Our son is currently a Junior attending St. Christopher Academy at Seattle Lutheran High School for his second year. Before attending SCA, our son attended a large public school. I believe our experience prior to SCA will sound familiar to many families considering SCA, and also believe that the positive transformation in our son from having attended SCA can be expected by others.

Our son is a bright young man, socially outgoing and athletically talented. He has however found school difficult since preschool due to learning differences. For many years, we were able to make up for what he did not learn during the day by tutoring him in the evenings and over the summer. This became more difficult in Junior High, and culminated in a disastrous Freshman year in High School. The constant make up work at home became a source of friction. Despite these efforts, our son barely maintained passing grades, and was slotted into classes filled with other kids that under-achieved for a variety of reasons. We fielded repeated complaints from teachers concerning his classroom behavior, but next to no support in implementing classroom accommodations recommended from testing-based diagnosis. Our son's self esteem went down, he was befriending an inappropriate peer group and we started seeing worrisome behavioral problems for the first time. In sum, our boy was derailing in slow motion, not just academically but in life.

Realizing a change was needed, we found SCA and met with Ms. Jevne, and left with a sense of hope that things could be better for our son. These hopes have been fully realized over the last year and a half at SCA

We found we had partners in the staff at SCA, which was a refreshing change. The communication is frequent, and if there is a problem with progress in any class, action is immediate. Ms. Chapman always emphasizes our son's positive attributes, and tailors work to his strengths and abilities. We have been very pleased by the quality of written work product he turns out. Ms. Jevne's firm but loving guidance steers a positive course. Ms. Chapman and Mrs. Reindel run interference with teachers in our son's SLHS classes, and the SLHS teachers are also very cooperative and communicative. The SLHS body is by and large made up with good kids, and our son is well integrated into the larger school body.

It took a bit of time, and as expected there have been some minor setbacks, but as our son realized he could succeed in school and made friends in his new environment, we saw his confidence, self esteem and overall happiness improve significantly.

Thanks to SCA, we have gone from wondering whether our son would finish high school to having the path to college laid out and achievable. Perhaps more importantly our boy is back on track in life. We are pleased to highly recommend St. Christopher Academy

Sincerely,

Marcia and Richard Kelborn

Kingston Washington  98346