Published: December 22, 2007 11:40 pm      

Fighting to open its doors

School officials hope to reopen Cornerstone Christian School next fall

It was Angela Peck’s dream to open a Christian school in Logansport, a dream that has been interrupted.

Cornerstone Christian School, which opened in the fall of 2004, closed its doors in July due to unpaid expenses. School officials such as Peck, the former principal, administrator and instructor, and Dave Broad, president of the school board, aren’t giving up hope just yet, though.

Peck and Broad are currently trying to get the community involved so the school can reopen next fall. The task, however, has proven to be quite difficult.

A community meeting was scheduled last week regarding the fate of the school, but no one attended, Broad said.

There were also several fundraisers held over the last couple of months, including garage sales held in the now-empty building, but they had only raised about $100 each.

The school was faced with declining enrollment over the past year, and had accumulated $11,000 in collections due from parents who hadn’t paid tuition.

“In my estimation, we’re probably going to need a total of $60,000 to break even,” Broad said.

Five guarantors are currently making building payments, but “that can’t continue forever,” he said.

The school may have to relocate.

“The building very possibly could be forced to sell,” Broad said. “It’s on the market.”

He said an option is to lease the Wolf Road building out to different local groups to keep the utilities paid and mortgage kept up. Broad said officials hope, though, they can keep the facility.

A community meeting will be held on Jan. 15 to discuss the future of the school.

“That will be a key meeting, a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ meeting,” Broad said. “The board will make a decision based on what the public has to say.”

Why it closed

The Christian school originally stood on North Street and catered to grades kindergarten through 5. When it moved to its current location on 11 Wolf Rd., most of the students that attended the school were in kindergarten through third grade.

The school accepted newborns all the way up to eighth grade. It was run like a one-room school house, Peck said.

This fall, they were planning to open a full junior high that would be separated from the elementary school. But the school’s attendance had dwindled over the past year.

At one time, Broad said, the school had more than 80 students. Before it closed, though, only 20 children were attending the school, he said.

“The attendance was down,” Peck said. “People were afraid that we might be closing. It made things difficult. We told them that we would try to stay open as long as possible.”

One of the reasons for the closure was because parents weren’t paying tuition.

“Several of the parents, for a variety of reasons, couldn’t pay their bills,” Broad said. “We had expenses that were four times our income.”

Broad said the tuition ran from around $70 a week for first-graders to $90 a week for babies.

“A lot of things happened all at once, and sometimes you can’t recover,” Peck added.

Broad said parents were “devastated” when the school closed in July.

Peck provided one-on-one instruction with the students. In May, she said the curriculum taught at Cornerstone was about one to two years more advanced than that taught in public schools.

“The curriculum was outstanding,” she said.

Peck said if the school reopens, changes will have to be made.

“We learned a lot,” she said. “We tried to be everything to everyone. Every time we heard that there was a need, we jumped right on it, hoping to rescue the community. We would trim our program. This time would be different.”

Christian education

Both Peck and Broad are devoted supporters of Christian education.

Broad’s three children, who are all grown now, went through Christian education.

Broad said he wasn’t always a firm believer in Christian schools. He spent several years substituting at a public school, and his children attended public schools for awhile as well.

“Personally, I was probably a hard sell,” he said. “I thought, ‘Why should I pay for Christian education when our tax dollars already paid for public schooling?’”

But when his oldest ran into some problems in his math class, and began tutoring at a Christian school, Broad changed his mind.

Broad believed the biggest difference between private versus public schools was the attitude of both parents and children.

“Kids looked forward to going to school,” he said. “And when parent-teacher night came, there was 100 percent parent participation.”

Broad said he believes the tuition of the school is not only reasonable, but worth every penny. And when board members at Cornerstone approached Broad about joining the group, he couldn’t wait to step in and start helping.

What it will take to open its doors

“We need a local champion,” Broad said. “Someone in Cass County that would have good connections. Someone who has a heart for education. We’ve got to have parents who are going to slip in and help when they can, too.”

Broad said they are currently looking for more board members.

He said they are also in need of money donations, or donated items that the school can auction off.

Broad said that he’s confident they will get back the $11,000 in collections that are due.

“They were all good people,” he said about the parents who were unable to pay tuition. “In some cases, the parents had lost their jobs.”

Broad said they have staff that are willing to come back if the school reopens. He continues to remain optimistic.

“I think it’s doable,” he said about opening the school up in the fall. “But it’s going to take some commitment.”

“I think it is possible for this town to have a Christian school,” Peck added.

Peck, who has been working for Emmaus, said she hopes to go back and teach again.

“That was my dream, to open up that school,” she said. “No one wants to see their dreams die.”

Melissa Soria may be reached at (574) 732-5143, or via e-mail at melissa.soria@pharostribune.com