Job well done on the first week of school! On behalf of all teachers, staff, and leaders at ACA, thank you for partnering with us during what will almost certainly become one of our strangest and most inconvenient launches to any school year. No parent would voluntarily choose a pandemic as a backdrop to their child's education, nor would they likely choose a remote screen-based educational platform, nor would they prefer masks (in any other setting) to be any part of the equation. Yet by God's grace, in a time of upheaval, ACA remains in-person, educating our students for the glory of God and the good of all people.

This week as I visited classrooms, I noticed how pleased students seemed to be back in school -- at an actual school! They were obviously grateful to see their friends and eager to get down to the business of learning. In our primary grades classes (K-2), I saw students full of new energy, spending lots of fun time on class introductions and room standards, on story times and intro activities to the year, and in chatting with me during my visits. One afternoon in the hallway, I crossed paths with Odin (2nd grade) who was filling up his water bottle, and he was enthusiastic about my well-being. "How's it going for you today, Mr. Ahern? Are you having a good day? Well, it's been good to see you, Mr. Ahern!" In Latin, Art, and Music, I observed students already diving into their subjects: call-and-response Latin drills and vocabulary chants, drawing exercises in our new fine arts room, and choral warm-ups on the front lawn. And at our new Belmar wing for our Logic and Rhetoric schools, ACA's middle- and high-school students began the year in a more collegial setting: reciting their pledges, creeds, and honor code; studying logic, Latin, algebra, geometry, calculus, advanced physics, history, theology, and literature (to name a few); and lunching together on the lawn. Regardless of the age or the classroom I visited, students seemed thankful in their own way for the new year ahead.

Would you join me in giving thanks to God for this first week he has given us? In the midst of an environment overshadowed by COVID-19 and the potential of outbreaks, I think it's important that we recognize the gift that we have been given this week, and to pray that God is pleased to give us more and more. ACA is committed to keeping its physical doors open for as long as it remains safe to do so, and that is entirely dependent on the goodness of God, and on a healthy dose of our own prudence as a community. While inconvenient, the safety protocols we have in place serve as the foundation from which we are allowed the in-person learning our students need so much. Thank you for asking God daily for his blessings, and for continuing to join us in doing our best to keep our kids healthy and safe.

Onward, for the glory of God and the good of all people.