In order to seek out the best schools in the Houston area, we sat down with Brenda Burdick, Director of Curriculum and Admissions at Trinity Klein Lutheran Private School to ask about why Trinity should be at the top of parents’ list of schools to consider.
Q: What sets Trinity Lutheran apart from others?
A: Trinity is a unique blend of tradition and academic skills that prepare our students very much for what the future holds.
Q: What type of skills?
A: Technology, language, academic as well as athletic.
We really like getting kids to be well- rounded and to offer them some extracurricular opportunities so that they can find their gifts and talents, because not everybody is 100 percent academic. So we’re that nice in between size; we’re not a small school as private schools go, and were not a giant school, so we’re small enough to get to know our students really well, and we’re large enough so that we can offer more variety as far as extracurriculars.
Q: Is that included with how Trinity defines high quality education?
A: Yes, it’s that and working with kids to discover their gifts as well as the fact that our students do test in the top ten percent of the nation, and they have for the last 15 years. But we do not teach to the test, we just teach. We do not consider test scores the definition of the child, they are one piece of the picture of the child.
Q: How does focusing on higher quality education in the early years of childhood specifically influence a child’s future?
A: We start with age one—and we don’t push academics, but it’s very developmentally appropriate. We want them to be children, we want them to have fun. We want them to have recess, which is disappearing from other schools. We want them to engage with friends in those social situations that occur on a playground because otherwise we end up with kids that are very academic but don’t get along with other people. And the department of labor is always, always saying that the number one reason people are fired is not because they don’t have skills, it’s because they can’t work on a team. Socialization is so important.
Q: How does the school’s emphasis on Christian faith impact the quality of education provided?
A: It definitely does, it impacts just about any class you go in. Like in our upper-grade science we believe in creationism, but we also make them aware of all the theories so that they can defend their beliefs to others and function in a real world where not everybody believes those things. History is also a great one for religion because so much of our foundation is built on Christian foundations.
Q: What are some of the school’s main priorities in children’s education?
A: We do want our children to be academically sound. We are big enough at this time that we can encourage children who you would not call academically gifted. We do not test children when they come in here- I do not have an entrance exam, and so far it’s worked for us. For the most part we go by report cards and teacher comments on the cards, attendance, the parents and their desire for their children excelling. We are able to work with them and supply some assistance for children who are lacking some basic skills, for example if they come in to the lower grades and their reading is not quite where it should be I have a lady who provides small group reading instruction. We do have to catch that between first and third grade, and not all private schools are not able to offer individual help that is differentiated for every child- we have higher expectations for some kids and more on level expectations for others.
Q: How many students are in each class?
A: It varies but the ratio of teachers and aids to students, it’s 19 to 1. Middle school classes are usually full, and there is a waiting list.
Q: What makes for a successful classroom according to Trinity Lutheran’s standards?
A: Dedicated teachers- we have a low teacher turnover. Our average teacher has been here ten years. Some much longer than that. The newer teachers we have are here because we have added on to the school. Our teachers like to be here due to the fact that it’s Christian, the fact that it’s smaller with a more family, or community feel. They like that they’re not teaching to a test, they get to come in and teach what the kids need to know. A lot of our teachers are former public school teachers. So you have to have great students, awesome faculty, and we have very supportive parents.
Q: How so?
A: We have parents who volunteer in a variety of ways. If you walk around you’ll see parents in the cafeteria, in the library shelving books- our library is completely volunteer-run, and it rarely has a book out of order. They’re very supportive with fundraising as well, and we’re very blessed to have helpful and generous parents.
With that, we’ve been able to reach students on the lower end and now we’re going to be able to go in the other direction and build a new middle school with the goal of having four classes for every school instead of three. When we do that we can reach very gifted students in the one percent for the gifted and talented opportunities, which will be defined: who would qualify and what that means. It would start in elementary around third grade, and it’s very exciting. A sign of a healthy school is that it’s growing.
Q: When was Trinity school established?
A: 1874.
Q: This school has seen many generations of the same families for years—what are the benefits of choosing a school with this type of history?
A: The sense of tradition, and we emphasize specific events on campus. Even though things are so different, there are those underlying currents that are still the same. For example, our all-school musical, and we still do the full Christmas story every year. Each class has the same part every year, so the children have something to look forward to. It’s the constant threads that we weave throughout the years that link the multiple generations.
