Cedar Valley Christian School

Cedar Valley is a Christian School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

External links

* [http://www.cedarvalley.org/ Cedar Valley]

Cedar Valley is a small Christian school in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It consists of about 250 students and has grades pre-k through 12th.

Cedar Valley Christian School is located in Cedar Rapids between 1st Avenue and East Post Rd. on Cottage Grove Ave. The church/school is a red brick building that sits just west of Indian Creek.

Cedar Valley was founded in 1974 under the direction of the elders of Cedar Valley Bible Church. They founded the school for use as a ministry of the church for students who attended or had parents who attended the church. Over the years, the school has expanded several times, adding in classrooms and a gymnasium for use by the Cedar Valley Huskies.

The Huskies play against in-town teams in elementary and junior high school, sometimes traveling as far as North Liberty and Atkins. Cedar Valley offers 5/6th grade volleyball, soccer, and boys and girls basketball. Junior high offers volleyball, soccer and basketball. The High School participates in the Northern Illinois Christian Conference (NICC) along with Faith Christian School (Dixon, IL), Sterling Christian School (Galt, IL), Tri-State Christian School (Galena, IL), Cornerstone Christian Academy (DeKalb, IL), Quad Cities Christian School (formerly Temple Christian School) (Moline, IL), and Unity Christian School (Fulton, IL). The High School athletics offered are volleyball, soccer, and boys and girls basketball. Both the boys basketball and girls volleyball teams, along with the co-ed soccer team, have been very successful in the past.

Cedar Valley offers little in the way of extracurricular activities outside of athletics, but clubs and elective classes become available on a rolling basis. In the past, there have been options such as debate, mock trial, drama, choir, etc...

Cedar Valley offers education from Pre-K through 12th grade. There is much overlap between the junior high and high school, and teachers often teach more than one subject. For example, the junior high math teacher also teaches junior high science and high school algebra. The upper-level math teacher also teaches auto-mechanics.

There are few AP classes available at Cedar Valley, and those that are available generally appear in Literature or Language. In the past, AP Physics has been offered. There have not been AP Chemistry or AP Biology classes offered, and the science program at Cedar Valley is sub-par compared to its public school counterparts.

In 2007, a new addition was begun that will add several classrooms to Cedar Valley. A new science lab, as well as various other classrooms and teacher prep space will be completed in late summer. Phase 2 of the project involves a new gymnasium to be built on the north side of the property.

The school is administrated by a principal, an assistant principal, and a school board. Until 2007, CVCS did not have a school board, but rather it was operated by a "School Advisory Committee (SAC)." Ultimately, however, authority over the school is maintained by the elders of Cedar Valley Bible Church.

Cedar Valley has a decidedly conservative feel, and conservative/Republican speakers are often brought into government classes/history classes with few or no liberal counterparts.

Cedar Valley states that their goal is to help parents with their responsibility to raise their children in the Lord.

The school has been criticized in the past for several reasons, but none is more prominent than the perceived lack of academic rigor. While it is true that the school does not always employ certified or licensed teachers, they claim to only employ licensed teachers to teach "core subjects" to high school students. Currently, it is thought that all elementary teachers are licensed in the state of Iowa.

Further, in upper level (JH and HS) classes, teachers are often veterans who have taught in the public schools previously. However, this doesn't assure that they've taught the same classes in the public school system. For example, a teacher who taught only chemistry in the public school may teach all science classes at Cedar Valley. In addition, there are adjunct faculty in abundance to "teach" such subjects as music, physical education, art, etc..., and not all of those teachers retain a certification.

The school requires 44 credits to graduate from high school. A class that meets every day for one hour for the entire semester earns one credit. Therefore, a student must take an average of 5.5 hours/semester to graduate. Physical Education is required unless a student obtains an academic or athletic waiver. These are obtained by either taking a requisite amount of credit hours (usually 6+) or by playing in a sport for that semester.