obedience, holding the Holy Scriptures to be authoritative in their lives and believing them to be inspired by the Holy Spirit. Parish leaders describe themselves as orthodox and read the Scriptures through the eyes of the historic Church, adhering to the ancient Creeds as guideposts for belief and worship. This publication presents a brief history of Episcopal education, the various types of Episcopal schools that exist today, the interdependent relationships of church and school, and a statement of the theology on which Ascension Episcopal School was founded and is operated in today’s enigmatic world. It is our hope that the parishioners of Ascension Church and the Ascension School Community will find these discussions helpful in understanding the reasons why the church needs a school and the school needs a church. The Rev. Joseph E. Daly Jeanette Plauché Parker, Ed.D.
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UNITED WAY DAY OF ACTION Volunteers from both the Episcopal Church of The Ascension and Ascension Episcopal School spent a Saturday morning helping out our neighbors at JW Faulk Elementary School.
PARISH PROUD SERVICE PROJECT
UGANDA FUNDRAISER
Students partnered with “Parish Proud” to make our upper school campus cleaner & greener.
Students who donated to our sister school in Uganda earned “free dress” for the day.
THE EPISCOPAL DAY SCHOOL : A “LIT TLE IMAGE” OF THE CHURCH
purpose was to develop “discerning individuals with the intellectual and moral courage to lead principled lives of leadership and service to others.” Over the next hundred years and well into the 21st century, the Episcopal school movement had begun its expansion around the nation. The degree and nature of the schools’ Episcopal identity varied, ranging from independent schools that identify as Episcopalian in name and philosophy only to diocesan and parish day schools that are officially aligned with Episcopal dioceses or parish churches.
During the early 19th century, two of the greatest minds in the history of education—John Henry Newman and William Augustus Muhlenberg— began to shape the nature and influence of Christian schools. In a 2011 compendium of their philosophies, W. L. Prehn identified explicit components of their work that serve as guides to today’s Episcopal schools. With Dr. Prehn’s generous permission, major points gleaned from their respective works are incorporated into this essay.
Episcopal Schools Today The National Association of Episcopal Schools (NAES), an independent organization formed in 1965 to “support, serve, and advocate for Episcopal
In 1839, Episcopal High School opened its 80acre campus just west of the colonial port of Alexandria, Virginia, to “35 eager young men.” Its 7
School education,” lists nearly 1200 member schools. While these schools may take any of several different formats, they are bound by the identity that aligns them with the Episcopal Church.
Episcopal Identity As embodiments of the Christian faith, Episcopal schools are created to be communities that honor, celebrate, and worship God as the center of life. They exist not merely to provide a quality education, but also to demonstrate and proclaim the unique worth and beauty of all human beings as creations of a loving, empowering God. In keeping with the traditional Anglican approach to education, Episcopal schools are “Christian communities whose missions integrate spiritual formation into all aspects of 8
the educational experience.” These ideals are achieved through worship and study based on the liturgical resources of The Episcopal Church; community life that supports and nurtures the physical, mental, and emotional health of all constituents; and the inclusion of community service and service learning (NAES). Independent Episcopal Schools are financially self-sufficient, non-profit corporations. They may differ in mission, governance, and financial management. An independent Episcopal school may (or may not) be affiliated with an Episcopal parish or diocese, and may be accredited by, or a member of, an Episcopal accrediting agency. Independent schools are typically governed by a Board of Trustees
and supported primarily through tuition payments, fund-raising activities, and other charitable contributions. Regardless of their structure, name, affiliation, or accreditation, the primary emphasis in most independent Episcopal schools is on academics, but with religious studies and/or chapel either made a part of the curriculum or simply offered as an option. Diocesan Episcopal Schools are officially affiliated with the Episcopal Church dioceses within which they are geographically located. They are typically overseen by a local Board of Trustees that answers to the diocesan convention, the bishop of the diocese, and/or a diocesan council. Diocesan schools may vary in mission, educational policies, and governance in accordance with their respective canons. Like 9
most independent schools, they typically stress academics as their primary mission, with religious studies, chapel, and/or other religious activities either made part of the curriculum or offered as curricular options. The diocesan Episcopal school is not officially aligned with a parish church. Episcopal Parish Day Schools According to the National Association of Episcopal Schools (2019), “Over 900 parishes and cathedrals in the Episcopal Church have a school as part of their ministry. Parish day schools are a vital dimension of the Episcopal Church’s ministry of outreach, and each year a growing number of children are nurtured in mind, body, and spirit in our parish schools.” In most cases the parish day school is not separately
incorporated but is a component of one legal entity within its sponsoring parish. While the parish vestry may delegate the day-to-day operation of the school to a school board (sometimes called a Board of Trustees or Directors) and a head of school, the Rector and vestry retain the ultimate legal and financial authority for the school and other decisions that may affect or otherwise relate to the operation of the parish. The Rector’s regular, active relationship with the school helps to ensure that the policies, governance, curriculum, and all activities of the school are in keeping with the mission and canons of the national church and the diocese, as well as the mission of the parish itself. The Rector is responsible for selecting and/or approving the engagement of all persons who are involved in delivering the 10
spiritual components of the curriculum. In a parish day school, faculty members view their teaching not merely as a job or a profession, but as a vocation—a calling from God. This calling helps to inform the methods and attitudes that they display in their teaching as well as their personal interactions with their students. Perhaps the most distinguishable characteristic of a parish day school is the symbiotic and collaborative relationship that exists between the school and the parish church. In keeping with his or her canonical duties, the Rector has oversight of the religious components (worship, religious instruction, and other faith-based activities) of the school. As pastor of the parish, the Rector works to integrate the church and
school community into one Christian family. The Rector, head, vestry, and school board develop and utilize shared language to interpret the school and its mission to parishioners, parents, and the wider community, and the school is recognized as a major ministry of the parish church. The significance of this relationship and the school’s Christian mission are publicly and frequently demonstrated to the parish family, and parishioners are encouraged to enroll their children in the school.
school must be a “little image” of the church. To be the church, the parish day school must prepare its students not only for higher education and professional accomplishment but also, more importantly, for lives of service to Christ. The school not only is an integral part of the parish community but also is recognized by parish leaders and members as a major ministry of the parish church.
THE PARISH AND THE SCHOOL : A CRITICAL RELATIONSHIP
So why does a school need a church, and— perhaps even more critical—why does a parish church need a school?
Parish day schools differ widely from other Episcopal schools. Their primary purpose is the formation of Christian character. The school community is a Christian family with Jesus Christ as its Head, and the
Diocesan and independent Episcopal schools represent worthy efforts by Episcopal parishes or dioceses that unite, through a common faith, in like missions. However, their lack of official connection with
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an active parish church—a community of believers who define and work to achieve a mission centered on the faith—can deflect attention from the primary goal of the Christian church, which is to produce disciples who seek to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission. It is for this purpose that the parish church needs a school—to inform and grow its flock in the faith from baptism to adulthood, to pursue excellence not only in an academic context, not just to achieve prominence in life, but also to develop the God-given talents of our students that they may use them to serve God and humankind. Concomitantly, the school needs the church to provide the Christian environment in which that growth can thrive with Christ as our supreme teacher. The parish day school offers that opportunity and is a critical part of the church. 12
Education pioneer Muhlenberg compared a Church without schools to a mother who neglects or abandons the nurture of her offspring. In his view, it is not sufficient for a truly Christian school to espouse “an essentially secular approach to teaching, learning, and curriculum with a little religion added to the mix.” In the words of C. S. Lewis, “Aim for Heaven, and you get earth thrown in; aim for earth, and you get neither.” To achieve true academic excellence, a school must aim above academic excellence. A close interrelationship with a parish church is essential for a truly Christian school to fully serve its purpose. According to Prehn, “without schools, the Church is fighting the world with one arm tied behind the back.” In keeping with traditional Episcopal philosophy, “the
best schools provide an institutional experience that complements the other two institutional experiences crucial to the healthy maturation of a person: the family and the parish church. The healthy family, the alive parish church, and the school are meant to go together. At their best, Episcopal schools provide an educational experience that concerns itself with all that it means to be a human being. Church schools prepare children and youth for their calling in life, for great college choices and vocational opportunities, and for lives of service to others” (Prehn, 2011).
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Ascension Episcopal School OUR MISSION Ascension Episcopal School is committed to educational excellence in a Christian environment.
BALANCED E XCELLENCE Ascension’s mission is accomplished through a holistic philosophy we call Balanced Excellence — a structure designed to offer each student the opportunity to reach his or her full potential. This balance of curricular and extracurricular experiences enables students to achieve high academic standards, gain an appreciation for the arts, participate in competitive athletics, and perform acts of service, while growing physically, spiritually, emotionally, and socially.
ASCENSION EPISCOPAL SCHOOL Originating as a grass-roots effort from within the community of The Episcopal Church of the Ascension, Ascension Day School began life in 1959 with a single kindergarten class of 17 children. After undergoing several expansions and a name change to reflect its increasingly comprehensive nature, Ascension Episcopal School ultimately became the largest parish day school in the Diocese of Western Louisiana and one of the largest Episcopal schools in the state. Today it is the largest outreach ministry of Ascension Parish, serving over 600 students from preschool through the 12th grade. In keeping with its mission to offer educational excellence in a Christian environment, Ascension integrates the faith into and throughout the entire curriculum. St. Luke’s Gospel cites Christ’s Great Commission: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” In its role as a major ministry of a local parish, the parish day school has a unique opportunity to help young people bring Jesus’s commandment to fruition. Ascension’s balanced liberal arts curriculum seeks to develop the 15
whole child, encompassing the life of the mind (academics) and the body (athletics), the artistic (the visual and performing arts) and a spirit of servant leadership (acts of service), to better oneself and one another. Religious instruction and regular chapel services are offered at Ascension by an ordained priest who not only is a fulltime faculty member at the upper school but also participates as needed in clerical duties (preaching, teaching, visiting, and celebrating the Eucharist) for the parish. Ascension’s Rector oversees and bears authority for oversight of the school (including the selection of and collaboration with all personnel who serve our students in the religious areas of the curriculum). These collaborative
assignments and efforts provide year-round use of our clergy’s training and talents and further strengthen the close ties that must exist between the church and the school. Ascension’s parish and school share the use of, and responsibility for maintenance of, the properties on which the two entities operate. This shared occupancy not only offers a financial advantage to both parish and school but also ensures a continuous and more comprehensive utilization of church property that is often lacking in non-school parishes. Finally, Ascension Episcopal School serves as an effective instrument for recruiting new families, providing a continuous source for maintaining an active and dynamic parish. One-half of the new
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parishioners in Ascension’s latest confirmation class were drawn to Ascension through their children’s enrollment in our school. At the same time, the school offers parish families an additional option for making the church a part of their children’s lives—a bonus that does not exist in the public-school world. As a Christian school in which God is celebrated at the center of Life, Ascension welcomes all as God’s children who are called to model the life of Jesus, the source of grace and truth. Through a balanced liberal arts education that integrates Christian formation with diverse opportunities for the whole child in academics, athletics, arts, and acts of service, the school strives to help all students discover their potential, develop their unique, God-given gifts,
and be shaped into men and women of character, so that they may know the Truth, love the Good, and serve God and neighbor.
References National Association of Episcopal Schools, 815 Second Avenue, Eighth Floor, New York, NY 10017. http://www. episcopalschools.org/ Prehn, W.L. (2011). Episcopal Schools: History & Mission. In Hunt & Carper, eds. (2012). The Praeger Handbook of FaithBased Schools in the United States.
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Epilog
Bless us in our work & in our play Listen to grandparents and great grandparents in our community and, with a thick Cajun accent, they will tell you of the days when their language and culture was suppressed in a blatant attempt to erase their unique identity and heritage. Children were suspended, sometimes beaten by school administrators for speaking their own tongue. Fast forward 60 years and, today, our young people are encouraged to relearn their history, their culture, their language and identity. In a similar way, modern secularism sought to suppress, marginalize, even erase, the religious language from our communities, including our learning communities. But the spiritual hunger of the human soul cannot be suppressed. And young people are searching, openly asking the great questions about spiritual matters long ignored, avoided, even suppressed in polite conversation. So Christian schools grapple with exactly how to speak a forgotten language and renew a lost culture that still speaks to the challenges of today’s world. Ascension Episcopal School’s mission is committed to educational excellence in a Christian environment. But what does that mean? The development of the whole student encompasses the life of the mind as well as the body, the artistic as much as the academic, to better oneself and one another. So whether we are studying in the classroom, practicing on the field, or performing on the stage, we want our students to be engaged holistically, to think critically and live faithfully. At Ascension we emphasize a balanced excellence of academics, arts, athletics, and acts of service. To love with all our mind puts our best thoughts forward with daring curiosity and academic 19
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And [Jesus] said, “Do this, and you will live.” Luke 10: 27-28
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integrity. A proper education must also nurture a love of the arts, which speak to the heart, and develop creativity that is essential to all learning. And our athletic programs strengthen not only the body but also our students’ determination and sense of teamwork, to enjoy victory and gracefully accept defeat, not as a measure of worth but as an opportunity for further growth. Together we discover we are made not simply for our own success but for a purpose greater than our own, that is, for the God who created us, to love and serve our Creator as well as our neighbors. So when we gather in chapel, it is an active engagement with God and his redemptive presence among us in his world. So we stand up and sing our praises. We sit and listen. We rise and profess what we truly believe. We kneel and confess our faults, those things we’ve done and left undone. We share in God’s peace and share it together in broken bread and wine—body and blood, life and death. And we go, in peace, to love and serve, not ourselves but the Lord. In our worship, we are fully engaged, heart and mind, body and soul. This familiar ritual fosters a particular set of skills that our world desperately needs: the humility to offer praise where it is deserved; the ability to sit and really listen without shouting; the courage to stand up and profess what we truly trust to be good, beautiful and true; the personal honesty to admit our faults; and the grace to pursue peace and share forgiveness, not only for ourselves but for the world too. This embodied community of trust engenders gratitude, what the Greeks called eucharist, or thankfulness. We are a grateful community of shared responsibility, not merely individual responsibility but personal responsibility, for ourselves and our neighbors.
In this mission together, we are all learners, what the ancients called disciples, who do not merely study devoid of practice but whose lives are being shaped, disciplined for what is Good, Beautiful, True, for God, to be faithful stewards of what we’ve received, a rich inheritance of beliefs and practices that continually shape our lives and the world we inhabit. 21
To love with every fiber of our being— heart, soul, mind and strength—is a tall order far beyond our own abilities. So we seek to speak the uniquely Christian language of grace we’ve been given and given to share as disciples who are charged by Jesus himself to make disciples from every nation of the earth. That is why at Ascension we welcome students from all backgrounds to grow into mature citizens of a much greater kingdom with mutual understanding and respect of one another so that their lives might be personally enriched to impact the life of this world and the world to come.
Dr. Jeanette Plauché Parker Dr. Jeanette Parker is a lifelong Episcopalian who grew up in Lake Charles and moved to Lafayette in 1957. She was the founding head of Ascension Day School, taught school in Lafayette Parish, and served 25 years on the UL Lafayette faculty. She continues to serve church and school as an active member of Ascension Episcopal Church and the Ascension Episcopal School Board.
The Reverend Joseph E. Daly The Reverend Joseph Daly is the longest serving rector of The Episcopal Church of the Ascension. He is a native of Nova Scotia and studied in Canada, the United States and the Middle East. He was ordained in 2002 in the Diocese of Albany, NY. Before coming to Ascension in 2009, he served as Rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Douglas, GA. He enjoys cooking and kayaking on the Bayou Teche where he lives with his two sons, Andrew and Aiden. 23