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Spanish
River Christian School |
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| SRCS in the beginning... | ||||
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The scene is a WWII-era army barracks near the Boca Raton airport. Visualize a windowless room shaped like a bowling alley. Now, imagine a teacher and six children in this room, with a kitchenette and bathroom as the only remnants of its former tenants. | |||
| The teacher was Sharon Demko, her kindergarten students included Suzi Corwin Sweeten, and the classroom was part of a new elementary school. These were the humble beginnings 21 years ago of Spanish River Christian School, which began as a preschool for children of Spanish River Church members. |  |
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| Sharon Demko, who has been with SRCS for nineteen years, is the school’s fourth principal and Suzi Sweeten is now a middle school teacher at SRCS. | ||||
| How much have we changed? | ||||
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SRCS teachers, Patricia VanderKooy, Sharon Zylstra, and Kathy Blum reflected on their first years of teaching at SRCS before the church and school moved to Yamato Road in 1985. |
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| Partitions separated classrooms from each other and from church offices. A teacher and her students spent the entire school day together in a classroom with one small bathroom. There were no books, except for reading, and the curriculum was written by the teachers. There was no library or lunchroom. The playground was a square of dirt with huge tires and a picnic table. A “ditto” machine was the technology of the day. |  |
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| Fast forward to present day and location, past the time of portable classrooms that housed the new middle school. The two-story education building, which contains computer and science labs, replaced the portables for middle school classrooms. The library and elementary computer lab occupy SRC’s former office space. The conversion of the original worship center provided a gym and expanded athletic department. The portables are gone, and an outdoor eating pavilion took their place. Every classroom has television, VCR, and computers. Two computer labs and a mobile computer lab contain 62 computers. An athletic field and two new playgrounds occupy the east end of the property. | ||||
| God at work... | ||||
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The
new facilities are things that are easily seen.
What is unseen is the key to the school’s success and the
spirit of faculty and students. As
we see the success of our alumni, we know those tiny mustard seeds of
faith have grown in many ways, both spiritually and academically. |
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| God has been faithful in providing our school with an incredible faculty and staff, the support of Spanish River Church, and dedicated parents. Over the years, our annual fundraisers have enabled us to enhance both our facilities and our programs. |  |
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| Last May’s twentieth anniversary celebration kick-off and auction raised over $60,000 for the new Gift of Education scholarship fund. Through the Gift of Education, SRCS will be able to increase scholarship opportunities for families in need, provide students with hands-on mission experience, and grow and strengthen students in Christian leadership. Contributions to the scholarship fund should be made payable to SRCS Gift of Education. | ||||
