The Galveston County Daily News

Galveston County’s faith-based schools have endured the recession and the strains from Hurricane Ike, but officials with several private schools said they were expecting to start the year with enrollments similar to those they had before the storm.

“Schools differ according to their traditions, mission and climate, so I think that students benefit when their parents have options,” said the Rev. David C. Dearman, head of Trinity Episcopal School, 2216 Ball St., in Galveston. “We’re striving to provide the best possible experience in learning and living in a God-centered atmosphere.”

The school is one of the county’s oldest, having been founded in 1952.

Dearman said Trinity had developed a niche for students of average and above-average academic ability and focused on those “who join their families in taking their studies seriously.” He said prayer and worship are a regular part of the student experience and that character education is valued as much as any academic subject.

Faith-centered education is not new to America. A Massachusetts’ 1642 education law required parents to educate their children in both religion and law. Then, in 1647, a second statue shifted the responsibility for communities composed of 50 or more families, requiring them to hire a grammar schoolmaster. The latter law was known by the colorful label of the Old Deluder Satan Act.

Melissa Fuqua, high school principal at Bay Area Christian School, 4800 W. Main St., in League City, shares Dearman’s concern for character development.

“We believe that a truly Christian education equips a student to know God and serve Jesus,” she said. “Therefore, although academics are important, there are other factors that must shape a well-rounded student.”

The 36-year-old school is the largest of its kind in the county.

“We teach from a Christian world view with our first goal being to lead students to Christ, then to teach them daily from the Bible to know their Savior and to develop good character,” Fuqua said. “Our philosophy of education is traditional and conservative — teacher, not student, centered. We use a solid curriculum and teach from Christian textbooks. Our teachers love the Lord and love the children.”

A few miles to the south, Marc Martinez leads True Cross Catholic School, 300 FM 517 E., in Dickinson.

“Our aim is to build a worthy upcoming generation that is cooperative, unselfish and tolerant, believes in democracy and has developed sound judgments,” he said. “We’re seeking to produce a generation whose lives will be lived in conformity with the teachings of Christ, ideals of family life and the needs of physical fitness, social virtue, cultural development and spiritual perfection.”

Martinez stressed his school concentrates on promoting independent thinking on the part of its students.

“They will have a sense of the value of religious culture and will be honest, courteous, open-minded and enterprising,” he said.

Across the road sits Pine Drive Christian School, 705 FM 517.

“Every educational approach has a worldview,” high school principal Mike Williams said. “We believe a Christian school education should be unapologetically biblical in its approach to education. Christian educators believe that all truth is God’s truth and that all disciplines of study should ask the same question: ‘How has God revealed Himself in math or science or history or other fields of study?’

He said students are involved in local ministries, including providing struggling families with basic food supplies.