Private school closing

[Kat Kanning]

Forced out by competition from "free" schools, no doubt.

Christian school in Peterborough closing its doors
Trinity Academy cites low enrollment
   

Nika Carlson
Sentinel Staff


PETERBOROUGH ? Blaming low enrollments, Peterborough?s only private Christian school is closing at the end of the school year.

Student levels at the 5th- to 12th-grade Trinity Christian Academy have shrunk from a high of more than 60 several years ago to 24 today. That?s far below the 50 students needed to keep the school in the black, said school board chairman Dennis D. McKenney.

Four full-time and three part-time teachers and staff will be out of a job.

The school board recommended the closure at the end of April, he said.

The decision to close will not be official until a June 5 vote by members of the Trinity Evangelical Church, of which the school is a ministry.

However, the school is holding a Christian school fair tonight to offer parents other options for religious education in the area.

The college preparatory school has been losing money for several years and the church was left to make up the difference, McKenney said.

?It was just going to be quite a strain on TEC, on the ministry,? McKenney said.

Though the school is closing, it won?t disappear, McKenney said. Technically, the school board recommended suspending operations ? legally the school will still exist.

?I guess it?s somewhat semantics,? McKenney said. ?It?s just a little less painful to say it?s suspended.?

By suspending operations instead of closing, it would be much easier for the church to reopen the school instead of having to re-found it, he said.

McKenney said rising taxes was partly to blame for the low enrollment.

?(Taxes are) fairly high and if people become a bit stressed financially ... discretionary money to spend on education is not easy to come by,? he said.

Acting Principal Jean M. Thayer said she thought tuition wasn?t a factor in low enrollments and that the small class sizes, creative freedom and Christian atmosphere offered parents a needed option. Her son is a graduating senior this year.

?I really feel that he?s the person he is today because of all the time he spent here,? she said. ?He?s a really awesome kid. I don?t think he?d be like that if he had been in public school. He?d get lost.?

Thayer put a positive spin on the closure, though, focusing on what the school accomplished.

?We don?t want it to be a doom and gloom kind of thing,? Thayer said. ?We want to be able to say we were able to provide for the Christian education needs of parents for seven years. We were blessed to be able to do that. ...

?It?s going to be missed, and I?m sad that it?s closing, but I can?t help but think it?s God?s will because we?ve done everything possible to keep it open.?

The Christian school fair will be held tonight at 7 at the Trinity Christian Academy at 700 Route 101 West in Peterborough. Twelve area schools will be represented. For more information, call 924-5711.

[erich]

Thanks for posting this, Kat.? Somebody needs to campaign for school board on the platform of rebating property taxes to property owners who send their kids to private schools like this one.

I know this is a gradualist proposal that will only help one narrow segment of people at first, but I sure think that reducing school taxes as much as possible will be helped along over time by a policy like this that would get more and more kids into private schools.

[AlanM]

I hate to see ANY non-public school close.

[Kat Kanning]

Good suggestion erich.  I don't think the next school board election in Keene is until Nov. 06, if I recall correctly (they're switching over from March board elections to Nov.), but maybe someone in Peterborough could run?

[tracysaboe]

Perhaps some people, could donate some money to help it out?

Or start a campain?

Tracy

[Michael Fisher]

Christian school in Peterborough closing its doors

Student levels at the 5th- to 12th-grade Trinity Christian Academy have shrunk from a high of more than 60 several years ago to 24 today. That?s far below the 50 students needed to keep the school in the black, said school board chairman Dennis D. McKenney.

 

[Russell Kanning]

Maybe we should rent some classroom space from them for homeschooling gettogethers and our individual classes?
We could sortof revive the school as a homeschoolers gathering place.