Faculty and Staff Inservice 2020 Highlights

COVID-19 isn’t stopping the upcoming school year, and it’s not stopping our annual faculty inservice either! This morning, our entire faculty and staff met in the High School Campus parking lot to worship, learn, and prepare for the year ahead.

A faculty worship team lead the staff in a time of praise and worship to start the day. EC alumnus Pastor Shaun Patterson (Triumphant Life Community Church) followed and inspired our faculty and staff with a word from scripture.  Patterson is currently employed by Nyack College as the Assistant Director of HEOP (Higher Education Opportunity Program)  and the Division of Student Success. His message centered on our spiritual theme for the year, taken from Micah 6:8.

Micah 6:8

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.

Head of School Tom Dykhouse also spoke and encouraged our staff to focus on Care, Calm Confidence, and Competence. 

This time was followed by campus-level meetings to prepare faculty and staff for the nuts and bolts for the year ahead. The EC team is focusing on three key threads this year. We want to be very intentional about:

1. Equipping our faculty and staff and students to be flexible so that we’re meeting the needs of all students- in both remote and on campus learning environments.
2. Implementing our spiritual theme. We will train teachers on how to handle difficult conversations around race and justice in response to current events. It is our deep hope that all EC students can feel safe “at home” on our campuses and in our classrooms (both in person and remote) as we all seek to become God honoring, world-changing, anti-racist living, image bearers of God.
3. Meeting the social, emotional, and spiritual needs of our students- particularly in this unique learning climate. This looks different on each campus for the different ages of our students. 

Everything in our training and in our reopening plans complies with best practices for student health and safety and well-being. We’re so excited to safely be back on campus!

Please continue to be in prayer for our team of amazing Christian educators as they prepare to serve our community in this unique school year. Thank you for your continued support and encouragement in this unprecedented start to a school year!