SAD NEWS ABOUT NEW COVENANT CHRISTIAN SCHOOL

“Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” (Galatians 3:24)

Last night I watched the one hour T.V. special CBS ran about the life of Walter Cronkite. Along with so many others, I found myself feeling nostalgic and sad when I learned of his death a couple of days ago. I was one of those “baby boomers” who trusted “Uncle Walter” and grew up watching his newscasts. Just about everyone agrees there will never be another Walter Cronkite, and that’s too bad.

Cronkite’s passing is not the only news that’s put me in a sober mood. Yesterday afternoon, our family had lunch at Olive Garden in Framingham with an old friend, Anneli McCulley of Marlboro. (The McCulleys attended our church in the ‘80s and ‘90s.) Somewhere in the midst of conversation during the meal, Anneli informed us of the closing of New Covenant Christian School. I haven’t experienced such sadness about the closing of a local ministry since Christian Life Center church in Walpole went bankrupt in the late ‘90s. They lost a fantastic property and facilities on Route 27 in Walpole. Evangelical Christian ministry in New England tends to be very difficult. Learning of the demise of any fine Christian organization here, especially one that’s had a great past and to which many volunteers donated countless hours of labor, well it’s just very sad.

New Covenant Christian School was founded in 1983. A friend of ours, Alice Lund who lived in Medway at the time, was on the school’s original planning committee. The vision was to establish a quality Christian elementary school (possibly later expanding to higher grades) in the Framingham area. NCCS opened its doors in 1985, originally renting space from what’s now known as MetroWest Worship Center on Pleasant Street in Ashland. NCCS adopted a very challenging and potentially difficult philosophy for operating a Christian school. Unlike most other Christian schools, NCCS had no church or denominational affiliation. The school was completely independent. The vision of NCCS was for many evangelical churches in the MetroWest area to support the school financially and to encourage their families to send their kids to the school. The school’s Board consisted of a diverse group of Christians of various ages and backgrounds. There was always a conscious decision to make sure “charismatics” and “non-charismatics” were each serving on the Board. In addition, NCCS had a Pastoral Advisory Council who met monthly and then gave their input to the Board.

In my early years in Framingham, our church was one of the most involved with NCCS. We financially supported the school as one of our “missions” and I served on the Pastoral Advisory Council. All of my children went through New Covenant Christian School and for several years my wife taught Kindergarten and First Grade there. The locations changed from MetroWest Worship Center to Federated Church of Ashland to Framingham Vineyard Christian Fellowship and ultimately NCCS leased a desirable school building from the City of Marlboro.

The history of NCCS, its years of success, and then its ultimate decline and closing would make an interesting topic for someone working on either a Master’s thesis or Doctoral dissertation in Education. The schools early pioneering families included the Gabriellis, Scerras, Connells, and others who poured their “blood, sweat, and tears” to make it happen. In the early years, if you sent your kids to NCCS, it occupied a huge part of your time and energy and everybody involved with the school was like a big family. We shared a camaraderie not only in working together and playing together to make the school happen, but in dreaming of what it would be one day. The original NCCS philosophy was of a “three legged stool”, that is family, church, and school, all working together. NCCS deliberately chose to only accept students from evangelical Christian homes where the family was active in a local evangelical church.

By the late 1990s, NCCS had hired an Administrator with a very different philosophy. The school began accepting kids with “unsaved parents”. The idea of parents and pastors “running the school” was “deep sixed”, and the Pastoral Advisory Council was dissolved. The school did very well during those years, adding a middle school and growing.

A few years ago, that Administrator left and the NCCS Board decided to return to its roots of the “three legged stool” philosophy. The typical parent of the 2000s turned out to be quite different from the pioneering parents of the 1980s. One NCCS employee confided in me that discipline of today’s parents was very lax and that parents did not support the teachers in matters of disciplining their kids. Many of today’s parents also did not have the time and energy to pour into the school as in the past. (I need to be careful about generalizing. This was certainly not true of ALL NCCS parents of the 2000s. Some were very hardworking volunteers and very supportive of the faculty. Even so, things were NOT the same as the 1980s.) A couple of years ago, the City of Marlboro raised the cost on the Bigelow School building. New Covenant was outbid by another organization and they lost their very desirable facility. NCCS moved to much smaller quarters in a church’s facility on a main street. It just didn’t work, and a month ago, New Covenant Christian School died.

“But I was planning to send my kids to New Covenant Christian School someday!” was my daughter Rachel’s sad response to Anneli McCulley’s news.
At one time, NCCS was very much at the center of our family’s world. There were years when all three of my kids were attending school there, my wife was working there full-time, and I was on the Pastoral Advisory Council. There were all sorts of evenings spent at the school, and like most of the schools other families, we were always “talking up” the school to our extended family and friends. Yes, the news of NCCS’s closing was difficult to hear.

Where did NCCS go wrong?
Was the school’s vision too idealistic?
Is the blame with local churches who did not give the school enough support?
Were the changes in the school’s philosophy too confusing?
Was the move to Marlboro a mistake?
Is the real reason the school closed the economy?

And, will there every be anything like New Covenant Christian School in MetroWest again?