We Rivendell parents share the responsibility of helping our children find their place in God's world. Research shows that a school's educational quality improves with increased parent involvement and that engaged parents characterize the best schools. Rivendell's parent involvement standard is a substantial one in today's culture, but it is also a concrete acknowledgment that a child's education can never simply be the school's responsibility. Rivendell asks parents to find ways to contribute to their children's community of learning to make the school a place of academic strength and spiritual vitality.
The spirit behind Rivendell's parent involvement program is the belief that the quality of a child's education depends upon the willingness of parents to contribute to the work of building and enriching the child's educational community.
Rivendell needs parents to use their God-given gifts to enrich their child's education environment. It is within this spirit that we honor parents' choices for involvement. There are many volunteer opportunities available, and all parents are required to support the school with their time and presence. We ask all parents to serve the school in a "core hour" role by serving in the office or supervising morning drop-off, lunch, or recess.
Such involvement is often difficult in our society where families are used to leaving large areas of their child's training in the hands of "experts" in specialized institutions (like educators in the schools and clergy in the churches). But the fact remains, the school cannot stand alone apart from parent involvement if it is to succeed in achieving educational excellence.
Rivendell's involvement standard commits parents to participate in their child's educational community by giving an average of 12 hours per month for one or more full-time students (6 hours per month for single parents) or 10 hours per month for families who only have a kindergartener (5 hours for single parents). Each family commits itself to meet these total hour targets by the end of each school year. Re-enrollment is dependent upon completion of the parental involvement requirement.
We offer our children, under the strong and tender providence of God, to the nurture of Rivendell School. We accept with humility and seriousness of spirit our responsibility for assuming a high level of involvement in our children's community of learning. By our example and words, we will support the integrity of our children's education in both home and school so that they might progress toward a responsible maturity grounded in Biblical faith, with the understanding that life is meaningful when people assume their place in society as God's stewards and servants.