Philosophy of Partnership

Partnering with Families

Trinity is a “covenant school,” meaning that it is our written mission to partner with believing parents to assist them in fulfilling their God-given responsibility for the education of their children. As a school, we do not view ourselves as “accepting students,” but rather as “partnering with families.”

A partnership is a mutually beneficial relationship in which multiple parties take on responsibilities. When families enter into partnership with Trinity, they are partnering, not only with an educational organization, but with a community of families who desire to raise their children in the sight of God. Each individual family shares the responsibility of maintaining and contributing to the cultivation of a Christ-centered culture and the mission to which God has called Trinity.

The Trinity administration has a responsibility to partner with “mission-fit” families – that is, with families that align with and want to contribute to the type of Christian school culture and community described in our Mission Statement, Belief Statement, Philosophy of Education, policies and procedures, and on our website. These documents describe what Trinity is “offering” in the partnership with families. Families, when they enter Trinity, agree to align with, contribute to, and support the mission as defined in aforementioned documents. When families do not or choose not to do so, there cannot be an effective partnership between the family and the school.

The Board, administration, faculty and staff at Trinity strive, with prayer and humble reliance on the Lord, to keep its responsibilities as a partner with families by admitting other “mission-fit” families, and by working to execute the stated mission of the school with consistency and excellence.

Parents strive, with prayer and humble reliance on the Lord, to keep their responsibilities in partnership with Trinity by supporting the operational needs of the school via tuition, as well as supporting administrators and teachers in their execution of the educational philosophy, policies, and procedures of the school.

“The Three Legged Stool” Analogy: Family, Church, and School

While a school’s mission is primarily educational, a distinction of a Christian school is that education comes in the context of discipleship - learning to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength.

At Trinity, when we think about the growing faith and discipleship of a child, we often use the analogy of a three-legged stool. A stool stands firm when it has at least three strong legs supporting it. If you think of the child’s growing life of discipleship as if it were the top of the stool, the three legs supporting it are the influences of the family, the church, and the school – in that order of priority.

We believe that the failure in the secular school system is related to the rejection of the role of God and the pastoral role of the local church. As a result, we believe that one of the ways secular schools fail students is by taking on the pastoral role of the church in shepherding the spiritual health of the child.

As a Christian school, we seek to support the faith development of students by reinforcing the truths and values outlined in Scripture as they are taught in theologically sound, local churches, and lived out in a family under the church’s spiritual authority. The Christian school should be a place where students can find godly, caring adults who know them, pray for them, counsel them, and encourage them. But as a school, we also expect that families are finding pastoral support and care from a pastor and/or a youth pastor in a local church congregation.