UCA is a member school of “The Collaborative For Christian Ed Leaders” which is an organization that unites Christian schools in an online community that offers free resources and access to shared services, creating value for their educational experiences and environments. Our Head of School was recently a guest on their podcast “Collaborative Conversations.”
Here is their description:
Chad Peters has spent twenty years in Christian education, the last several as Head of School at United Christian Academy. Before he led the school, UCA was three separate schools with three histories, three cultures, three identities, brought together into one.
"That's not an easy challenge, because you bring history, traditions, people, culture, an identity," Chad says. "We had to figure out how do you honor the past without being trapped by it."
When asked what adaptive challenge his school is facing today, the kind no technical fix will solve, Chad didn't hesitate: "figuring out how to remain deeply rooted in who we are while also responding to such a fast changing world." For Chad, that means keeping the mission and the biblical foundation fixed while treating everything else, programs, policies, the day-to-day, as fair game for reexamination.
Chad also talks candidly about a season last year when his staff walked through death, divorce, and cancer all at once, and how the school responded by walking the building every Monday morning in prayer. And when asked what he'd tell a leader who feels like their river has run out, his answer was immediate: "Get out of the canoe. Stop trying to paddle harder."