Mondays with Mike: What Families Can Expect This Year
PCA Families,
A week from today, we will finally be together again for Open House.
As we close this summer’s Mondays with Mike series, Nate Paul joins me one more time to ask a practical question:
What should students and families actually expect from PCA this year?
We begin with our 2026–27 core value, Christ-centeredness, and Colossians 3:16–17.
From there, we talk about what it means for students to be known, loved, appropriately challenged, and increasingly prepared to carry what they are learning beyond PCA.
Listen to Week 4: What Families Can Expect This Year
Key Takeaways
- Christ-centeredness should shape all of school life.
It belongs in the classroom, on the athletic field, in our relationships, in correction and encouragement, and in the way we lead and serve one another. - Being loved and being known are related—but they are not the same.
We want students to be loved as image-bearers of God and also known personally—their gifts, interests, struggles, motivations, and the ways they are growing. - PCA should be a safe place to do hard things.
Healthy challenge includes appropriate support, but it does not remove every frustration, disappointment, mistake, or difficult task. Often, ordinary faithful work is where perseverance grows. - Teachers make this work real.
Excellent teaching means knowing both the student and the destination well enough to challenge wisely. This year, we are also strengthening the systems around teachers through clearer learning goals, stronger course-to-course connections, useful feedback, and greater instructional leadership. - Next Monday is about getting ready and getting connected.
At Open House, our hope is simple: get your child ready, get yourself connected, and get the practical pieces squared away. Meet teachers and leaders, make connections, and make sure your family knows where to go and how to stay connected as the year begins.
Over the past four weeks, we have talked about what we are building together, how we are strengthening the learning path, what you told us in the spring survey, and now what you can expect as we begin a new year.
Ultimately, we are not preparing students simply to succeed at PCA.
We want them to be known, loved, challenged, and increasingly ready to go wherever God calls them next.
We are grateful to do that work with you.
See you on campus real soon.
God bless,
Mike Runey
Head of School
Portsmouth Christian Academy
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