Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify | Watch the Video

What is an Ecclesial School? Today Kevin Clark joins us to share about this educational model. We’ll learn how it works, the superb educational accommodations that are offered within it, and how he is helping these small schools grow and spread classical Christian education in Florida.

Episode Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode for better readability.

Marlin Detweiler:

Hello again, and welcome to Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. On today's episode, we have with us Kevin Clark and as a matter of disclosure, his brother used to work at Veritas Press. And I got to know Kevin that way. But Kevin's been about some very interesting things you'll hear about in this episode. But first, Kevin, welcome.

Kevin Clark:

Thank you.

Marlin Detweiler:

Great to have you here. Tell us a little bit about yourself personally before we get into, the schools that you have founded.

Kevin Clark:

Sure, absolutely. Again, great to be with you today. Great to connect. So glad we have a chance to talk. Been involved in classical Christian education really for my entire career. Over 20 years, classroom teaching. I happen to be one of those people who like students in seventh and eighth grade and really enjoyed teaching logic.

Marlin Detweiler:

That's a sick bunch of people! Ha!

Kevin Clark:

It is, it is. And so I think there's a lot of, you know, I think the real action is happening in grammar school, but I didn't think I had the gifting to be a grammar school teacher. But I loved being with the logic school students. I have four children. All have started classical Christian education from K, one who is in college now and thriving, one who will be a senior next year. And then two younger ones, now fourth grade and eighth grade. So, true believer, both professionally and as a parent.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah. That's wonderful. Where was your education?

Kevin Clark:

It started with an undergraduate education in Central Florida. I'm a Floridian, but I transplanted at a very young age. I went to the University of Central Florida, where I studied music and the history of Western thought philosophy. I then completed a seminary degree at Reformed Theological Seminary and finished graduate school at Georgetown in DC.

Marlin Detweiler:

Okay. Very good. And did you go from Georgetown then to the Geneva School where you taught for a while?

Kevin Clark:

Yeah. That's a very interesting, story right there. I commuted for a couple of years during coursework between DC in Orlando. It fit with my teaching schedule in a way that the head of school really made possible.

Marlin Detweiler:

Okay.

Kevin Clark:

I just had a little bit of a longer commute than some of the other students in my my cohort.

Marlin Detweiler:

And what were the things that you taught at Geneva?

Kevin Clark:

Taught rhetoric, logic, history of Western thought, philosophy, and Greek for a time. And classical guitar. That was one of the fun ones!

Marlin Detweiler:

I didn't realize Geneva did that. That's pretty cool. So you have left the Geneva school now roughly five years ago. We'll put a year on that because these things need to be evergreen. 2019. And, what was it that germinated that change? What was growing? How did it come about that you had this idea of what is called Ecclesial Schools? And so talk about the idea then and then define what it is that you're doing.

Kevin Clark:

Yeah. The Ecclesial Schools were born with, with two insights or two disquieting or continually, provocative ideas. One of them is just really deepening the possibility the formative impact of classical Christian education, wanting to see that, particularly how classical Christian education could serve the Christian family and the church with this next generation of young people.

And at the same time, seeing that there is, there's just a lot of opportunity to serve families, I think for the first time in our culture in generations, parents are awake to possibilites other than public school education and through everything from choice of favored legislation to funding in different states across America, people are not only interested, they're actually actively pursuing alternatives.

And so it presented an offer, a growing opportunity, really, to serve people who haven't had the opportunity to have classical Christian education, seeing those two things coming together. actually, I could talk more about the ecclesial schools, but we share spaces and services with churches to drive down the cost of education, and I was able to really realize two dreams at once, expanding access and connecting, classical education to the life of the church.

Marlin Detweiler:

Am I right to assume that the primary expanding access was that you really are, sensitive to the fact that paying for education twice is, in very simple terms, an impossibility for many families, and so that was a driving force for what you're doing?

Kevin Clark:

Absolutely. Yeah. And, for people listening, they say paying for education twice. I think people don't realize like, yeah, when you pay that tuition bill at your local private Christian school, you're also generously donating your tax dollars on your home.

Marlin Detweiler:

When I paid private tuition, I never got a discount on my school taxes.

Kevin Clark:

For some reason, yeah, that's probably got caught up in legislation somewhere.

No, absolutely. That's what we've been trying to find that that way. And even in, Florida for the longest time, which has a robust choice scholarship program that I know people are learning about it across the nation. It's not exactly the same as a voucher program because it's coming from a scholarship granting organization that's established by the state, but not a state agency.

There's approximately $8,000 per child available in funding, private schools in Central Florida averaged just over $18,000 a year. And so that $8,000 doesn't move the needle for a lot of families. And so we wanted to start a school that really drove that cost down, that just, you know, made the possibility of that $8,000 having a dramatic impact.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah, I know of those as ESA funds. Is that what you're referring to?

Kevin Clark:

Yeah. So and, you know, Florida has to do things a little bit different. We call them EMA here. So instead of the savings account their education market accounts. But yeah, they're deferred tax payments from Florida corporations, to this nonprofit, gifts from individuals, and then surpluses from the state budget go into that as charitable gifts to the scholarship granting organization.

Marlin Detweiler:

That was a driving force to where parents could afford things because of various forms of assistance. How much of that, then has been realized in your student body?

Kevin Clark:

Yeah, our student body, we aim to have a, I guess it’s called a blended school. We wanted to have about a third, to 40% of our students who come from a low income background, about another third who have demonstrated financial need, and another third who might have been candidates for another, private school. So they could kind of choose to go where they wanted, but they feel missionally connected to the ecclesial school.

And we've realized that every year since we found that it's been divided into about those thirds across the student body.

Marlin Detweiler:

I know a little bit about the Geneva school, and I know that it's not cheap. You've taught you taught there for a number of years. And I expect that you can define, what culture you've realized from a bit more socioeconomic diversity. Is that been a significant part of, what you've seen is helpful to students and families?

Kevin Clark:

We've definitely, and again, I know we'll be able to edit this one here. I don't want to say anything. It'll be like, no, but yes. And if that would be, you know, kind of possible to just say, hey.

Marlin Detweiler:

Don't worry about it. We're we're low-key. We're not trying to be perfect in how we communicate.

Kevin Clark:

That idea of socioeconomic diversity is important for us, I think. I mean, if I could just speak completely frankly, I think our founding board members, when you look at the church, right, the church, it's essential notes are one holy, Catholic and apostolic. And that Catholic note is people from all places, all times, all backgrounds. And you would love to see that kind of character represented in all Christian institutions.

And so I wanted the church and the school to look a little bit more like each other, where it's people from all backgrounds. And not just, you know, for some families, great as it is that there are families who've been able to, you know, provide Christian education for their children. We wanted to see it for everybody.

Marlin Detweiler:

How would you define then what you're doing academically? If I were to walk in there, having walked into dozens of classical schools, how would it be the same? How would it be different?

Kevin Clark:

Yeah, I think what you would see coming into our school, there are some things I think that are curricular emphasis is of ours that I could say that. You'd walk into classrooms with children chanting Latin in fourth grade and they would be reading the Aeneid in their eighth-grade class. So there would be the same high standards and rich classical curriculum that we've seen recovered in our own lifetime by classical schools. You would see at our school.

I think you would see students who are on a little bit of a trajectory. Maybe they've come in from a second grade class at a county district school, and they're behind in grammar and mathematics, for example, the way that we would teach.

And so we're gonna make room for them to catch up. And so you would see some students who might not be starting that first year of third grade on the same level as everyone else, but we're going to try to close that gap by the end of third grade, beginning of fourth grade. High standards mean high support.

Marlin Detweiler:

What language I might put to that is you're prepared to apply a high level of accommodation.

Kevin Clark:

We are absolutely. Yeah, it's certainly higher than I've experienced professionally in other classical Christian schools. Where you're able to more or less curate your student body in some of the schools and, you know, we definitely don't have illusions over the gaps that we can close sometimes are too big. It hurts when you see a family who realizes they've not had great access to high-quality education, and they want it for their children. But we know we can't– there's not enough time for us, given our limited resources to close the gap for the kids.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah, yeah, I understand that. We find ourselves with our online school in a unique situation because we have so many sections of every course. And so if a student is in seventh grade, which would be a standard for Algebra One, but they're ready for geometry or Algebra Two or Algebra 1/2, which is a pre-algebra, it doesn't matter because, you know, there are 20 some sections of algebra one and a significant number of the others.

And so they don't have to do that. But when you're having to accommodate within one grade, that creates an incredible complexity. And it's very commendable to you and the schools that want to do that. Tell me why that's so important to you in this circumstance. I get the socioeconomic thing, because paying for private education is something that most people need help with.

But the accommodation thing is new to me in terms of your emphasis, tell me why that was so important.

Kevin Clark:

Yeah, I mean, it's a way to reach into need. Honestly, I think that you have economic disadvantage or which usually connected to that, as you know, we use the language of academic disenfranchisement, right? There might be, you know, maybe parents didn't have opportunities. And so, you know, maybe you or I with our educational background, I would go to a school and I would see what they're offering to my second grader and say, oh, no, no way. This is not at all going to set them up for success academically, but maybe other parents don't have the background to realize what you know ought to be expected. What puts them on the track for learning. And so we don't want to I mean, obviously it gets it's easier kindergarten first, second grade. Every year you get further down the track, it's harder to close those gaps.

And you can even if you want to be accommodating, it would be hard to have a student come in ninth grade right, to one of our classical Christian schools who has had a poor education before, not because we don't want to be open or hospitable. But there's a lot that's happened in nine years at our schools.

But yeah, that idea of wanting to serve families and the belief, too, that, there really is rich learning that's taking place in classical Christian schools and students who maybe are just lacking exposure, but have, you know, ability and interest, if we put them in that challenging, rich curriculum with great instruction from a teacher, they're going to make up time.

Marlin Detweiler:

One of the things I've noted too. We've been involved in starting two brick-and-mortar classical Christian schools and then the online school. And one of the things I've noted is it's a lot easier to work with the accommodation needs and still meet everyone's needs when you're younger and everybody's coming from lots of different directions. But the the older you are, the bigger you are, the more you have this monolithic group, and the new student who might not be up to par in a discipline or two or more, the accommodations stand out more.

Have you considered as the school's age and have a more of a monolithic, student body, how the accommodation will work then? if it's a significant important at the get go, I understand it at the start. Every classical school I've talked to has had people from all kinds of perspectives come together. It's a melting pot at that level. But it doesn’t remain that way. How do you maintain an accommodations emphasis?

Kevin Clark:

Yeah I think well, what we've seen, there's a couple of answers to the question. First of all, I mean that that's completely true, right? If you're actually delivering on your academic model, it should be I think it should be harder because you're having, you know, widespread academic growth and achievement, which is which is wonderful. I think what you know, what we've seen, where we're at our second campus, now, the first campus, the growth, even for this coming year, is basically kindergarten.

And I think that's going to be, the case more than not. And really, that gives us an opportunity to grow. And even thinking about where are we going to strategically grow. It's going to be kindergarten through second grade, maybe through third and fourth, where we can close those gaps more. I think even if everyone's coming from the same place, you know, the way first graders are, even the way they grow sometimes it's never just everyone growing like this.

Someone all of a sudden shoots up ahead above the rest. They make an advance in math or language arts, and I think we see the same thing. And so accommodations kind of already in the atmosphere. But I think you're right. Later on it gets really challenging.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah. I'm really interested to hear 6 or 8 years from now what the accommodation approach looks like. We've, we've found you know, we'll write up what we'll call what is the term that we use now, but basically, migration paths for people to come into something. And we find that it's the probably between third and fourth grade that the difference becomes greater between the student that's not part of our environment than those that are outside it, especially when they're not, you know, if they're in another classical school or a very diligent parent homeschooling them classically, then that's not so much a problem.

But if they're coming out of the public system, or at many times other private schools, the gap really starts to grow at fourth grade. And if you're growth is in early years, that will make it simple. But getting the older kids in is a tough category.

Kevin Clark:

It really is. And that's something that I don't know if it's relevant to the conversation, but the campuses are designed to be K - 8 and then we have a 9-12th grade program. So we're starting at our, second campus location, our first ninth grade class this year. And students, as they complete eighth grade, part of eighth grade is applying to be part of the ninth through 12th grade program.

And the working assumption for us is that it's going to be two, maybe three sections of eighth grade for every one section of ninth grade that we offer, because I think that's another place, you see. Well, okay, people hanging together through eighth grade. But then really you have students who wherever that line intersects, I know it's happening earlier and earlier now with students where they need to have buy-in, and not just mom and dad's buy-in, it makes all the difference whether the student at least wants to want to be there and study more days than not.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah, that's absolutely true. So what are your dreams? You're currently located on two campuses in the northern suburbs of Orlando. Tell us what your dreams and plans are. Well, what does it look like ten years from now?

Kevin Clark:

Right. If you're if you were ever a fly-on-the-wall at our admin meeting, you would hear us recite the liturgy that I've created. It says we are expanding access to extraordinary education by founding a network of thriving neighborhood schools planted in local churches.

And the idea of that being this network of neighborhood schools. I would love to see an ecclesial schools option in every neighborhood and in Central Florida. That's why I say I dream. Five years from now, I'd like to see 5 to 7 of them are first like the small four. That's a small economy of scale. We think of operating 1 to 2 sections wide of the grade level, on a campus location, first campus going to be one section wide. The second campus location is a two section wide at the grade level. And that has everything to do with available use of space in the church and size of the congregation. We want it to be not the tail wagging the dog. I think that's a negative experience sometimes for churches. And we don't want to get into building programs. We really want to use the spaces that are there.

Marlin Detweiler:

Now, you've mentioned Central Florida. Do you have geographic constraints on what you are overseeing?

We want to get Central Florida down, because we know it the best, and our connection to the knowledge of the market is the best in Florida. Beyond that, there's a number of markets in Florida where we think there could be a great opportunity for what we're doing. Again, you know, Lord willing how things develop in that regard.

Kevin Clark:

There are a number of states that have similar legislative choice and the publicly available funding network. That's a key part of our model. A number of states have similar models to Florida. And so there's places that we'd be interested in going into that would feel like home.

And then it gets complicated after that, not wanting to try to do something that we don't know how to do well.

Marlin Detweiler:

I understand that, and one of the reasons I'm pursuing these questions is because my experience tells me this. When you do something well, other people hear about it, and they say, “Will you help us do it?” The people that hear about you are not the people that are just 30 miles away, so that it's easy to do. What do you do when you hear from somebody in Austin, Sacramento, Omaha, or that sort of thing? Is that part of your thinking, part of your vision?

Kevin Clark:

It's interesting. It is, but there's this constant check on ourselves. Like, what can we actually do? What would keep us from, staying focused on being successful in the field where we're working at the moment. I think I've had so many people, in my career that have poured into me with time and with advice that I'm pretty much willing to jump on a phone call with anybody.

That's that's probably to a fault. I could see I could hear the chairman of my board saying, “No, you don’t need to plan anything. You got your own job to do. Don't do that.”

But I do talk to people regularly who are either, you know, either from connecting through, you know, through, networks of other classical Christian educators, through, like I mentioned, to you offline with the Drexel Fund, that was the, the school growth fund that we started the ecclesial schools with. And so connecting with people, matter of fact, even today, while we're doing this call I have, school founder who's part of the Drexel Fund is visiting and spending the day to see what we're doing here, for encouragement.

Marlin Detweiler:

So tell us about the Drexel Fund. Do they provide you the seed money? Do they provide operating funds as well?

Kevin Clark:

Yeah, the Drexel Fund is, if you think charter school growth fund, but for private schools, that's how they founded, as a fund. They have they either help existing schools that are high performing replicate or, in my respect, they take people's ideas for new schools, especially networks of schools. And they pick maybe 2 or 3, sometimes for different projects nationally here in the States that they're I think 11 states, they're privileging because just the policy environment, the funding structure.

And yeah, so we we applied for that. What came with it is a one year founder, program. It's a zero year essentially going from a school model to to a business plan and executive coaching that goes along with it. Kind of like a Shark Tank experience, you get to the very end and you say, I met all of my requirements for the year. You make the pitch to the board, and then you get brought on to the portfolio, and there's an operational stair-step grant funding over the first four years of operations.

Marlin Detweiler:

Interesting. Did you have to move somewhere to do that?

Kevin Clark:

I did not, no. They work with people in different states, there were, I think there are two of us the year that I was a founder here in Florida. And then there are other folks who are, I want to say maybe Pennsylvania and Indiana that were working.

Marlin Detweiler:

Are they are they based in Pennsylvania?

Kevin Clark:

They are not. I want to say that, they're they're a national board. I won't say the headquarters are actually in Milwaukee.

Marlin Detweiler:

Okay. With Drexel University in Philadelphia. I didn't know if there was any loose connection, or if it was a common name only.

Kevin Clark:

Only through the namesake. The name was inspired by Saint Catherine Drexel, I think.

Marlin Detweiler:

Okay. Very good. So that got you started. Tell us about the challenges then that you met. You really, as best I can tell, you really have a lot of momentum now. But I know that different schools as they start, have different challenges. Where did you find your challenges and opportunities in getting established?

Kevin Clark:

Yeah. Well, we had a unique challenge opportunity, I guess. Not unique to us at all. We founded in 2020.

Marlin Detweiler:

By the way, welcome to Covid. You have a school now, you're not going to meet.

Kevin Clark:

Right? Yeah. One of the things I think was a challenge, obviously, were all the, the Covid policies, one thing being in Florida is that we are allowed to do face-to-face education with some, you know, interesting health guidelines there that we had to follow, but is obviously a significant challenge, but also presents an opportunity, people who are looking for educational choices in 2020 kind of made really great pioneer families.

I think that they were willing to do something different. And also, I think everybody, although I talk to my children now, they can't remember the world before, before Covid, you know, back when you used to get good service on time for reasonable prices.

Think like, well, everyone was willing to give you a break if you're trying really hard to do something. So that was a great actually really forgivable year to be a founder.

In all seriousness, though, Drexel paired us up with the Spreading Hope network, which is a network coming from Hope Academy in Minneapolis with Ross, Greg, and Dan Olson in particular. And so one of the big challenges, like, you know, we've never tried to do accessible classical Christian education before.

And, you know, how do you go about building up a network of philanthropic support for families who want to invest and seeing that happen in their community. And so that was a big a really big learning curve. Just learning how to engage people and really tell our story. And I know that that's the same anyone who start something has to be able to do that.

But, you know, again, we had people pour into us, through that Spreading Hope Network. It was it was great. Getting people to to come and work at a new school. That was something, you know, this year we've been blessed with more qualified candidates than I could I ever could have imagined applying.

And we had just really good opportunity to get to be choosy at grade level. You know, the first year, it's like, hold on, you're a brand new school start. This could fail. I'd never heard of you before. You don't even have your own building. You're meeting in a church. That took a lot of “please believe in us, we’re going to do it.” It was a challenge.

Marlin Detweiler:

It is. It's not for the faint of heart.

Kevin Clark:

It's not. You know, and I realized that just the way that I'm wired is that I typically– we go through something really hard, and 3 or 4 months later, I say, hold on. That was that was a real challenge, wasn't it? That’s probably a key quality of being a founder is to not be afraid. Maybe just because you're not thoughtful enough.

Marlin Detweiler:

In our last few minutes, give us some anecdotal stories of success, student stories, family stories, that sort of thing. You've you've really pursued something. I have known for decades now, that the thing that was holding back classical education from really becoming millions of students was affordability. And you've you've hit that head on in some really good respects.

Tell us about some success stories, though, from the few years that you already have on your belt.

Kevin Clark:

Wow. Success stories. There are so many that that come to mind. I was thinking just in terms of accommodation. I was literally speaking with a parent this week who their child came into our first grade class significantly behind grade level in reading and mathematics. And we just, said no, this family fits a target in terms of, maybe, socioeconomic background that's underserved. We're going to be committed to it.

And now this child is in the end of second grade. This child is on grade level math and reading, ready for third grade and feeling hopeful and not even realizing that this a little the little first grade heart, how she was feeling like she didn't have what it takes. And now she feels hopeful and confident and loved and rooted at school. And that, you know, getting that letter from from a parent just this past week was really encouraging for me, for the teachers.

Marlin Detweiler:

Those kinds of things get you up in the morning.

Kevin Clark:

Oh, they do! Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you you think like, why are we doing this? Why are we walking up on both directions sometimes? Yeah.

Another student who, came into, in eighth grade class this year from public school. She was actually really well prepared, academically. But she came from a Christian family, from a strong church background, and seemed to just fit in. And I just pulled her aside one day.

I said, “Tell me a little bit about it. You came from public school this year. You came into the Ecclesial school,” She just tears up. And she says, “I love being able to pray and not have to be embarrassed. I'm able to to talk about my faith in my teachers care about me growing, you know, my knowledge of the scriptures.”

And I thought, this is why we're doing this. This child was feeling like an alien at her school for being a Christian. And now she gets to grow in her faith with her peers and just thinking that, oh, that's a dream to be able to see a child do that.

I think maybe some of the other surprising things for teachers who I have a handful of teachers– our teachers come from a couple different backgrounds, maybe three main backgrounds. We have folks who are doing classical, Christian education through groups like, you know, classical conversations or maybe like a hybrid home learning situation who want to move into classroom teaching, some who come from other private Christian schools or classical schools.

But another group are people coming from title one, public school backgrounds who maybe they were, you know, they're Christians who feel a strong call to serve people, who are in tough places. And so they went into public education missionally and then I think felt just discouraged saying,

“Man, the system is not really working in the same direction I'm working. I am being, you know, salt and light how we talk about that. But really, I don't feel like I'm making a difference. And they've had the opportunity to come into a classical Christian school. And I've regularly had these teachers in tears saying, this is what I've always wanted to do. I've been able I wanted to see children really love learning and connect their faith with their academic growth. And I've just never been able to do it. And now a school makes that possible.”

So that's been one of the I didn't really think of the impact it would have on teachers being able to teach in an environment that's like that's connecting with their their missional call for families, but also with their calling as Christians to do Christian formative education.

Marlin Detweiler:

That is excellent. So you are going the whole way through 12th grade when you get there, can you consolidate that maybe into a location that is fed by multiple locations?

Kevin Clark:

Yeah. That's what we're doing right now, although just about every one of our eighth graders who finished on our first campus is going to our ninth grade program. So that's going to challenge the model a little bit if we if we get overwhelmed with ninth grade interest.

Marlin Detweiler:

Good problems to have.

Kevin Clark:

Yes!

Marlin Detweiler:

They’re real problems, but good problems.

Kevin Clark:

Thank you for acknowledging that. Some of it really is a problem. You know, in our in our business plan, ninth grade did not fit into it this year. We were thinking we really want to do K through eight under our belt, get it down for a few years, and then think ninth grade. But we had some of those families who are those missional pioneer families in fifth grade. They said, well, where are we going to go for ninth grade? Okay, we'll do it.

Marlin Detweiler:

Well, when you start with a range the next year, the range has to expand. If you've done your work well, right? Well, I'm glad it sounds like you guys are pretty adaptable too.

Kevin Clark:

I think so. We say the image of green bamboo. We need to be strong and flexible. That's what we say about people. You're talking to the team, “All right, we need to be green bamboo.”

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah, we could go on forever. This is wonderful, folks. Thanks for joining us and hearing about ecclesial schools with Kevin Clark from Orlando, Florida. We appreciate you being here at Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Hope to see you next time, Kevin. Thank you.

Kevin Clark:

Hey, great. Marlin. Good. Good to talk with you.