Association of Christian Schools International / About ACSI / 3 Pillars
3 Pillars

In January 2019, the ACSI staff presented a Strategic Planning Working Document to the ACSI Board of Directors. This document included a proposal to refocus ACSI’s missional efforts into three key areas for the future: Advancing, Access, and Advocacy for Christian education of today and tomorrow. These three “pillars” were approved by the board as the foundation with which the future ACSI efforts would be aligned.

Since that meeting, and with the guidance of new ACSI President Dr. Larry Taylor as of July 2019, refining work has continued on the strategic plan. The leadership team has been guided in this work by the question, “If ACSI were started today, what would it look like?”

In answering this question, ACSI is strategically responding to and planning for the rapidly changing educational paradigm shift. This requires ACSI to deal with the disruptions taking place with our individual schools, educators, associations, and delivery models of Christian education. Inevitably, this will necessitate reshaping all levels of programs, services, and personnel. This is not retreating, reducing, or cutting. Rather, it is advancing, growing, and sustaining. We must persistently advance a narrative based on this:

ACSI is prayerfully going through a process of reimagining and reshaping in order to advance, grow, and sustain the great cause of Kingdom education.

The purpose of reshaping ACSI is to reunite and reawaken our stakeholders (staff, schools, prospective members, and donors) to a reimagined ACSI.

Advancing
Access
Advocacy

pillar_logoADVANCING

Leading Christ-centered education toward excellence and flourishing

We want all schools to aspire to, achieve, and remain committed to a biblically-based philosophy of education, standards that are measurable, and flourishing-related criteria. ACSI strives to lead, support, and serve Christian schools and educators by placing them on a path of growth and flourishing using the research-based Flourishing Schools Initiative. This model should link leadership and faculty professional development, accreditation, and every culture-driving component of a school. A common philosophy and a flourishing-based metric would unify our efforts of advancing Christian schools and educators.

Key Activities

The three key ACSI activities within this pillar that were identified by staff are:

  1. Thought Leadership & Innovation
  2. Professional Development
  3. Accreditation & Affiliated Services

Action Items

Three major action items for reshaping ACSI related to this pillar are:

  1. Finalize personnel structure for PD, with a primary focus of taking PD to a digital platform.
  2. Define/adapt PD plan with focus on current/future leaders and integrate with the Flourishing Schools research.
  3. Adopt/define/merge accreditation with the Flourishing Schools research.

GUIDING VERSE AND PRAYER

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21 NIV)