At least at the church my husband attends, the summer camp is FREE because it is staffed by free church volunteers, people at the church contribute supplies, etc. (This church also has a preschool attached, and I imagine the teachers/supplies in the preschool also “contribute” – but I know they solicit very heavily for volunteers and supplies early in the summer.) The camp does heavily stress Christianity/the Bible. But like thelabdude said, if you don’t wish to take advantage of the generosity of Christians, go elsewhere.
You are, of course, entitled to do exactly the same thing yourself (and in fact there was an article about this in some parenting magazine my in-laws sent me): get together a bunch of parent volunteers, buy your own supplies, and have your own secular/atheist/whatever camp. There are several parent co-ops in our area who do similar kinds of things. OP, have you looked into parent co-ops vs. faith-based preschools?
I’ve seen this also. Many parents of other religions send their children to Catholic schools, and the schools seem very tolerant of other’s religions, and wouldn’t overtly attempt to convert them. But I think a religious school tolerant of atheism would be very rare. Perhaps some Quaker schools, or Unitarian schools if there are any.
I don’t think the Catholic schools care if you are protestant, hindu, atheist, or any other persuasion that’s going to go to hell anyway…
But then, what is most of the other church-oriented schooling? Are they as mainstream as Catholic - Episcopalian, Methodist, main-stream Baptists, etc.? Or more of he fundamentalist holy-roller, “we don’t want our kids associating with those others” churches?
It’s just that quality education is just one of the missions of the Catholic church (i.e. the Jesuits, for example, have a long history of scientific study). My impression of other more fundamentalist organizations, is that the parents in those groups want to insulate their children from the big bad world, and consider far more of the real world to be “bad influence”. i.e. rock music, dang furriners, etc. It’s hard to be critical of foreign influences when half your students are there because their parents or grandparents are from Italy, Spain, Mexico, Portugal, or other foreign countries. It’s also a question of, if you are insulating the children from the real world, do you want to let the real world and opposing viewpoints into your school to teach them bad habits?
Then there’s the whole subtle unspoken racism thing that much of the USA seems to suffer from…
Well I have seen Catholic schools show respect for other religions. I’ve known and known of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and a variety of Protestants who attended Catholic schools, and whose own religions were given regard and respect. In some cases it seems there was a greater respect for anyone who held the level of faith in their own religion that Catholics desire from their own flock. Other times it seemed to be the respect for education that you mention as well. But my experiences, certainly limited, would incline me to believe an atheist would be subject to more proselytizing. Some of these things apply more toward the parents than the students.
Well, my church runs a pre-school and we sent our kids to a (different) religious pre-school, so I can share a bit but most of it has been covered.
First of all, all of the facilities and faculty have to meet state requirements. In the case of the one at my church, I know they consistently get the state’s highest ranking (whatever that is – three stars I think). That means classroom safety, quality materials and toys, teacher training and education, etc. So they don’t save costs by cutting corners in these areas.
Perhaps the teachers are paid less than they would be at a non-religious school – I don’t have the information to compare. That doesn’t mean the teachers are inferior; it means that some may prefer to work in a faith-based curriculum for whatever reason. They still have to have the appropriate certification so you can’t just hire people off the street (at least in this state).
The schools also don’t have to pay overhead - I don’t think ours pays rent to the church or anythingl like that. The budget is completely separate from the church’s and any physical improvements that are only for the school are paid for by the school, though. So for example when the state said that every classroom had to have a sink/faucet for hand washing, we had to install some but the school paid for it – but they never have to pay for new carpets or light fixtures or things that the church would need anyway.
As far as the education goes, our kids learned things like their alphabet and counting and colors and all kinds of typical preschool stuff, along with Bible stories and songs and things like that. Probably not a curriculum atheists would be comfortable with but one that more than adequately prepared my kids for kindergarten: both my kids (5 and 7) read above grade level now. I don’t think that the simple fact that religious instruction is included in the classroom has any measureable affect on the cost of tuition.
I think the main reason is that this is a non-profit “ministry” of the church, so they don’t have to build a profit into anything; they just need to charge enough to cover their (reduced) expenses. So you end up with a much less expensive option for your kids, if you’re okay with the religious content.
