Dear Editor:
Today marks the start of National School Choice Week, a celebration of parents as the first and best educators of their children. The week recognizes that school choice is more than a matter of zoning and instead a significant decision that will affect over a decade of a child's most powerful years. Jefferson City is blessed to have so many excellent options in our local public and parochial schools, as well as with our community's strong home school family networks.
At the end of this week, we enter immediately into National Catholic Schools Week. Long before I took a position as administrator of St. Joseph Cathedral School, my wife and I embraced school choice and decided our children would attend Catholic grade school and high school. With our oldest child now in sixth grade, we have found Catholic schools to provide academic excellence and a variety of extra-curricular options, from robotics and coding to archery. The hallways are calm and the climate is positive.
This week, as our Welcome Team stood in the cold to greet our disciples, the students responded with politeness and respect. Because our area Catholic schools value choice, our elementary schools do not charge tuition to active parishioner families! A modest book fee is supplemented with the generosity of our parish community, and I am so proud of Helias Catholic High School for the amazing decision to reduce tuition from an already reasonable level in order to open their doors wider for families who are seeking a Christ-centered, high-quality education, and all the while moving forward with exciting new facilities.
The morning I wrote this letter, I had just come from Mass, where my daughter was singing in choir and Christ was present before us in the consecration of the Eucharist. It was this experience which reminded me of the primary reason my wife and I chose Catholic education for our children. Our schools do not just allow prayer and worship; rather, faith and values are an integral part of our curriculum and culture, reflecting what we are looking for in the school that provides a support system for us as their primary educators.
To our business partners and our community organizations and leaders, thank you to all who support school choice and our local Catholic schools.
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