About Us

Our Mission

A Mission Statement is an action-based statement that declares the purpose of an organization. This statement defines why our School exists and why our parish, our staff, and our parents sacrifice to provide this opportunity for our students.

The Mission Statement of Saint John’s Orthodox Christian School

It is the mission of Saint John’s School to educate our students so that wherever they go in life they will take with them a solid, early education, and they will carry within themselves a childhood experience of people who loved and cared for them in a way that reflects the values of the Orthodox Christian Faith.

• Our Preschool emphasizes social and emotional learning through a fun, yet structured routine of both free play and directed activities.
• Our Elementary Grades, Kindergarten – 6th Grade,  traditional classrooms with direct teaching. Students have access to individual computers as needed. We currently use Saxon Math and McGraw-Hill for language. Students begin each day with a prayer and hear stories from the Bible once a week.
• Our Middle School (7th/8th) encourages critical thinking to integrate academic learning and real-world experience through week-long intensives, and to explore how Orthodox Christian values speak to contemporary issues.

Our Core Values

Core Values are ideas that drive our actions and decisions. They express our educational philosophy with which everything we do must align.

The Core Values of Saint John’s Orthodox Christian School

• Nurturing Community – Our administration, our teachers, and our clergy are a close-knit team that support each other and our students. This teamwork makes us a nurturing community that addresses each student personally and gives individual attention to each one’s needs.
• Orthodox Christian Ethos – The Orthodox Christian Faith inspires us to have an ethos of respect, love, patience, honesty, and forgiveness. Our goal is that others will see God’s love through us. We respect the beliefs of others and do not expect them to adopt our Orthodox Christian Faith.
• Strong Academics – We want our students to excel in reading, writing, math, science and social studies, which requires that we balance each day with study, imagination, and physical activity. We also want them to learn to think critically and to express their ideas.
• Freedom, Curiosity, and Creativity – Our School encourages these traits in our staff and our students, and believes a good education requires a variety of methods, experiences, and settings.
• Respect – Our School expects classrooms to be well-managed and our students to be well-behaved. Respect is shown through kindness, listening to others, and following instructions. Our teachers treat their students with respect and in turn expect the same from them.
• Safe Environment – We want our School to have an environment that is safe, where childhood innocence is protected, without racial, social or economic distinctions.

Our Promise

“Each child is a unique gift from God and we treat them so.”

• Low student/teacher ratio
• Staff committed to each student’s success
• School culture founded upon compassion and mutual respect
• Affordable tuition

Our Classrooms

Preschool

St. John’s School offers a Preschool Program for 3-5 yr. old children. Our program is flexible to fit your family’s needs, as we offer full time and part time programs. Please visit the link for tuition rates, days and times. We ask that your Preschooler be potty trained before enrollment.

• Children learn through a fun, yet structured routine of free play and directed activities.
• Every day we practice communication, listening, following directions, self-control, fine motor skills, creativity and mutual respect.
• We try to instill confidence and love for learning so preschoolers will ready to try new skills throughout their school years.
• For language we introduce the alphabet, play with sounds and rhymes, introduce handwriting, and read aloud lots of great picture books.
• Math is taught in real world, hands-on situations like counting dishes while serving snack and playing games.
• We take lots of nature hikes around our school and observe the seasons of the year closely.

Elementary School: Kindergarten – 6^th Grade

• Our School has traditional classrooms with access to individual computers as needed.
• We use standard curriculum, such as Saxon Math and the McGraw Hill Language Arts program “Wonders”.
• Students begin each day with a prayer and hear stories from the Bible once a week. Formal religious training is not part of our curriculum. Instead we hope our students and their parents sense God’s love through our staff’s care and a nurturing environment.

Middle School: 7^th-8^th Grade

• Our Middle School program provides a wholesome environment for academic, social, and spiritual development during transitional pre-teen years.
• We offer a rigorous, academic program with an emphasis on experiential, hands-on learning.
• We encourage students to foster thoughtfulness, independence and confidence, in and out of the classroom by integrating challenging curriculum with applicable practical experiences.
• 7^th/8^th graders have the opportunity to participate in two week-long intensives each year focused on a specific area of interest specific to Alaska.

Past themes have included:

• Alaska Wilderness and Preparedness (Hatcher Pass, Eagle River, Turnagain Arm)
• Alaska Court System
• Transportation and Infrastructure in Alaska (Eagle River and Seward)
• Commercial Fishing (Cordova)
• Mountaineering in Alaska (Talkeetna/Denali)
• Mining (Hatcher Pass)

We welcome all students in Preschool through 8^th grade, as we foster in them…

… love of God,

… love of neighbor, and

… love of learning.