EC Celebrates Christian Education Week

In August 1892, the Christian School Society opens its first school on Amity Street, in Paterson with 70 students. More than a century later, the Eastern Christian School Association, has spread out to three campuses in two counties.

“Christian Education has been offered at Eastern Christian and its predecessor schools for over 118 years,”  Executive Director of the Foundation for Eastern Christian Garret Nieuwenhuis noted of its pre–K-to-12 school system. The elementary school in Midland Park, middle school in Wyckoff and high school in North Haledon currently teaches more than 750 students from around the region.

Eastern Christian Schools is celebrating Christian Education Week, which culminates with Christian Education Day on Sunday in its supporting churches in the community.  

“This is always a special day in the churches as the focus on Christian education permeates the service,” said Nieuwenhuis, a EC Class of ’58 alum. A collection will be taken during local Reformed church services. 

The heritage of Christian education in our community, Nieuwenhuis noted, was founded “on a rock,” a reference to Psalm 18:2, which is the theme of this year's event.

Though its name has changed throughout the years — The Holland Reformed School Society and the Christian Secondary School for Paterson and Vicinity, before eventually becoming the Eastern Christian School Association — its mission of providing a solid Christian-based education hasn’t.

The schools offer an "excellent academic curriculum...[and] a variety of extracurricular activities ...[in] a caring, culturally diverse community." It relies on "the support of parents and local churches, to empower students from Christian families to develop their gifts within the context of a Reformed Christian worldview so they can act as Christ’s transforming agents in a global society.” 

For more about the Eastern Christian Schools visit www.easternchristian.org.