VANCOUVER, BC—Christian parents in Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster will soon no longer have to send their children all the way to Surrey to receive a faith-based high school education. As of September, those students have the option of attending an as-yet unnamed facility birthed by Vancouver Christian School and John Knox Christian School in Burnaby.

Paul Tigchelaar, the school’s newly named principal, says apart from a failed attempt several years ago, Vancouver has never before had a significant Christian high school.

“We started the conversation about five years ago and have been working on it for three years—and this dream is a reality now,” he says. “The strength of this high school is going to be based on the fact that we have two Christian communities coming together with a common vision.”

For now, the school will be based in Burnaby in facilities leased from the local school board. But every projection indicates it will outgrow its current location within three to four years.

“There’s a lot of Christians, a lot of churches, and just not enough educational outlets for those people,” says Mark Loewen, who chairs the school’s governing council.

“We will be able to accommodate whatever comes at us,” adds Tigchelaar. “The school right now is zoned for 250, so we shouldn’t have any problems housing the students that come. We also at this point are very flexible in terms of staffing and scheduling.”

Merely by word-of-mouth, the school has already filled more than a third of the 60 seats reserved for students now attending either Vancouver or John Knox, plus it has more than 15 completed applications from families with no prior connection to the schools.

Henry Contant, executive director of the Society of Christian Schools in B.C., says till now, high school students had to travel to Fraser Valley Christian High School in Surrey to complete a faith-based education.

This happened while Christians in other B.C. communities were starting their own high schools. “There [was] something wrong with this picture,” says Contant, “when you had all these high schools, but we didn’t actually have a Christian high school in Vancouver.”

Tuition fees at this new school will not exceed those charged by Fraser Valley.

Tigchelaar also says families will be attracted by the unique “distinctives” curriculum they plan to offer at each grade level.

The Grade 9 distinctive, for example, involves team-building, a wilderness retreat and outdoor adventure education. “We’ll link that throughout the year in Bible class with the whole life-changing experiences of apostle Paul,” he says.

The school will also provide some space for students coming from a secular background, as long as the numbers do not adversely impact the school’s biblical mandate.

“We’re not a private school,” says Tigchelaar. “We’re an interdenominational, faith-based educational place.”

Loewen cautions that children who study in a Christian environment—and then go home to a non-Christian family—could face some real stress. For example, he says, such students may not feel fully supported by their parents when working on faith-based homework.

Yet enrolment at B.C.’s independent schools—80 per cent of which are faith-based—continues to grow.

The province’s education ministry recently reported there are now 62,200 full-time students in independent schools, an increase of more than two per cent in one year. In the past five years, the growth was 8.8 per cent, while public school enrolment fell by 3.4 per cent.

Contant estimates that close to 11 per cent of all students in the province now attend an independent school.

“Right now, Surrey is the largest school district in the province. But if you would put all the independent schools together into one school district, it would be larger than Surrey,” he says. “We have certainly become a recognized stakeholder in education in this province.”