Reply to St. Andrews Episcopal school and rigor

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Sorry if this is a dumb question, but how does the school do with children from diverse religious backgrounds? If you're not Christian, will your family feel comfortable there? How religious is the E part of SAES?[/quote]

As you might guess, the answer to this question depends on where you are coming from in the first place but in a nutshell my view -- as a reform Jew -- was that it was perfectly fine in the middle and upper schools.  My kids didn't attend elementary school there  (they didn't have one yet) so I can't comment on that.  There were a number of families there we knew who belonged to conservative synagogues and it worked fine for them.  If you are very observant in any religion with many rituals - orthodox Jews or perhaps very observant Muslims, for example --  it may not work as well as a practical matter (an orthodox kid would miss a lot of social /sports events on Saturdays or Friday evenings, and I don't think they do kosher food.)

.   We were hesitant initially, but in retrospect we think the fact that the school had some religious grounding was really helpful to the down-to-earth feel of the place.  More observant Christians might critique SAES as "religion light." That's fair, so if you wanted a seriously Catholic theological education for child, SAES would not be a good place.  I was glad my kids could learn basics of Christianity since so much of the world practices it and they did that in maybe one or two trimesters.  By high school, there were classes that satisfied the religion requirement on "Justice," a survey of classical philosophy, etc. (the guy who teachers those my kids report is one of the best teachers they ever had - and that's saying a lot in a school with many really good teachers).  Most of the kids -- like probably most American kids in the DMV - are not very observant of any faith although I would estimate maybe 25%-33% of their families are more observant Christians (as in attending church).  I never felt uncomfortable there although St. Andrew's night (around Christmas) was an interesting experience re singing carols but after a couple of times I got the gist of it and skipped the event.   Most of the kids say they are bored in chapel, but in truth the Episcopal services is very brief and probably 40% of the period is devoted to a speaker on some universal theme -- anything from hunger, homelessness, prejudice, recovering from the death of a family member, etc.  They always devote a few of the weekly chapels each year to non-Christian themes.  For example, there used to be (probably still is I imagine) each year one devoted to celebrating the Jewish high holidays and another devoted to Holocaust remembrance.   And when there is an unexpected tragedy, the religious bent gives the school a default way of addressing it in an all school chapel.  I think because it is Episcopal, it is was more respectful of other religious holidays than the secular progressive private my kids attended before St. Andrews.  There is actually a rule that tests cannot be given on high holidays.  I'm very glad my kids attended. [/quote]

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