News Headlines
Blessings of a New School Year
By KERRY WATSON-GARNER, STAFF WRITER
Blessings and changes abound at Cary private schools this month, as they have started, or prepared to start, the 2004-05 year.
Cary Christian School began Aug. 3 at a new location off Old Apex Road that â?? for the first time in the school's eight-year existence â?? allows all grades to be on one campus.
With 624 students, Cary Christian has finally completed its plans of being a grades K-12 school.
"We have 10 seniors, 18 juniors, 22 sophomores, 45 freshmen and around 60 children all the way down, every grade to kindergarten," Larry Stephenson, Cary Christian's superintendent, said.
After having the grammar school (grades K-5), logic school (6-8) and rhetoric school (9-12) on three different campuses for the past few years, Stephenson said everyone is grateful to be together.
That is the way people at Grace Christian School, located off Buck Jones Road, felt last year when it opened with its first full year of K-12.
This school year, which begins Aug. 23, finds Grace with a new principal, David Temple.
Grace is not the only private school in Cary with a new leader.
St. Michael Catholic School welcomed its new principal, Dr. Sarah Wannemuehler, at the end of last school year, as longtime principal Carolyn Westbrook retired. It will begin the new year for its first- through eighth-graders Aug. 24.
Two smaller private schools in the area â?? Resurrection Lutheran School and Chesterbrook Elementary â?? are also celebrating the new year in unique ways.
On Sunday, the teachers and new second-grade classroom of the grades K-2 Resurrection Lutheran School received a blessing at the church's service.
Marybeth Childers, director of Resurrection Lutheran School, said that blessing all the teachers is part of every new year, as is blessing the new grade and class added each year.
This school year, Resurrection adds second-graders.
"By being blessed, they are receiving the mark of God," Childers said.
A new playground that the parents of the school donated was also blessed Friday. The 43 students now have play equipment designated especially for them.
Chesterbrook Elementary on Towne Village Drive has 175 kindergartners through fifth-graders this year. They started school Aug. 9.
Assistant principal Elaine McLean said that one of the main goals this year at Chesterbrook is to receive accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
Plus, Chesterbrook has added many after-school activities, such as "Imagination Station" and more drama and arts classes.
Cary's largest private school â?? Cary Academy â?? started its eighth year Aug. 12, with 690 students, including 297 in the Middle School and 393 in the Upper School. The senior class is its biggest yet, at 94 members.
At every private school, officials said the 2004-05 school year is getting off to a great start.
"We've just been very blessed by how the new year has started," Stephenson said.
This article originally appeared in Cary News.