By Stephen Smoot
“And ye shall teach them your children . . .” says the opening words of Deuteronomy 11:19, promising that education of the young will result in “your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers to give them.”
Redeeming Grace in Franklin sees their educational mission embarked upon just this year, as another way to “love the LORD thy God, and keep His charge.”
Joe Boggs serves as principal of the school at Redeeming Grace, fully supported by his son and the church’s pastor, Jason. The school seeks not to compete with or undermine the public school systems, they explain, but to provide an alternative option to those who may learn best in other environments.
Also, the school serves parents who prefer a Bible-centered curriculum.
With a small student population, Redeeming Grace can offer an intensive and one-on-one classroom experience. Jason Boggs explained that in other schools “if you fail a test, they fail a test.” At Redeeming Grace when a student fails a test – and passing requires an 80 percent – the student must return to the beginning of the unit and learn it again.
Joe Boggs described how students progress in different subjects at different levels. “A child,” he said “may be on a 10th grade level in math, but lower in reading . . . you teach that child to grow in that area, but you bring up the other, too.”
Sometimes students “need a little extra help,” Joe Boggs shared, going on to say that “you sit down and you help them to find a different way to look at it.”
The format also allows students “to do their paces at home” when needed, especially when children fall ill or heavy snow falls.
Students work individually with their teachers and students do not know each other’s “levels,” which eliminates unhealthy competition. Students, however, also support and encourage each other and “there’s zero tolerance for bullying.”
When students need discipline, they receive individual attention from Jason Boggs. As the principal said, if “kids cut up . . . Jason would counsel them.” He went on to say that the students would leave sessions “feeling appreciated.” Joe Boggs also stated that “it’s not that you fail, it’s what you do when you get back up,” teaching that life offers everyone obstacles to overcome.
Rebecca Schlagel, who has since passed from cancer, provided years of educational training and experience to help the education program to get underway. Joe Boggs recalled that Schlagel “had a way of relating to younger children.” Her book, “Trevor the Runaway Turkey,” was inspired by her own fears of battling with cancer.
Jason Boggs described her as “an educator all of her life.” “We would not have had a school opened” without her work. Schlagel also only asked for gas money and a lunch as compensation for advising and guiding the school. Joe Boggs went on to say that the specialist in special education “laid the foundation for the school.”
She passed away on Independence Day, 2023, only weeks before the first day of school.
Joe Boggs related that as the year passed “it wasn’t just the kids learning. We were all on a learning curve.”
One aspect of education that public school cannot offer is to “expose children to Biblical teachings,” as Joe Boggs explained. Games and hands-on, active techniques helped to teach children the words and meaning of important Bible verses. One game involved a box with Biblical verses on it that attached to a child’s or teacher’s head, providing the “frontlet” of knowledge described in Deuteronomy 11.
The educational process at Redeeming Grace is not conventional, but serves as an alternative format for schooling. Giving children an education has remained one of the most important works of the Christian and Jewish faiths, “the basis of why we started the school in the first place,” said Jason Boggs.
He then said, “My biggest way to win people to the Lord is by showing them the love of God.”
