When Liz* first enrolled her son in preschool, she did not have the experience she was promised. After a year at a secular private preschool, she noticed high teacher turnover, lack of extracurriculars and a disorganized administration.
“When I first started looking, I was very against any sort of religious teaching,” she says.
But as her son, who had just turned 3, was too young to attend a public school, she began to look at other options in Loudoun County, Virginia, and the church near her house offered a preschool that many children in the neighborhood attended.
The school was close by, the price was within her budget and the academics were great. So, she decided to give it a try, “and [my son’s] been thriving,” she says.
Liz’s experience isn’t an uncommon one — though it may be surprising to learn why families who do not identify as religious may choose a faith-based school for their child. Here’s what local parents with no religious affiliation shared about what drew them to these institutions.
Traditions and Practices
Nadine Morris, of Damascus, Maryland, decided to send her daughter to a Jewish preschool program because the school promoted play in the classroom. “They would teach the kids to roll down a hill. I mean, who does that?” she says. “I was raised in the ’80s, so rolling down a hill was a huge part of my childhood.”
Morris didn’t grow up religious. “I’m not even spiritual,” she says. But after her daughter attended a Jewish preschool, she said she felt like having the religious aspect mixed into her daughter’s education “was a bonus.”
“What drew me to it was what they were teaching,” she recalls. “I knew there was going to be the religious undertones, but … having a celebration for trees and planting seeds [as a holiday], there were so many amazing things that they did.”
Today, Morris’ daughter is 15 and attends public school but has stayed connected to the friends she made in preschool and even partakes in Jewish practices like celebrating Shabbat and eating Challah bread with them.
However, Morris says her own views on religion remain unchanged.
“I just want my daughter to be able to make her own decisions when it comes to those things,” she says. “But it hasn’t changed my point of view, except it showed me more of the Jewish religion, more than what I knew before.”
Liz feels similarly to Morris. Though she does not expect her son’s experience in a religious school to change his perspective, she is open to any spiritual interests he may develop.
“He’s going to sit here for three years, so it’s not like we’re sending him through over a decade of private school,” she says. “Just off of anecdotal and a lot of Facebook threads and some articles, he’s not going to turn into wanting to go to church every Sunday, and if he does, that’s fine. We’ll let him go with his grandparents.”
Diverse Community
For some parents like Jessie Taylor, of Woodbridge, Virginia, a benefit of having her child attend a religious school is being exposed to diverse viewpoints within her community.
The goal is to have her daughter get used to being in a classroom environment, Taylor says, and she doesn’t mind her daughter learning about who Jesus is. As far as she knows, students pray before eating and the school accepts people of all denominations. “We live in a very diverse area, so I definitely assume that there will be other religious affiliations there,” she says.
Taylor plans to have her daughter attend a small Protestant church preschool next fall, for similar reasons to Liz and Morris — proximity, positive reviews and lower cost.
While Taylor, like Liz and Morris, will be sending her child to a public school in kindergarten, Marley Ferguson, of McLean, Viginia, is keeping her three children in their Catholic private school. She cites the safety of private schools, smaller classes and affordability as factors, but she also sees a benefit to the school’s religious influence.
Values and Belonging
Ferguson says her children, especially her eldest who is going into first grade, have become very passionate about religion, which she encourages.
“I truly love the aspect of God and morals being taught to my children,” she says. “You can see how genuine their love for God and Jesus is, and I always wanted that as a kid. I wanted to feel like I belonged somewhere. I’m glad I could give that to them. I believe it has shaped them to be the outstanding humans they are.”
Ferguson attributes her children’s manners to their experiences in school and says it makes it easier for her to enforce it at home. “I will always push for kindness, sharing, politeness and respect,” she says.
Despite having a different religion than her children, Ferguson emphasizes that she is still proud to have a home in the church.
“We don’t have the same religion, and my oldest is picking up on that now. She will ask me why I am not Catholic or ‘How do people become a certain religion?,’” Ferguson adds. “I just explained that usually they are born into religion, but they can also choose.”
*Liz requested use of her first name only to prevent any unwanted attention at school for her children.
