Collaboration Statement
Our Collaboration Statement
Collaboration at FCA is the unified participation of all administrators, staff, teachers, and parents to glorify God by promoting a devotion to Jesus Christ in students through Christian classical education. The success of FCA's collaborative model is sustained by a shared devotion among all collaborators to the following core collaborative commitments:
Collaborators love the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their might and seek to be obedient to His Word. Having resolved to follow Him by faith, Collaborators dependently seek to live lives worthy of His Gospel and pursue maturity in Him (see FCA’s Statement of Faith).
(Matt. 6:33; Phil. 3:8-9; Psalm 119:105; 2 Tim. 3:16-17)
We affirm the charitable treatment of others, especially fellow Christians, as Image bearers of God.
Collaborators are committed to loving one another in thought, word, and deed. By holding to the example of Christ and showing the same charity, kindness, and patience to one another that Christ has shown them, Collaborators seek to grow as a community of Christian disciples, spurring one another on towards respect for, support of, and trust in one another in the education of their children.
(John 13:34-35; 1 Cor. 13:4-8; Gal. 6:10; Eph. 4:1-3; Phil. 2:3; Col. 3:12-13; 1 Thess. 5:11; 1 Peter 4:8-11)
Collaborators share the belief that education should train the heart, mind, and body, first and foremost toward God, and then, by grace-enablement, to know how to live virtuously in this life in preparation for eternity. Collaborators embrace with confidence the seven liberal arts of the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy), having withstood the test of time as integral to a holistic education. When viewed through God’s Word, these arts nurture a vision for the True, Good, and Beautiful. By this, Collaborators have an expectant trust in God that these students will come to Truth, be able to see and replicate Beauty, and live Goodness.
(Rom. 12:1-2; 1 Cor. 2:6-16; 2 Cor. 10:5; Heb. 6:1; 1 Peter 2:2)
Consistent with its history, Christian classical education is seen by Collaborators as a chiefly formative rather than an informative process. Collaborators seek to value what God values, love what God loves, and seek the same for their students. Collaborators share the belief that by intentionally guarding and guiding the affections of their students, their students might be enculturated into a people devoted to Christ and who love and desire what is True, Beautiful, and Good.
(Deut. 6:18; Prov. 22:6; Gal. 5:22-24; Phil 4:8-9)
Collaborators are dedicated to growing in their understanding of Christian classical education. They recognize that through their personal pursuit of learning, they themselves will be formed, able to rightly model for their students what they teach. Collaborators share a common commitment to display and teach the cardinal and theological virtues of prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude, faith, hope, and charity with an expectant hope that, by the power of the Spirit, their students will be transformed by and participate more fully in the story of Christ’s redemptive work.
(1 Cor. 11:1-2; Eph. 5:1; Phil. 3:12-15; 1 Tim. 4:12; 2 Thess. 2:15)
Collaborators value FCA’s integrative model where students receive the benefits of a normative, formational, and dialectic classroom setting each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as well as the benefits of remaining in their home environment on Tuesday and Thursday. This model provides parents the opportunity to not only participate in the academic education of their child under the guidance of a trained teacher, but also in the perpetual task of forming their children. Additionally, Collaborators recognize the benefits of having parents involved on campus in service to the education being provided. With this integration of school and home, Collaborators provide a cohesive, academically excellent learning environment for students consistent across all five days.
(Deut. 6:4-9; Psalm 78:4; Proverbs 1:8-9)
Collaborators acknowledge parents’ God-given role and responsibility to raise and educate their children and uphold the unique cooperation initiated when parents entrust their children to FCA. At school, FCA acts “in loco parentis,” which is “to stand in the place of parents,” taking responsibility to shepherd the whole person in their care within the bounds of parental authority delegated to them (see FCA’s “In Loco Parentis” Policy).
(Deut. 6:4-9; Prov. 22:6; Eph 6:4)