Our Volunteers
In both the Old and New Testaments, God’s people didn’t live as islands unto themselves, but strove to be part of a larger, godly community. Roots seeks to provide the opportunity for families to have a Christian homeschooling community in which they can share ideas, challenge one another, encourage and support one another.
Through the ideas, commitment and work of our parents and staff, Roots is able to offer a wide variety of ways for this Christian homeschooling community to grow. Every mother, father or student who volunteers some time to Roots programs opens the door to benefits for many families. Some of the areas that are heavily supported by volunteers and serve the broader Roots community are:
1. Fieldtrips
2. Roots library
3. Social events for families and/or parents
4. Roots monthly newsletter
5. Roots support group
6. Website maintenance
7. Roots Homeschooling Committee
No parent is required to volunteer for Roots. However, parents that do volunteer have often reported an appreciation and acknowledgement that the experience helped them become more a part of the Roots community. Many of the volunteer opportunities require very modest involvement.
Our Staff
In order to support the work of our parents and our program, the Roots Committee employs Christian former/current homeschooling parents in the following positions:
The Coordinator maintains the goals of Roots Homeschooling while ensuring that Alberta Education requirements and the Association for Christian Schooling in Calgary South guidelines are met.
The Office Assistant assists the Coordinator as needed with clerical, organizational, research, and computer skills.
The Bookkeeper reimburses families for their acceptable home education expenditures and maintains the financial records of Roots.
Certified teachers as Educational Assistants assist home education parents to meet their goals. They complete at least two visits for each assigned family, write reports for each child, and support the parents as appropriate.
Specialized teachers are contracted as needed to run Roots programs (P.E. program, support group staff, AISI projects, etc.)
Our Values
Roots’ Bible Text: Deut. 6:5-7
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.” (NKJV)
God calls us to love God with everything we are and everything we do; then He instructs us to continually teach our children about God and His will. Just as verse five applies to us as parents, it also applies to Roots leadership and to the decisions we make as a program. Roots desires to honour God in our words, spirit and actions and we want to obey His commandments given in the Bible. We look for staff with the same passion to join us in serving Christian homeschooling families. Some families chose to join Roots based on this criterion alone. They want to be under Christian authority.
As a non-denominational program, we recognize the variations in theology and practices in Roots families. Any family who can sign the Statement of Faith in our society membership forms is welcome to join us. However, we do limit our homeschooling families to those with at least one Christian parent. Our goal here is not to be exclusive, but to be true to our mandate and to establish a strong Christian homeschooling community without having to fear offending someone with Scripture, prayer or references to God.
Roots Homeschooling History
Roots Homeschooling had its humble but significant beginning when a homeschooling mother wrote the board of Trinity Christian School, asking them to start a Christian homeschooling program. Originally called Trinity Christian School Home Education Program, Roots started in September 1994, assisting 8 homeschooling families, with a total of 16 students with three Educational Assistants (none of whom had homeschooling experience).
In the past several years God has blessed Roots with student numbers that average between 183 and 204. All of our educational assistants are current or past homeschooling parents and all are Christian Alberta-certified teachers. The Roots community has many opportunities for parents to be involved and, thanks to our parents, many services are available to assist our families. At the same time, Roots will not take over your child’s education because we are not in charge. Parents who have chosen to home educate are in the driver’s seat and Roots will support and encourage them, enabling them to meet their goals.
About Roots Homeschooling
Surely one of the Lord’s greatest gifts is our children. They provide us with joy and satisfaction as we see them grow and mature and as we experience with them the world our heavenly Father created. With the gift of children also comes the tremendous responsibility of bringing them up as children of God. The Bible is quite clear that this must be done not just on certain days of the week or in certain subject areas; instead it must be applied daily and be integral to all areas of our lives (Deuteronomy 6:7-9). Therefore, many Christians choose to educate their children from a clear and distinctive Christian worldview.
The philosophical motivation for Christian education, whether at home or in a school setting, is derived from the Biblical imperative to bring up our children in the fear and way of the Lord. The Association for Christian Schooling in Calgary South is a parental response to that obligation we all have as parents. We believe that while the government has a responsibility to see to it that its citizens are receiving an education, parents have been given primary responsibility and authority from God to determine the content and nature of what their children are taught. That is why educational services, as an extension of this parental authority, must be operated and directed by parents who together with teachers, educational assistants, and administrators develop a community that is faithful to and consistent with parental responsibility. Roots is convinced that a supervising board, coordinator and educational assistants should share with parents this common motivating philosophy. In the Association for Christian Schooling in Calgary South, parents, staff, and board share this important vision and respect the Biblical role of parents in the education of children. Together, we strive to develop a “community of learners” where each player has a distinct role in developing our children to take their rightful place in this world as servants of our King.
The name “Roots” was chosen due to the Christian nature of our program. In Psalm 1, the blessed have roots going down to God’s truth, while the wicked are chaff blown in the wind. Our program’s strength is in being rooted in God’s truth and in bearing fruit for Him. Furthermore, we see Roots as being supportive of the homeschooling families, but the work is done in the tree - our homeschooling families. We desire to support and nourish our families so they can carry out their responsibilities in their families and to God’s glory.