Cumberland Valley Christian School

Pastor Mike and Corey talk with the Mrs. Amy Garvin, principal of Cumberland Valley Christian School.

So hello and welcome again to the Hope Worth Having podcast. We’re joined again as always by Pastor Mike. Pastor Mike, how you doing? Hey, we’re doing great today. All right and we actually have another special guest that I’ll allow you to introduce for us today.

Well today we’re honored to have the principal of Cumberland Valley Christian School, Mrs. Amy Garvin. She has a master’s in administration for education and she is kind of what I call one of those Christian school because she’s not only an alumnus, but she has worked in about every position that the school has had and she has worked all the way to the top and now she is the principal and she is leading a great team of teachers and educators and everybody that’s on this team is doing a wonderful job this year and we’re excited to have her here with us today on the podcast.

All right, sounds good. So Mrs. Garvin or Amy, why don’t you just give kind of a little bit of a background. I know Pastor Mike kind of did, but just kind of really briefly, why don’t you just describe some of the jobs and kind of you know just what made you want to be principal of the school you went to?

So I never envisioned of being principal, but when my children got old enough to my oldest attend school my husband and I felt it necessary to either homeschool or put them in a private education and he came to me and he said you know I really think that they need to be in Christian school and I obviously attended CVCS and so I said to him well then I’m gonna have to call Mr.

McKee who was the previous principal was my principal and see if there’s openings and so I called him he said yes there there was opening to attend my son to school and then there was also opening as a teacher aid in our support services department.

So that’s where I started in 2011 as a teacher. aid and support services. I also taught eighth grade or science and then from there I went up as to elementary secretary, athletic director, high school secretary, admissions director, dean of students and then ended up in the principal role after Pastor Mike actually approached me in the parking lot one afternoon and asked me what my degree was in and if I had any intention of going back to school for my masters and just kind of shared the vision of the school.

At that time with three children I was not planning on going back to school but my husband I prayed about it and I went back and finished my masters in three years all online which was busy but I did it and so here I am today.

Awesome yeah so definitely the last couple months to a year have been pretty wild for educators, schools, public private, all right so let’s just kind of take you know kind of looking back obviously last March we had to we had to shut down due to the pandemic so kind of take us behind the scenes you know as Pastor Mike is kind of the the head the president of the school as well so if you could kind of take us behind the scenes of because everything happened really quick what what was it like as you’re getting all this information and you know you’re hearing all this kind of how did that decision go to to shut down so when we received the information from the county and the different local school districts as information was coming out from them I contacted Pastor Mike and Mr.

Kakane who was an assistant up here on our admin team and we kind of grouped together and just to take the information we had wanted to make sure that what we were hearing was accurate and correct and so that was on a Friday afternoon that we received the information that schools would have to shut down and that kind of threw us completely upside down as you know we had never experienced this before and so we met as an admin team we spoke with our teachers and we elected to have a couple days where there was just no school that we would make up those days to group regroup and determine our plan forward and so our teachers did an amazing job of flipping the classroom from in person to all virtual in a few short days and doing it pretty seamless.

Yeah Pastor Mike do you have anything to add about kind of that whole process about all the way back in March? Yeah I think that for us as we were grasping the reality of what we were facing it was about how could we deliver education to the students as well keeping mom and dad fully engaged most of our parents are making monthly payments they’re you know doing their different responsibilities and to keep their kids involved in the school,

but also that I could keep the doors open financially. And so that was the immediate, you know, pressing issues, those two big issues. And as we began to strategize, what we realized was that we already had the infrastructure.

And so about five, seven years ago, we had really started pushing for online e learning in the school. And that was a tough sell at the beginning, because so many of our teachers had never heard or seen anything like it.

But it was already through out the United States especially as a lot of homeschoolers were jumping into cyber schools and virtual schools, and I knew that the future of Carmel Valley Christian School would have to be that we would provide a track for students to run on.

So the we’re so thankful that that was already there, and it made it easy as Mrs Garvin was trying to make decisions, how do we make this work, and it was wonderful and how that. The teachers, some of them already doing some of the virtual schooling because many of our teachers do both.

were able to just kind of pick that ball up and run with it, but they were also able to coach mentor help. As the individuals were learning similar new teachers learning about how to do this virtual school thing so that that was a big stress.

reliever in that we didn’t have to worry about you know, how are we going to make this happen so many of the schools just didn’t have the video equipment they didn’t have. The programming they didn’t have the ability to do what we were able to do so quickly, I think that made a profound impact upon our parents.

yeah I would I would agree on that that sounds great so you were able to finish out last year 100% right. Like 100% and I think what was amazing is and Mrs Garvin can jump on this. thought is that I was so exciting to see how we kept finding different ways, as we were learning.

We found new ways to deliver education, but also to accomplish what I thought was the great big cap on the year, and that was the graduations and so I was really blessed I don’t know how Mrs Garvin feels about.

Having to transition and make those changes. So when we are teachers, they were learning alongside our parents and our students, as this was a new concept really as far as flipping it so quickly for all of our.

subjects and so the teachers would record daily lessons that they would send out via our parent portal for the students to watch. We would also we had set up where the parents had packets that they could pick up.

We had to set up for all the parents to come to campus to pick up all their books because when the students left that Friday in March they were planning on coming back that Monday as a normal school day and so we had all of their belongings here in lockers all of their books and so we had to plan parent pickups and keep that as socially distanced as possible through that and get all the parents on campus and off campus and you know having the parents pick up packets.

We had teachers meet their parents weekly to deliver packets to them for worksheets if they needed it and then they would collect that from them as well. So our teachers went above and beyond and then we were able to also carry out our graduations.

We have three graduations, we have our preschool year -end program, and then we also have our kindergarten graduation, sixth grade graduation, and then we have our senior graduation. And that was a burden, I know, for parents wondering if we’re going to be able to do that.

Are we going to be able to have graduations, especially the seniors? That’s a milestone, you know, in their education career and their life. And so, you know, we met as admin, we planned it, and it was the first ever outdoor graduation of Carmel Valley Christian School, and it went off with a huge success.

We had a stage bill and it was, I know, bless the parents that they could have their children graduate in a normal graduation. It was a few weeks later than our regular plan graduation, but it went off as planned.

It was a great success and a great way to end that school year. Wow, I mean, that’s just remarkable that, I mean, through all that, we were able to do as normal as possible finish out a school year. And then on top of that graduation, that’s just awesome.

So I’m sure while there’s probably parents who are very thankful and very grateful and were able to work together, were there any parents or any, you know, kind of complainers or, you know, negative comments and kind of what those look like and how were you able to deal with them?

There’s always those naysayers or, you know, complainers. And we try as best we can to work with all parents. You know, we had some parents who were essential workers. And so I know a particular family where both parents are nurses and they both were essential.

And so their schedule, their job didn’t change at all. Whereas some parents, you know, they unfortunately were considered not essential. So they, you know, were staying home. So I, you know, reached out to those families.

We had all of our teachers, I split the enrollment up by either class. or by activity that they participate in. And all of our teachers reached out to every one of our students and parents just to reach out to them one -on -one, not so much for school, but to see how they were doing, were there any needs that they had.

And that really helped build that community and bring the parents together with the school and the teachers. And the parents that I knew had those work conflicts with having their children home, I said to them, we have options available.

We have a daycare that is able to have children up to a certain age that they could go to and utilize. There were teachers that would FaceTime or use Zoom to team in with their students individually and teach them a concept that they could understand because parents aren’t educators.

That was the number one thing parents said to us is we’re not educators and we don’t wanna be educators. We’ll help and assist as needed if our children help with homework, but that’s not what we were called to do and we don’t know.

And so bridging that gap was a huge thing and the parents that I reached out to were so thankful. You know, when I reached out to them and said, hey, I know what you do for a living. I know your job and I know you may not have the time for your children.

What can we do to help you? And they were so appreciative of that. And even those that did complain, you know, when they looked at what our local districts were doing in comparison to what we were doing, they came around and they said, you know, so thankful that you continued educating our children.

They didn’t fall behind drastically. They actually still learn and were educated. And that was huge. Yeah, maybe if I can just say that I think that in for leaders, that in that moment of crisis, that it’s important for you to keep the big picture.

So you’re going to have those who complain. But really, the answer is to help them to see the big picture. And that’s what we really worked hard on. Understand we’re in the middle of a national crisis.

And we’re still learning. Everybody’s learning. And as every day goes, there’s new things. Some things are changing. Sometimes the information we heard one day was changed the very next day. And so we’re constantly receiving this information.

That big picture, I think, helped focus our parents and then also helping them to understand the option. So our goal was that we want to customize education. We’re going to take this opportunity to recognize, as Mrs.

Garvin said, what are the unique challenges that you have based upon your job schedule, your children’s needs, and how can we deliver education in a way that it’s individualized to each child. And that’s what we strive for.

And I think that when we did that and kept sending that message out to moms and dads on a personal level, I think it helped them to rise above the complaints. Yeah, I mean, again, that’s just awesome.

So glad that CVCS was able to do that and be a light. you know, I’m sure the Bible classes and Bible teachers and, you know, hearing the messages, you know, it must have been, it must have been huge for families.

So now, so making the decision to close and flip to virtual. So now we get, you know, to this past August and CBCS decided to reopen in -person education. So kind of, if you don’t mind, taking us kind of behind the process and the thinking and all kind of went into deciding to reopen, because now even in January of 2021, we’re still, you know, most schools, many schools are not doing in -person.

So kind of take us, take us behind the scenes of that decision -making process to reopen. So we had already started meeting at the admin team on the way forward and we spent the whole summer getting information and we received information when everybody else received information.

So it wasn’t like we received information a few days prior to the public, or our parents receiving it from the Department of Health. And so, you know, and then parents would be emailing us sometimes before we even had a chance to listen to this information and figure out a way forward.

And so that was, and that continued throughout the summer. You know, our enrollment, you know, parents were concerned. They didn’t know if they were going to have a job to go back to, they didn’t know if they were going to be considered essential and it was up in the air for them.

So our enrollment was lower even through, you know, May and June. And then all of a sudden July hit and the local school districts decided they were having board meetings that they were not going to open in person.

And then our enrollments and our inquiry skyrocketed really. And so we were going through the plan of reopening and how we were going to do that. And also going through our admissions process, having a lot of inquiries from parents who wanted their child in person.

We met with our lawyers, the admin team met numerous times. We would meet with our school board, the elders of the opener church would meet. And we had our health and safety plan that we had to go over and we had the guidelines set forth by the CDC and the Pennsylvania Department of Health of social distancing and, you know, hand sanitizer and cleaning.

And we had to go through all of those and put that health and safety plan together to work for our school. And, you know, it took many hours to do that, but it was worth it knowing that these parents, you know, they wanted in -person education for their children.

And we were that avenue and we were a light in our community and we still are. We’re still able to reach so many families and I get emails weekly from families in our community just thanking us that we are in person and that this is what the children need.

They need it. And even the children will come to me and thank me for, you know, I’m so glad Mrs. Garvin that we are open and coming about like Christian school is here. And that’s, that’s a great outreach for the community that we have that we have a lot of families this year who may not be regular church attend attenders.

And so all of our elementary classes are taught Bible, all of these students are taught memory versus in through high school, they have a Bible class, they have their chapels. And so that’s a big outreach we’re reaching these lives for Christ, not only education but also eternity and that’s, that’s wonderful.

It’s amazing. And I think that for us we were going against the grain, because all the professionals were saying, stay home, close down. We can’t make this work. But when we got the council from our legal team, that it would be okay under certain conditions and guidelines to reopen.

Then, Mrs. Garvin and I, along with all the teams that she mentioned the boards and elders and those serving on the team, we work diligently to communicate two things for our uh students as well as our parents and that simply was this that we wanted them to keep moving forward and to keep hope alive and that sounds trite but that’s how simple it was is how can we take a step forward what can we do to make it work and then how can we keep people encouraged with hope because a lot of these parents were overwhelmed with trying to deal with the shutdown overwhelmed uh not only emotionally but uh how can I help my child academically juggling 40 -50 hours of work plus having to come home balance homework and the needs of the student and the family and what we wanted to do is say look we’re going to come in and partner with you mom and dad and we’re going to make this work we didn’t know how many would would join us and how many would be willing to take step out on faith but we were willing to be on the front line and say we’ll show the way we’ll be the example and not arrogantly but with great honor and humility that god would give us this opportunity and it’s been a great success in the eyes I believe the Lord as well as our community and there isn’t a place I don’t go that people say it’s amazing what the Cumberland Valley Christian School is doing yeah I mean just again that’s that’s awesome so what ended up being the the enrollment number for the year how many students did you guys end up having was it up down average we had our highest enrollment of the Cumberland Valley constantly getting inquiries still we have you know different families coming in for tours we are we are right there almost at our capacity so we’re it’s very limited who we can take because the space that we have.

And so that’s, you know, it’s amazing the amount, the enrollment. Yeah, that’s awesome. So has there been a lot of feedback from the community about deciding to reopen? Have you really heard a lot? Or has it been positive, negative?

Not from parents, but just from outside, you know, the county, you know, maybe even the public schools in the area. Have you really heard anything from them, any kind of feedback from them? The only thing that I heard, that was this was back in August, and I’m always up for challenges.

This is a really big challenge. But I, you know, I like challenges. And back when the school boards were having their school board meetings and parents were, you know, saying, well, private schools are opening, why can’t we open?

And they were going back and forth. And I’ll never forget one of the school board. members in one of our local districts said, well, we’re going to let them go first and they’re going to fall on their face, paraphrasing that, putting together, you know, and that is like a challenge to me.

And so, you know, I took that, you know, no, we’re going to we’re going to take this and we’re going to run with it and we’re going to succeed and we’re going to do everything we can so that we come out on top and we are light in this community still.

And, you know, Lord willing with with his help, because it wasn’t anything that we could do personally. You know, I know we spent many hours praying as an admin team individually and together on this plan forward.

And so, you know, with God’s help, we are still open five days a week in person. And I’m thankful for that for our parents and our students. Yeah. And I think Mrs. Garvin, she always has to be careful about what she asked for.

She likes a challenge. She got it. And so be careful because it may get bigger. But the thing that I want everybody to know is simply this, that the proof is in the pudding. Who are the professionals sending their children to our school?

It is the doctors, the physicians. It is the pharmacists. It is the nurses. It’s all across its educators. It is principals. Everybody’s sending their kids to our school because they know what we know, that as long as we are careful and doing the best practices, that there is a way forward and every step is meaningful and helpful to the family and the students.

And so my feedback that I’m getting from the community is thank you for being that example. Thank you for having that faith and that determination to make it work. And not only that you’re doing it, but that you are crossing T’s and dotting I’s.

And that’s what I think is important is because our integrity and I think the glory of the Lord is on the line. And so we do want to do everything with excellence. Yeah. So we’ve been a little bit of looking back.

So now let’s kind of look forward. What’s what’s the future of CVCS look like? Give a little, you know, maybe some vision casting, some some goal casting. What what does the future of CVCS look like?

And just maybe even education in general kind of coming out of all of this. With that CVCS, with us being able to five years ago launch our online learning part of our education, I really envision that this year we had our highest enrollment in our virtual school academy.

And I envision that’s going to continue to grow, not only for the homeschool students in the area, but also for our students. More and more parents are electing to go that route. And the way they can do that is if there are sicknesses or there are things going on, they can utilize those classes where as needed.

And so I really envision that becoming more and more, especially in the whole area that, a lot of our district students even went to the virtual model and left the public school district. And so with seeing that, if we can get out there that, hey, we have a Christian alternative to this online school and these online academies, and you can join up with us and we can help you in that.

That’s gonna be huge as far as being an outreach in the area. We see colleges did that. Colleges were a lot, we’re all in person, and then they started adding online courses. And now you can get your degree completely online.

That’s how I did my master’s program. And so we can’t stay back in an old model. We have to keep moving forward and keep staying on top of education and where it’s at. Yeah, and so I would just concur with all that.

What COVID has done is accelerated the vision of Cumberland Valley Christian School. As we have already seen several years ago, that online learning would be a big part of the future of education. And so we’ve always envisioned and believe it’s gonna be true that for every on -campus student, we are looking for four online students.

That day’s coming. And it’s gonna get here rapidly now, a lot faster than we thought. In addition, what I see for the Cumberland Valley Christian School, of course, immediately gonna happen this year.

We’re gonna finish up the science lab. We’re gonna start it, finish it. And by next year, there’s gonna be a brand new science lab. People are rallying to the cause. I got a big meeting here coming up, and we’re gonna be able to move forward on that.

And we’re gonna increase the quality of education. What we want is these students to be able to walk out of the classroom, whether online. in or on campus and they can immediately jump into internships, apprenticeships, and I’d like to see our students that are really high achievers to get associate degrees that they’re not only getting a diploma from high school but they’re also going to on that day graduation day receive an associate’s degree.

I would like to take our vision and our determination and passion to other sites. I believe that throughout our county there are many more families we can reach and I’d like to see us have more teaching sites, creating more partnerships with more businesses, more churches, and that we can just be spread throughout the whole county, the region, and this Cumberland Valley Christian School that is providing a quality education with spiritual foundation is just inundating everywhere.

uh and the glory of god is just shining forth again that’s that’s awesome that was um great so uh mrs garvin if there’s you know if someone’s maybe interested in the common valley christian school maybe want to send their kids there just kind of maybe want to learn a little bit more about what what you guys are all about is there maybe a website or something you could give them to kind of keep up the date or get more information yes we have a website and app so they can go to www .cvcsblazers .com that’s our website there’s information on there there’s a request information tab on there that they’ll be able to click on we also have that hooked up to a chat box so they just want to go on there and ask us a question they can go on there and click on the little chat icon they can just ask us a question um or we have an app and our app is under the open door church as they are our we are a ministry of the open door church and so our we have an app through them that we also put information on they can go right to our admissions ask a question on there as well awesome all right well i think that kind of about does it again great stuff and just i can tell the community is just very thankful and very blessed by the the common valley christian school so so keep doing what you’re doing um pastor mike thanks as always for joining us and mrs garvin thank you again for coming on and you know taking your time and sharing a little bit about the common valley christian school i’m sure it’s appreciated you’re welcome amen you all right um thank you guys for listening and just always remember that in christ there is hope worth having