By Head of School Michael Dewey
Count Your Blessings
In just three year’s time, Evergreen Christian School has accomplished quite a bit. We have gone from 36 students enrolled in 2021 to over 170 students in 2024 (that’s more than quadrupling our student population). While our first graduating class was comprised of only 16 seniors, we saw the class of 2024 bring in more than one million dollars in scholarship offers from some of the most prestigious universities in our country. This year we will graduate 40 seniors, and the following year over 50. This past April, the Middle States Association, one of the oldest and most reputable accrediting agencies in the United States, granted ECS full accreditation through 2032. Our very first year as a school we offered 21 different classes; this year we offer 75 different courses from which our students can select. Of course, there is much more that can be said. As the old hymn appropriately reminds us, “Count your blessings, name them one by one; count your blessings, see what God hath done; count your blessings, name them one by one; count your many blessings, see what God hath done.”
But now is not the time to rest on our laurels. While we thank God for all he has accomplished at and through our school, we know that there is more work to be done and greater heights of excellence to be achieved. When God gave the call to start a Christian high school in Loudoun County over five years ago, it wasn’t a call to merely establish a program quickly and get students into good colleges. It wasn’t a call to simply be accredited. The call that God gave the founding group of men and women of ECS was to become the premier Christian high school in Loudoun County. While those other things are certainly a part of answering that call, it means so much more. God has called Evergreen Christian School to build a school with excellence, both spiritually and academically, as unto the Lord; to establish a program where young women and men are grounded in God’s word and equipped with the resources needed to live out their faith in today’s world. There are a lot of accomplishments that we can be thankful for, but this mission, this very specific calling to take seriously the need to raise up the next generation of Christian leaders, is a blessing of which we are humbled to be a part.
Community & Communication
As the Head of School, I am reminded that God has used every family that has come to ECS to help fulfill this mission. Their commitment to our school has come in the form of continually lifting up our school in prayer, volunteering to make sure our students and staff feel loved and encouraged, spreading the word about our school to friends and neighbors, making financial sacrifices to pay tuition or to make a donation so that others can afford to attend, and most importantly, entrusting their own children to us day after day. We will not dishonor the commitment that these families have made and the support they have given to us by compromising the call of God and the mission of our school.
We will not sacrifice the spiritual health and well-being of our community for the sake of growth. We are a covenant-model school that is serious about discipleship and spiritual mentorship. As such, we are committed to cultivating an environment where faith is nurtured and Christian love all-encompassing. Quality must always be prioritized over quantity. We will also not forget that we are a school that partners with parents in the total education of our students. Communication with the home is just as much a priority as community. We must do a better job of communicating with the moms and dads that God has entrusted with the spiritual, moral, and intellectual development of their children. These two things are a priority for us this year. We will not succeed in our mission if we fail to protect our community and neglect involving the home (and by extension the Church) in everything that we do. This is our commitment to you. This is our commitment to God.
And so, as we begin our fourth year of answering our call, we come before our Heavenly Father for continued strength and guidance, confident that He will continue to bless the work He has established. As our Savior reminds us, “I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you” (John 15:16).