An Evansville private school is fast-tracking long term plans to have its own elementary school building. After sharing a building with a local church for decades, Evansville Christian School administrators hope to build a new facility for hundreds of students by the 2021 school year.
Evansville Christian School administrators are challenged with raising $9 million dollars in five weeks and turning a field into an elementary school in 18 months.
In an email sent to parents this fall, Evansville Christian School Principal Mike Allen announced the elementary school that had been housed at Bethel Church for 45 years would move out by the 2021 school year.
ECS is looking to build due to the church's plans for the future, making the current arrangement unsustainable.
School leaders have long had plans to have a free-standing ECS campus – the first step of which is already complete with a high school facility at the corner of Epworth Road and Lincoln Avenue.
But this project is different. The high school took three years to build. Head of School Mike Allen has half that amount of time to fundraise, plan and build the new elementary school.
“In this scenario we do not have a lot of lead time, however we have a lot of people jumping in and saying we have got to make this happen. The more you can get people on board with who we want to be in the community the faster the dirt will move,” he said.
It turns out that sort of talk isn’t just Allen’s charismatic optimism speaking. In announcing the plans for the new facility in November, Allen also announced news of a $3 million dollar anonymous gift.
The elementary school will be next to the high school.
When asked what the new facility may look like or what features it may include – Allen says there are no blueprints and a contractor won’t be hired until January.
So, there are millions yet to be raised and entire plans yet to be drawn, but administrators say construction will be underway in the spring.
Elementary school principal Suzie Masterson does know the school will need one thing in particular that it doesn’t have now:
“We hope it gives parents more of an opportunity to be in the building. As thankful as we are for the shared building with our church partner, most of these buildings were not built to be a school and we haven’t been able to do things like invite parents for lunch and that's really important,” she said.
As a parent to two ECS students, Jill Hadley said she knows it will take more than money to get the job done – something she experienced first-hand as the high school was built.
“For a year, a team of us prayer-walked this property and now we are sitting in it. It was an answer to all those prayers. We are doing that again for the elementary school – it is a continuation of a vision,” she said.
Nate Grubb is a high school student. He too watched as the high school was built and although he wasn’t making any multi-million dollar gifts to get the concrete poured, he believes he did his part and he plans to do the same for the elementary school.
“I’ll see this new place and be like my prayers through God made that happen and if I stay around my kids can come up in this place like I did,” he said.
That’s the kind of support Allen is asking for now – prayer. He says he’ll ask for money later.
“No, we haven't asked yet and we probably won't next week either or the week after that,” Allen said.
ECS is fully-accredited and has been designated an A-rated, High Achievement/High Growth school by the Indiana Department of Education. But Allen believes ECS’s recognition is a small part of what makes ECS home for families looking for a good education, and he says a new building won’t change that:
“At the end of the day, you can meet in concrete palace, multimillion dollar facility or meet in a field but it is all about the relationships you build with people," he said.
(WNIN Reporter Sarah Kuper has an association with Evansville Christian School)