Academics
Southwest Christian is a college preparatory school committed to providing rigorous, research based core curriculum coupled with extra-curricular opportunities that will prepare our students for successful college careers. Beginning with our early childhood curriculum and continuing through the senior year of studies, our programming is systematically aligned with state and national standards. Content and course offerings are reviewed on a three year cycle to ensure that instruction is most current and relevant to the needs of college bound students. Appropriate textbook and resource adoptions follow these decisions.
Our teachers are content specialists. Instruction and assessment are intentionally designed to support the developmental stages of
each age group. Trained in differentiated instruction, the implications of multiple intelligences, Understanding by Design strategies and Essential Questions, our teachers apply most current research on learning and cognitive development to their lesson design.
Beginning in middle school, our curriculum diversifies providing accelerated options for qualifying students. High school credits can be earned and students are encouraged to explore the arts and athletics at a deeper level. During this critical time in their lives, special attention is given to the unique social and emotional needs of this age group.
The academic options continue to expand as our students begin their high school careers. With attention to college entrance exams and performance expectations, our guidance department and college counseling office partner with students and families to design academic plans that provide the greatest opportunity for each student. All students are on a college preparatory track. Students are encouraged to consider honors and Pre-Advanced Placement classes in preparation for Advanced Placements classes in the Junior and Senior years. We also offer a very successful Dual Credit program in partnership with Texas Wesleyan University. These classes are taught on our campus by our qualifying faculty. This year, we will offer 24 Dual Credit classes providing the option of earning 72 college credits. Students participating in this program graduate from Southwest Christian with a transcript from Texas Wesleyan University along with their high school diploma.
We are preparing our students to be “Christian leaders in the world”. Central to our mission is recognizing our responsibilities as global citizens. Academically, our expanded world cultures education includes a focus in eighth grade, an expanded study of western civilizations in ninth and tenth grades and a return to a deeper study of world cultures in the senior year. We begin the study of world languages in elementary school with Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. We add the study of French in high school.
In building our understandings of cultural competence, we include our responsibility to make the world a better place. Our Bible department excels in providing regular exposure to outreach opportunities and Christian role models. We include a service hour component in our graduation requirements. The 77 graduating seniors of the class of 2012 earned a total of 18,890 service hours during their high school careers.
We are very proud of our students’ academics successes and acceptances to competitive colleges and universities each year. We celebrate our athletic championships and we are honored by our recognition and awards in the Arts. In all of these achievements, however, we remain focused on our Christ-centeredness. Through this lens, we consider the kind of individuals we are trying to nurture, the kind of society we want to create and the kind of world understandings we want to build. We are in the business of transforming lives for the glory of God.