Mondays with Mike Podcast: Thoughts for Parents Following First Quarter

As we returned from Thanksgiving Break, our Head of School, Mike Runey, began recording these weekly podcasts that give his take on matters that relate to you as a parent and are important to our school community. Mondays with Mike will be a short (10-minute) podcast.

“My goal is to send you a focused message weekly to biweekly on Mondays. My purpose? Sharing with you my perspective as your Head of School on topics that need a bit more context and that are of interest to you. My hope is to deepen your experience as parents at PCA and that you continue to highly value PCA for you child because you know what we are doing and how we are thinking. We, as a school, are committed to getting better, all while we guide your child’s (and their classmates’) growth toward their God-given potential,” says Runey.

You just received report cards a few weeks ago; what do grades on report cards mean to PCA? What are we factoring in? You also reviewed your child’s test scores; what do these scores mean (and don’t) mean? And how does PCA relate these to grades?

I talk about both grades and test scores in the podcast linked below. In our partnership with you, keeping a common perspective on grades (and what goes into them) and test scores help your child grow, quarter-over-quarter, year over year. This combined grades-testing approach has proven effective at PCA for many years with thousands of students. We monitor it regularly at many levels, all focused on inspiring our students (your children) to maximize their God-given potential. Your child’s growth is our goal.

Academically, PCA’s start to the 23-24 school year has been very strong. In many measures it the strongest in the 5 years I have been at our school, as one looks across all the grades and all the subjects. Your kids and their classmates are not only very intelligent, but they also work hard, too!  

Our commitment is to partner with your child and you on the growth journey. To that end, we aim to challenge your child in a positive way, so as to foster healthy, sustainable growth across a wide variety of subjects while applying God’s truth to their thinking in many situations. In the future, I will share more on spiritual growth.