Kat Crowell-Grate holds the key to a new building recently donated for her school, Kingdom Christian Academy. "There's not been one time we haven't met our needs,'' she said.
Kat Crowell-Grate was leading Sunday school classes in her hometown of Ocala, Fla., when she discovered many of her students couldn’t read. So the retired accountant started a tutoring program.
That led to a substitute teaching job where she caught the eye of a local principal, who told her, “You missed your calling.’’
The principal spoke too soon. Nearly a decade later, the ordained minister runs Kingdom Christian Academy, an inner-city private school for 33 students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. Most can’t afford to pay anything, and almost all have some sort of learning disability or behavioral disorder.
“It is so easy to accept the child with the perfect pony tails and the boy with a clean haircut,’’ said Crowell-Grate, who has a grandson with special needs. “But it takes a real teacher to reach down and pull the uncut diamond in the rough and polish that diamond.’’
Kingdom Christian Academy caters to students in prekindergarten through 12th grade with a special focus on STEM - and the Bible.
That means reminding her students every day to tuck in their uniform shirts, offering to tutor them on Sundays after church, or helping their moms and dads get high school diplomas. “We educate the entire family, making them more self-sufficient,’’ Crowell-Grate said.
Across the country, school choice has become the mantra of students and parents in search of a better way to learn. But customization offers plenty of opportunities for educators, too. More options bring freedom from a one-size-fits-all mentality that dictates curriculum and schedules, and even which students to serve.
To Crowell-Grate, that’s what school choice is all about: Finding the kids who need the most help and doing what needs to be done. (more…)
