New Christian school in central Newfoundland teaching alternate curriculum based on Bible

It's always busy at Rachel Mullett's house in Gander. With four children under age five, play time is all the time.

The dynamic will change in September, though, when five-year-old Hudson goes off to kindergarten. He'll be one of the first students at the brand-new Crossroads Academy, which is set to open this fall.

"I'm looking forward to knowing what my book looks like and my pencil. I most like doing everything. Everything's just so exciting," he said.

His new school is based at the local Pentecostal church, but it doesn't follow the same curriculum as the province's public schools. 

In addition to NLSchools public school curricula, it uses an education program called Abeka, which comes from the United States and the teachings are based on a literal interpretation of the Bible. 

The Abeka curriculum teaches students the earth is 6,000 years old, it was created by God in six days and humans lived at the same time as dinosaurs.

"The Abeka science and health program presents the universe as the direct, orderly, law-abiding creation of God and refutes the man-made idea of evolution," states the program's website. "Students are presented with plants, animals, rocks, elements, forces, the human body — and much more — according to an understanding of the design and laws of nature."

Angela Hodder, one of the founders of the Crossroads Academy, says it has proven to be a curriculum that's entirely biblical based.

"Even the math. If you look at the math book, it ties in biblical concepts. It teaches the children all the concepts they need to know, but it ties in that Christian part of it. The biblical aspect of it," said Hodder.

In a followup interview, Hodder stressed that Crossroads staff are still developing their curricula, and will not use Abeka exclusively. 

Lyanne Dupuis, who will teach Grades 4 to 6 at Crossroads this fall, said the school will conform to NLSchools' public curriculum in several subjects including social studies, physical education and health.

That means students will not use Abeka's sexual education textbook, which, according to the organization's website, "discusses adultery, fornication, and homosexuality as they are presented in the Bible."

Dupuis said she couldn't comment on the specifics of the Abeka curriculum's approach to science instruction because she had not yet seen the teaching material. She said she and another teacher had been told they were free to shape their lesson plans and they could "skip" anything they felt was inappropriate.

"If there's anything inappropriate, where we find personally inappropriate, we would just skip that all together," Dupuis said.

'Another option'

Hodder said she and the committee who founded the new school want parents to have "another option."

"People don't always want to maybe send their children to a public school," she said. "With the class sizes and different other things."

So far, only six students are registered for the coming year, but the new school is accepting kids from kindergarten to Grade 6. Tuition is $5,400 per year, and the organizers are hoping to expand the school to include students up to high school.

The provincial government says all schools must meet the same educational standards in order for students to graduate. If they don't, they won't receive an official diploma. The Education Department specifies that students who complete Grades 10 to 12 under the Abeka system won't qualify. 

Hodder said Crossroads would use a combination of both Abeka and NLSchools curricula in all grades, should it expand in the future. 

For Mullett — who was raised in Ontario's Christian schools — both the curriculum and the cost of sending four kids to the school makes sense.

"I don't think that science and faith conflict each other at all," she said. "Everyone sees the world through a lens and so the way we see the world is through a Christian lens. And I think science and God can actually complement each other very well. So we will be teaching science while looking for God throughout everything we're teaching them in the scientific field."

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