Athletics – Our son is heavily involved in sports, so when we checked out the local schools, I must say that we became enamored by the school we found that had a multi-million dollar sports facility.  The school had an Olympic size pool, an amazing gym, beautiful sports fields, and heck, they even had a giant inflatable animal head that the football team ran though during the football games!  The school had recruited some of the top coaches in Orange County, and the teams were playing in division 1.  We’d found everything you could want for an aspiring athlete, or so we thought.  After our son made the team and trained for several months with the coaches, we quickly realized what we had lost by leaving CVCS.  At the larger school, winning was everything, regardless of the cost to the children playing.  Many of the kids that we interacted with on the team were burnt-out, negative, and unhappy.  We saw player after player quit the team, and my son was told by many players that they absolutely hated playing for the school and were only playing because they were being forced by their parents.  The team spirit was very low. This was the exact opposite experience that we had previously had at CVCS.  While winning was also the goal of the coaches at CVCS, just as important to them was building each child’s character.  Unlike the larger school, at CVCS, the coaches took personal interest in each child, helping them to develop their skills, driving them to be the best they could be, and motivating them to be the person that God created them to be. The coaches at CVCS, and especially the Athletic Director, were not only skilled coaches who helped the kids improve in athletics, they were also mentors, who helped the kids strive for excellence.  What we learned was that, in order to play for the larger division 1 school, we had sacrificed all the things that had caused our son to fall in love with sports in the first place.  Seeing how unhappy the team players were at the larger school, and realizing how much better the coaching staff was at CVCS, was one of the first things that caused us to realize we had made a major mistake leaving CVCS. There is no sports facility nice enough to replace the character and self-confidence that the coaches instill in the children at CVCS.  Though I would have argued otherwise just last year, I truly believe that playing sports at CVCS will help my child be a greater success in the future than playing at that larger school. 

Academics – When we toured the brand new classrooms of the larger school, once again, we were somewhat taken with the beautiful new facility.  For some reason, we became convinced that a school that had larger and newer classrooms could provide a better education for our children.  Again we discovered that exteriors mean nothing.  The academics were not better, they were the same.  And if anything, it was harder to succeed because of the larger classroom size and lack of personal connection with the teachers.  I asked a student at the larger school, who also happened to have come from CVCS, if he thought that the classes were more difficult at the larger school, and his response was, “No, the classes aren’t harder, they are the same as CVCS.  The thing that makes it harder is that you don’t have teachers who help you as much as the teachers at CVCS help you.  At CVCS, the teachers would always spend more time with you when you were having trouble in some subject, but at this school, you’re more on your own.”  This was the second thing that caused us to decide that leaving CVCS was a mistake.  We had originally thought that moving our son to the larger school would help him be more successful academically, and ultimately help him get into a better college.  Once again we discovered we were wrong.  After our experience at the larger school, and after talking to other students who attend the larger school, I’m now confident that our children have just as good a chance of getting into the college of their dreams by attending school at CVCS as they do going to a larger school, maybe even a better chance because of the personal assistance and interest they receive from the teachers at CVCS.

Spiritual growth – The fact is, we knew from the beginning that we were compromising in this area when we chose the larger school, we just didn’t realize how much we were compromising.  The thought we had was that, even though the larger school was obviously weaker in the spiritual department, we figured that as long as we were personally teaching our child the values we felt were right, and as long as our children went to church on the weekend or were part of a youth group, that compromising in this area was okay.  What we later realized was that the people that our children are around all day long, five days a week, are far more influential than the one to two hours they spend at church or in youth group each week.  Being around teachers and coaches who love the Lord, and who are driven to love and build up the children they teach, is life changing.  The encouragement, the wisdom, and the love that my children have received from the staff at CVCS, from the Head of Schools and Principles, to the administrative staff and people working in the cafeteria, has greatly impacted my children’s lives.  There is no school facility or sports field nice enough to outweigh the benefit of having your children surrounded with people who truly have a heart for God. Each of my children have richly benefited from the teachers and staff that they have been surrounded by at CVCS, and my high school son in particular has been greatly impacted by some of the people at CVCS.  He’s also formed friendships with neat kids that I am proud to have him hang out with.  We simply did not have the same experience, or encounter the same type of teachers, staff, or kids, at the larger school.  This was the third thing that caused us to realize that we should go back to CVCS.