With all that public schools can offer in the northern Virginia area, why send your child to TBS? Well, in a nutshell , our mission is to prepare our students for a life of service to Jesus Christ, but here are a few reasons.
Temple Baptist School can offer...
1. Spiritual Environment
We offer a wholesome, Christ-centered environment where biblical characteristics of kindness, love, honoring parents, and respect for others are encouraged... and expected. Can an education be complete without addressing morals? The answer is no. A child is a spiritual being, education is value-laden, and an education without addressing morals is lacking a key foundational component. Our chapel programs seek to meet the spiritual needs of students.
2. Small class sizes
We maintain class sizes to manageable amounts where teachers can work with students who might need extra help. This especially pays off in upper level calculus/physics classes, where individualized teaching makes for fully prepared students with solid ACT scores.
3. Caring & competent teachers called to ministry
Teachers who are called to the ministry of teaching. For teachers at Temple, teaching is not a job, it's a calling. We expect our teachers to make a spiritual impact on our students and conduct themselves as examples of Christlikeness, worthy of emulation. We contend that teachers are important role models and should be loving, kind, fair, and approachable. Teachers are the key to the effectiveness of our school. And we are thrilled our teacher turnover rate is low!
4. Professionalism
We have accredited teachers who work to improve their teaching skills. At TBS, most teachers have post-graduate degrees. Others are either planning or working on graduate degrees; we pay for our teachers' graduate degrees and we pay them more when complete their graduate degrees - so we promote more education. It only makes teachers better prepared. There are 22 teachers with 22 post-graduate degrees. (Some are working on a degree, and some have several.)
5. Christ-centered curriculum
Students are taught academic truths in the light of The Truth, God's Word. Martin Luther once said, "I advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not increasingly occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt...I am much afraid that schools will prove to be the great gates of hell unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in the hearts of youth." We concur with that statement. Now we don't agree with everything Luther said, but that statement? No problem.
6. Safety
A good Christian school is a safe place, free from violence, threats, or crime that can characterize large public schools. Fighting, hazing, bullying are not tolerated. After all, TBS is a school where Christ is to be honored. Many students don't bother locking their lockers because... there is no need to do so. Do problems come up? Sure. But they are dealt with so that the overall atmosphere stays pleasant and safe. We think the need for anti-bullying curriculum is just... sad. It should be natural for a Christian to be kind and loving to everyone, even enemies.
7. Value
Let's look at the public sector. There has been a 123% increase in per-pupil spending in the US from 1971 to 2006. You read that correctly: 123%! And what would you suppose the change would be in academic performance, say, between 17-year-olds during that same period in... reading? Well, this percentage is known. It's 0%. Zero improvement. So despite the massive increase in spending, students have not improved - in one important area, at least. Now we don't offer many frills at TBS, to be sure, and we don't take in lots of money because we want to keep tuition affordable. This is true. However, our 17 year-olds are off the charts in reading and most other subjects as well. So we not only teach values, we are also a good value!
8. Orderly environment
You cannot learn in chaos, so our halls and classrooms are orderly and quiet. Unless it's a fun Spirit Day. [And we confess: the gym is always noisy, but it's just too much fun in there!]
9. Limited admission policy
Sometimes we say... sorry, we're not a good fit. TBS is not for everyone. Often, parents want to get their children out of a bad situation, but that's really not why our school exists. We screen our applicants because we're interested in keeping the school environment as wholesome as possible. We're interested in families of like faith and practice, or who are at least amenable to what we are trying to do.
10. A great school spirit
School is hard work. But, there ought to be some fun, too. We want our students to enjoy school. Now that's a tall order, because there has to be academic rigor. The nuts and bolts of school are work: reading, writing, thinking, and computing. No getting around that. We're not trying to entertain kids. But we want the school atmosphere to be joyful. We want our teachers to do their best to make learning fun, within reason, of course. Students ought to look forward to coming to school. And we like our special days to dress up and just laugh, that is for sure. We love school! And our student do, too. (But we still love the occasional snow days.) So we have Hat Day, Nerd Day, Crazy Sock Day, Stuffed Animal Day, History Day, International Day, and other goofy days that make us laugh and take lots of photos.
Bonus!
Diversity. We are a majority-minority school with 66% of our students from a minority group. We celebrate International Day, but to be honest, everyday at TBS is International Day! We love the fact that our students come from families with roots all over the globe. How cool is that? Very, but a school that honors Christ would welcome all races anyway!