Because it's near the end of the year and I feel in the compiling mood, here are some information-transfer stations for biologically immature units.
St. Alban's Episcopal School: This is now just St. Alban's Episcopal Church (490 Farragut Circle, El Cajon, Calf.), but from the polyester part of the 1970s until 1987-ish, it was a working K through 6th grade elementary school alongside a functioning church. Laid back atmosphere, partially screwed-up neighborhood, people willing to do daycare on Saturday mornings (!), and yet it still died fast when one parent thought his or her child was being under-educated and they called everybody else on the mimeographed list of parent's telephone numbers and suddenly an entire grade defected. They used the buildings for a short-lived ACE ("accelerated Christian education") school in the 1990s, but ACE is a memorization scam using workbooks and not a real education so it went under.
Clairemont Christian: This was a monster two-campus school that could teach children from preschool to high school Seniors; the elementary school was at 3520 Mt. Acadia Boulevard, the junior high/high school at 3811 on the same street. Most of the combo church-schools in Southern California had anywhere from 50 to 150 students; these people had at least 300 students between the two campuses. Was killed off sometime in the 1990s after existing since the 1970s, probably during the post-unRapture of the G.H.W. Bush administration or the "give up on the Rapture, join a Militia" fervor of the Clinton Era. Did I mention these people were Evangelical?
La Mesa Christian: As with St. Alban's, this was a school with an attached church on the same property (9307 Jericho Road near the La Mesa-El Cajon border), so some of the classrooms were used for Sunday school. As it was an Independent Fundamental Baptist outfit, they had the ripoff Boy Scout "Awanas" group along with a massive paddle for hitting children who broke the rules. The church was founded in 1963, the school in 1974; through most of its existence it was a Kindergarten to Junior High; though it did try to have a tiny high school at one point. They went through three or four Pastors* who were not also the school principal before the organization was purchased by a Philip Sherwood who oversaw the slow death of the place in the 2000s.....the number of students dropped to the point where they had to rent rooms to another Christian school, they changed the name of the mother church from Jericho Road Baptist to Shiloh Baptist, while the buildings needed refurbishing. Around 2013 the buildings were sold to Calvary Chapel of El Cajon, while Pastor Sherwood found a defunct Lutheran church in Lemon Grove (2770 Glebe Road) to move his Shiloh church and "academy" - which is around 40 students if we can trust the Internet, though Google Maps claims LMCS is on Glebe now.
Mt. Helix Elementary: A secular private school set up around 1970 by a husband-wife team of ex-public school instructors in a custom-built two-story school built into the side of a hill at 3317 Kenora Drive in Spring Valley. Not to be confused with the existing Mount Helix Academy in the mall on the corner of Severin Drive and Amaya Street in La Mesa. They offered art classes, had an Apple ][ computer room (other schools on this list had two or three machines), and a goat in a paddock. Unfortunately they started experimenting on the school structure, which was bizarre for a San Diego-area K-6 school; they instituted a homeroom system which I think they later abandoned. Mt. Helix Elementary died in the late 1980s, was turned into a Waldorf School (i.e. using Rudolf Steiner's theories of education), is now a Christian Fundamentalist institution where the students are half-homeschooled.
Southport Christian Academy: An ACE school run on the very cheap (and for an ACE that's something), Southport was a Foursquare church that doubled as a school, what ex-fundamentalist blogger Darrell Dow calls a "basement Bible school", with the high school upstairs in the nave, the lower grades in separate rooms in the basement. All the grades higher than first or second used those combination folding chairs with built-in writing boards. ACE was started in 1970 by Texas pastor Donald Howard, and it has become one of a number of ways to educate homeschooled children. It's also chintzy, one-dimensional, and punitive as one blogger pointed out. The only difference between Southport and other ACE schools was that keeping students in seperate cubicles was not done; instead a teacher was used as a docent, watching everybody in the class, and everything had to be done silently. The church is still at the same location (216 E 16th Street, National City) but the school appeared and disappeared within less than two decades.
Apple School: Mentioned in our list of Scientology outlets in San Diego County; I can only add that they did not tell non-Scientologists that they were sending their children to a school based on Hubbard educational philosophies until the winter open house, because there were no framed pictures of L. Ron Hubbard on the wall. Still would love to find out about that prototype Apple School in Del Mar and their previous Chula Vista "nunnery" location.
Lutheran High of San Diego when it was on Orange Avenue: This is now Faith Lutheran (5218 Orange Avenue) which shares space with a "Church of the Nations" that does English and Amharic (Ethiopian) services. Doubling up two churches in one space is becoming more common in San Diego county, as are churches in strip mall storefronts. Lutheran High operated from this location from 1988-1999 before moving to 2725 55th Street and operating out of the Sunday school buildings of Holy Spirit Catholic Church, and then moving on to their present space on the outskirts of Chula Vista.
When it was at Orange Avenue location the student body and the neighborhood clashed horribly; there were a few muggings and attacks on students in the park across the street in the early 1990s for clothing items, sports equipment (a basketball); a massive fight by students from a nearby public school was witnessed, an abandoned car parked near the school was burned to the ground over the Christmas break. Beyond the neighborhood, the rooms were tiny and the freshmen and the seniors did not get along. It didn't help that the instructors thought square-dancing practice was a morale booster on rainy days.
Fairhavens Christian School: Last but not least, this was the model of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist K-12 school; very basic. High School Seniors forced to do gym, candy sales (World's Finest Chocolate), begging at local businesses (!?), other piddling nonsense alongside the other grades. Fairhavens the church had been around since the early 1970s; Fairhavens the school lasted from 1993 to 2001, sunk by replacement Pastor/spiritual dictator Preston Bunnel who had come** from the Leningrad oblast' where he had been trying to convert Saint Petersbergers to the wacky religion of Fundamentalism (and probably failing.) Bunnel had talked Pastor Lawrence "Larry" Gibson (now running a church in central California) into signing over the church and school for a missionary gig allegedly in Japan (though Gibson spoke fluent Spanish.) Bunnel then had an affair with the church/school secretary for an unknown period of time (possibly with other women as well), was found out, then put the control of the church in the hands of the deacons while he would still preach. It was unknown if everybody in the church knew at that point. The preaching got wild, according to witnesses; he would have his son lay as if dead in the aisle to illustrate some point, and he rambled more than usual. The school became this rule-bound crazyhouse. Finally he tried to seize control back and the deacons and other senior church members decided to kill the church before Bunnel dragged it in the mud more. Bunnel went back to the deep South, worked at a car dealer for a few years before befriending a man named Eric Capaci, who is the "Senior Pastor" of "Gospel Light Baptist Church" in Arkansas. Even though extramarital affair(s) are ground(s) for defrocking an IFB preacher, Capaci did some mumbo-jumbo and Bunnel was back as a pastor, first at GLBC, then at another, smaller church.....who found out about Bunnel and failed in their bid to throw the guy out.
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Things to look out for in IFB schools:
Kindergardens are huge. They will take up nearly one-third of the student body. Most will not carry on into that school's first grade because many parents use IFB Kindergarten as an extended Sunday school before sending their children to public school.
Public school students using the IFB school as a one-semester escape. They are a minority of students, but they do appear and disappear from time to time. Author saw this happen numerous times, most were troubled boys, though one was a girl fleeing cliques at some junior high.
Always keep your records - they won't. These schools die quick; if you send your children to one, keep photocopies of school transcripts for college (even community college.)
They do a miserable job of teaching science. Too many use Bob Jones University or A Beka (Pensacola Christian College) textbooks, which are shot through with Creationism, Young Earth or otherwise. If you have to send Johnny or Janey to an IFB school, make them take science classes for HS credit at the local community college.
They will hit your kid with a cricket bat. They call it a paddle, and some people love doling out the harshness to grade schoolers.
They love appearances. The genius rough-looking kid will always be graded down, while the clean-cut mediocrity will be showered with awards.
They are making a cult out of the King James version of the Bible. You can't show up with anything but a KJV as your school Bible. Some nuttier pastors think the King James version is the "easiest to comprehend" - which is a statement only a fanatic or a blowhard could make.
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*The Pastor-Principal was named Walt Lindquist, possibly either the original Associate Pastor or the head man. One of the pastors was named Frank Williams, his wife died and he left the church, possibly returned his collar. One of their later pastors (or was that a youth pastor?) was a younger Filipino man. There were a lot of youth pastors who blew through; one guy nearly got mangled on his overpowered Kawasaki motorcycle.
** Bunnel blew in unannounced and just hung around. Most previous missionaries came to collect funds (after showing the congregation an interminable slide show of their doings "in country") and then left "for the field" after attending to religious and family business. If they performed, they would show up for special chapels attended by the entire school. One school had a "missionary week" where you would go from room to room looking at their "acts." It was like the "entertainment market" club in Dallas, Texas Bill Hicks describes here, except it would always lurch back into conversion no matter the angle.
