covenant ISSUE 5 | SUMMER 2020
SPECIAL 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION 1
Welcome. Dear Friends,
Andy Goodwin Principal & CEO
God is in the business of making possible the apparently impossible. Over and over we see Him making a way where there seems to be none. He created the world out of nothing. He brought joy to Hannah’s heart through her offspring. He brought victory to Gideon’s 300. He worked through the most imperfect people in a great cloud of witnesses to reveal His might and His faithfulness. And He broke into space and time to grant us life where sin had snarled, “You’re mine.” This is our God, who put Covenant Christian High School into the prayers of a small group of families over 25 years ago. This is our God, who led Chapel Rock Christian Church to grant us twenty-three acres to develop into our school grounds. This is our God, who put the joy of gifting us our beautiful facility into the hearts of Don and Phyllis Laskowski. This is our God, who for the past 25 years has allowed us to covenant with families in biblical worldview permeation through top-notch academics, fine arts, athletics, and clubs. For the past 25 years, we have celebrated a great impossible made possible. We are so grateful to have lived this great adventure with you, and we look forward to our next 25 years of providing an excellent, Christ-centered education, equipping students for a life of scholarship, leadership, and service. For the Kingdom,
index 21ST Century Success 2 Celebrating Our Seniors 5 Foundational Prose 7 Alumni Map 9 A Moment in Time 12 Through Amy’s Eyes 15 Covenant Calendar 17
production team DESIGN Kristina Cook (‘04) ILLUSTRATION Annie Shields (‘18) PHOTOGRAPHY Rick McIntyre Rich Unland Christopher Colson Twelve Stones Photography Covenant Student Publications OUR MISSION Covenant Christian High School is dedicated to providing an excellent, Christ-centered education, equipping students for a life of scholarship, leadership, and service. OUR VISION Covenant Christian High School will be a leader in 21st century education. We will accomplish this through the total preparation of the student, influence in educational, ecclesial, and cultural communities, and the replication of the Covenant model.
Andy Goodwin Principal and CEO
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7525 West 21st Street, Indianapolis, IN 46214 Phone: 317.390.0202 Fax: 317.390.6823
Covenant Rocket Team competed at the TARC National Finals in 2019.
21st Century Success
// HOW STEM STUDIES ARE SHAPING THE FUTURE Early Covenant leaders sat down to cast a vision for the little start-up school’s mission. As the statement took form, they landed on committing to being a leader in 21st century education. That was pre-2000, and now we find ourselves in the 21st century. How is Covenant living up to its mission of being on the cutting edge of education? Look no further than the CCHS STEM program. The acronym STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, and has become the moniker for studies and jobs in those respective fields. As the 21st century brought with it the rise and prominence of the Internet, computer science, and adaptive engineering like 3D printers, the famous adage “students are studying for jobs that don’t exist yet” took root in educational institutions. CCHS veteran teacher Sean Bird saw the rise of technology in education and viewed it as an opportunity to give many Covenant students a leading edge in STEM fields. Bird says that the process of developing a CCHS STEM program has involved a lot of trial and error, student and community investment, and periodic surprise blessings for the programs. Initially, a lot of the work involved students tinkering with complex Rube Goldberg machines, which involves building multi-step, intricate contraptions to complete simple tasks. Bird reflects on those investments as a good start for students, but they weren’t the most practical experiments. The trajectory of the program changed in 2003, when Covenant students were invited by lateSenator Richard Lugar’s office to participate in the centennial celebration of the Wright Brothers’s first flight, and the state-sponsored nature of the competition was another step in opening Covenant to new opportunities for real-world experience in technology and engineering Students are education.
studying for jobs that don’t exist yet.
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Perhaps the most on-the-job experience that Covenant students have had through the STEM program is an opportunity to visit NASA’s Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers. Covenant received a grant to build a small rocket that would fly a mile high, and due to their work, a small handful of students and Mr. Bird got an all-expenses-paid trip to visit with NASA experts. Bird said that these early trips to NASA were illuminating in very special ways, and that Covenant’s eventual acquisition of its collection of 3D printers can be
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Covenant VEX Robotics Team competed at Nationals in 2019.
traced back to his experience with NASA scientists using the open-source physical object printers. Those printers, one of which was aquired by a library grant, can be frequently heard buzzing in the ‘Maker Space’ of Covenant’s Library Media Center, with students programming them to make physical objects out of plastic polymer filaments. Our Director of Technology, Brad Spencer, can often be seen helping students make their digital creations tangible reality. Covenant students have also had opportunities to build and program robots to compete in competitions at the local, regional, and national levels. Students spend months building remote controlled robots that perform different tasks each year of competition. Covenant students have built robots to compete in the underwater SeaPerch program as well as VEX Robotics. In recent years, Covenant teams have even competed in the VEX World Championships. Bird emphasized that a large value of the program is that students have the time and space to tinker with the robots they make because it is typically against the rules for him to do the work. He serves an advisory role. Students who are drawn to the STEM activities that CCHS offers are hands-on workers that often find a knack for engineering or tech-based careers by the end of their time at Covenant. Covenant Alumnus David Colson (‘17) said that his experience in STEM has directly correlated to his engineering education and opportunities beyond high school. “Studying STEM at Covenant, with limited resources we had made us extra frugal, and it also forced us to be more ingenuitive with what we had. I have talked about this with companies, about how in four years at Covenant we worked with $500 to $2000 dollars, which is a tiny budget, and we were going up against and beating public schools with $10k budgets.” Colson said that solving problems of scarcity has trained him for life, not just a career. “We learned to work with what we had and we always had to find a way to make our very finite resources work, so I learned to accept the problems of making something work with limited resources like time, money, personnel, and equipment. Knowing how to work around and through those problems and still make something up to par, something that competes in the market, that is a good thing to show others you know, that lesson is a good thing to apply to life.”
Mr. Bird and his students at the Annual Egg Launch.
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SAVE A SEAT FOR A COVENANT STUDENT
In these uncertain times, be the difference for a Covenant family who may not be able to return this fall without substantial financial assistance. For more information, contact Perry Hines at 317.437.3355 or advancement@covenantchristian.org. 4
CELEBRATING OUR SE
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ENIORS
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David Trujillo, the Covenant 100 lead organizer, discusses worldview with students.
Foundational Prose
// ONE HUNDRED IMPORTANT READINGS TO FOSTER VITAL CONVERSATIONS
As you enter Covenant Christian High School, turn right and walk a bit around the commons railing, then go right once more through the double-doors of the library; once inside you’ll find a handmade bookshelf set apart from the rest housing a collection of works. This is the Covenant 100, a set of books that humbly attempts to be a complete compilation of the essential works that speak to the formation of a Christian worldview. It is a congregation of continually critiqued books that attempts to exemplify the best collection of works to aid its readers in answering all of the important questions of the Christian life. Academic Dean David Trujillo recalls the Covenant 100 starting as an initiative for the whole school to commit to in-depth worldview education. Former Principal and CEO Bryan Hudson put the task to a few teachers to hunker down and develop a refined worldview curriculum for Covenant students. Starting with Joseph Campbell’s Eight Issues of Man, Trujillo extensively researched different spiritual, anthropological, and pastoral perspectives on the essential questions that must be answered for a full life with God. “A good worldview is founded on Scripture, but we realized we needed to receive and draw upon strong Christian voices from throughout the centuries and across the globe; we humbly pursued to create a list of what are the most important texts that answer the most important questions in developing a worldview,” said Trujillo. The list of eight issues expanded a bit and became Life’s Universal Questions, a framework that still informs many pedagogical methods in the humanities at Covenant. Organized under 12 broad categories, these 15 questions would be the basis for Covenant’s worldview curriculum, especially, but not exclusively, in the capstone Senior Worldview class. As the set of questions solidified and students embarked on academic and formational quests to answer them, Trujillo continually found himself gathering resources for students as they developed questions about classroom discussions and composed complex worldview papers and presentations. Trujillo said, “I was asking students to investigate answers for those questions, using Scripture and Christian mentors like C.S. Lewis, and I found they needed a lot of help in where to get started, so to maximize their time and research I created a starting bibliography. It was a place to start, but it became clear that gathering library materials was essential.”
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So in its early days, the first form of what would become the Covenant 100 was simply a teacherprepared bibliography for students who were asked to read portions of of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis or The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. As resources were available, Covenant started gathering books from the growing list. And as Covenant worked to gather books and continue building its Biblical and Theological Studies curriculum with the works, many former students would come back for more. Many alumni who had gone through the Worldview class and matriculated would contact their former Bible teachers and ask for the book list they had encountered senior year or they would ask for more resources to continue being well-read in Christian thought and perspectives. This was further evidence to all invested in developing the Covenant 100 that the list was bigger than a school’s worldview curriculum. It could be a community centerpoint that would unite fellow believers to commune over God’s truth through the lenses these mentor texts would provide. In 2015, after years of consideration and planning, the first iteration of the Covenant 100 found its home in the Covenant library. Finally there were tangible, in-house copies of all of the books that comprise this special collection. Organized by question-group categories, four shelves of the Brad Spencer custom-made bookshelf holds works from writers like St. Augustine, Madeline L’Engle, C.S. Lewis, and Hans Urs Von Balthasar, among many, many others. They are constantly housed in our library, so they cannot be checked out. This ensures the continual care and curation of the collection. Covenant faculty, staff, and students have all come to appreciate that there is something special about that bookcase in the library.
The Covenant 100 has its own space for study and reflection reserved in the Library Media Center.
As the de-facto leader on the project, Trujillo said that the ultimate vision for the collection is to make a resource list of works that mentor our students, alumni, and community through life in Christian thinking and Christian living, to empower them to be a voice in their community, and to bring others into this depth of thinking about how the Christian worldview impacts their lives. “We have a long way to go in that reality,” Trujillo admits, “but to have a larger group of alumni interacting with this list and introducing it to people in their community, that they allow this list to mentor them through life, pass it along, inform their lives, this list can be a great tool for that. We’re building lifelong learners, preparing them for scholarship, leadership, and aiming to give a perspective not only on what it means to be Christian but also a flourishing human being.”
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ACROSS & ABROAD // A VISUAL GUIDE TO WHERE JUST A FEW OF OUR ALUMNI ARE TODAY
Ben Kapps | Seattle, WA Senior Program Manager, Amazon Carrie Moss | San José, Costa Rica Missionary
Caleb Bollman | Miles Ci Biologist
Levi Boxell | Stanford, CA PhD Student in Economics, Stanford University
Matthew Cinkoske | Japan Language Teacher
Kala Ghooray | Irvine, CA Resident in Internal Medicine
Jacob McCall | Dominican Republic Missionary
Rachel Thompson | Jerusalem, Israel Graduate Study & Missionary
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Adam Aukerman | Benton Harbor, MI Store Manager, Whirlpool Corp
ity, MO
Pauline Smith | Detroit, MI Physician, Veteran Evaluation Services
Andrew Lehr | Anderson, IN Director of Students, Anderson University
Kim Hangoc | Chicago, IL Management Consultant
Josiah Cavanaugh | NY Shop Assistant, Ivory Build Woodworking
Natalie Kopp | Boston, MA Chief of Staff, Brown University
Luke Fields | Washington D.C. Attorney, King & Spalding
Daniel Heuss | Cincinnati, OH Proctor & Gamble Finance Lead
Emily Englert | Avon, IN Elementary Teacher
John Pourcho | Greenville, SC Product Definition Engineer
Jordan Clark | Dallas, TX Planner/Designer, VERDUNITY
Kat Miller | Franklin, TN Audio Engineer
Tyler Benware | Atlanta, GA Orchestra Operations Manager Emily Robinson | Denton, TX Pediatric Nurse Practitioner
Tori Giblin-Jones | Charleston, SC Masters Student in Clinical Health Counseling
Amy Jeanes | Melbourne, FL Social Worker
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JANUARY ‘18
EXPERIENCE COVENANT APRIL ‘18
COVENANTCHRISTIAN.ORG/VISIT
SHADOW DATES
MAY ‘18 HAVE QUESTIONS? VISIT OUR SITE, EMAIL CINDYCLEARY@COVENANTCHRISTIAN.ORG TO SCHEDULE A VIRTUAL MEETING OR CALL OUR ADMISSIONS TEAM AT 317.390.0202
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Due to the current COVID-19 situation, 202021 Shadow Days and Open Houses are TBD. Please follow @cchsindy on social media and check our website throughout the school year for updates and alternative options.
Shadow for a day. Interested students are invited to shadow a Covenant student.
This is the best way to experience the Covenant culture firsthand and determine whether it is a good fit for your student. If your student wishes to shadow a particular current student, simply make a request. We are also able to match your student with someone who has similar interests.
The Class of 2020 won back-to-back Powder Puff Championships!
A Moment in Time
// 2020’S TIME CAPSULE MESSAGE FOR THE FUTURE To celebrate Covenant’s 25th anniversary, a senior in the class of 2020 wrote out a “time capsule” letter for the school, with her vision and wishes for the school after another 25 years. It’s a special thing to be a part of Covenant during its 25th year. This school has built a vivid history of Christ-centered learning and developed a community that is impressively supportive even in the strangest times. I couldn’t be prouder to be a part of that community. Though it may sound like a cliché, I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t become something of a home to me. I have always struggled with direction—never knowing what I wanted to do and not knowing what my place should be. Covenant became the turning point in that search. I stopped stressing over the particulars of my path, because I started to understand the things that really mattered to me—my relationships with my family, friends, and God. It’s the simplest thing that Covenant has been putting into perspective for 25 years. It’s not always easy to know what is important when you’re starting out in high school, so I hope that another student in my shoes years down the line gains the same comfort in that knowledge. Covenant has gone to great lengths to prepare its students for lives outside of high school—and outside of education entirely. The Senior Worldview class, Spiritual Emphasis Day, and Friday Assembly are just a few of the opportunities we’re given to reflect and take a look at our experience outside of the lens of schooling. While we get all the benefits of a challenging education, the halls of Covenant (all two of them) have become something more than a place to succeed academically. High school is an incredibly formative time for teenagers and young adults, and I can think of no better environment for that growth to take place. The greatest asset to our maturation is the teachers, who make it a point to invest in their students. Each of them is so wildly unique, and with such different approaches to
Emma Hunt (‘20)
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instruction, there is never a dull moment. However, a constant among all of them is their care for the development of each individual student, along with a love for God that is just as prevalent in physics as it is in Bible class. In my experience, they’ve taken great care to look out for me—even checking in on my mental health during times when I’ve struggled with my commitments. The teachers push their classes to their potential while encouraging us to manage our work in a healthy way. Not only am I confident that every teacher at Covenant is well suited to mentor any of us, but I believe the range of personalities employed here lends well to reaching even the most stubborn student. In another 25 years, I hope Covenant maintains its spirit of learning. It’s amazing the transformations I’ve seen in my peers and in underclassmen during their time here. I sometimes can’t believe my own growth. Somehow, within the span of four years, apathy turns into passion and boredom turns into curiosity. Whether it happens during J-term or in class, students are finding more than what interests them. We’re finding a love for discovery. Developing a desire to pursue knowledge is one of the greatest things we can accomplish while we’re here.
Take a virtual tour at covenantchristian.org! You can move at your own pace and hear from faculty, staff, and students about Covenant’s academics, athletics, fine arts, international, and student life programs. Get a taste of what it’s like to be a part of our community - right from your own home!
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Celebrating the life of
DON LASKOWSKIÂ 1931 - 2020
SERVANT. CHAMPION. FRIEND.
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Amy Atteberry witnessed the beginnings of Covenant as families prayed over the grounds and worked together to complete our current building.
THROUGH AMY’S EYES // REFLECTING ON 25 YEARS AT COVENANT
Covenant Christian is honored and blessed to be celebrating its 25-year anniversary this fall. Covenant’s story is one of continuity. “We started off as a family, and that feeling has continued,” says Amy Atteberry. Atteberry has worked at Covenant Christian High School for the entirety of the existence of the school, so on the cusp of this important moment, it seems prudent to get the story of the transformation of Covenant from the person who has seen it all. “We started off as a family, and that feeling has continued,” said Atteberry. In the early days of Covenant, classes were held in the basement of Chapel Rock Christian Church, and a group of 10 or so teachers and staff did whatever they had to provide a quality Christian education to the students whose families had decided to entrust their kids with this new institution. Atteberry said, “The Word was always first and foremost in what we taught; making sure it was authoritative and what we rooted everything in, our foundation is set in that, and from there we did education.” “From day one, it felt like a real school. Jim [Spencer] had taught in the public schools for 35 years, so he knew education so well. His leadership was a combination of simplistic and deep. He was very intentional about who he hired. All of us who worked there taught a variety of subjects and coached, so we all took the job seriously because we had to make it work. We loved and fought like family. The students fought like brothers and sisters, too,” said Atteberry.
“I remember Jim [Spencer] coming in and saying, “I don’t know if you’re going to get paid, so pray it in. I don’t know where it’s going to come from.” But it always came. Atteberry remembered in particular that there was a time where she realized she needed a speaker or PA system to facilitate her classes well, and someone independent delivered a check into the school for that explicit purpose. “It was all like that.
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The Word was always first and foremost in what we taught.
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In the early days, Atteberry said the experience at Covenant was marked with continual provision from God. When there were needs for supplies or finances, prayer and responsibility reigned supreme.
We prayed it in. We got books donated, microscopes for labs. It made us grow in our faith so much.” In one of the biggest moves of God’s faithfulness, the Laskowskis donated the funds for our building. Covenant moved out of the basement next door and into a beautiful new space, but Atteberry said the transition to the building felt more like using a tool and less of a piece of the identity of the school. “It wasn’t any different relationally. We had to gradually keep hiring more staff, but because we had the same administration, the transition was smooth. The same type of people were being hired, with their relationship with the Lord, educational principals, and ideals.” Atteberry said that the space allowed for more student opportunities and allowed for the staff to be better stewards of their time, and “of course, having a big space could allow for more students to join us.” Gone was the need to rent local gym facilities, and students could conduct experiments in bonafide labs. “It made it easier to do school, in many regards. We were so grateful and appreciative because it was all a gift and stewarding that gift was so important. We kept making relationships with each other and with our families.” While the physical space was a blessing, Amy has also been present through changes in leadership, and she sees each transition as important notches in Covenant’s timeline. “Jim was the original leader, and then Bryan [Hudson] came in and was a visionary. Jim helped us establish deep roots, but Bryan helped us develop dreams and he encouraged us to think big.” Atteberry said that while sometimes the dreams weren’t realized, the encouragement and culture helped keep Covenant feeling like a family that was doing important, Christ-centered work. Once Hudson left, current principal and CEO Dr. Andy Goodwin took the lead and Amy said that Goodwin’s leadership has continued in the tradition of the school while prompting the school to respond to new challenges.
Amy Atteberry, Covenant Teacher (1995 - present)
“I can still walk into Andy’s office and cry and tell him what is going on, which has always been a trait of this place,” said Atteberry, “And Andy has been leading us into the necessary technological developments well. We’re still balancing a grace-driven vision. It’s been a constant story of sticking to the original vision but responding to new things.” Through these 25 years, through good times, tough times, new staff, new leadership, new challenges and opportunities, Atteberry says that the non-negotiables of being grace-centered, Word-focused, and deeply relational have been so prominent that now the thought of leaving that environment is tough on her. “The family and relationships that I’ve built through this place, to me, when I think of leaving someday, that is what is going to be hard. It’s family. It has been from day one. From the beginning until now.”
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covenant calendar AUGUST
SEPTEMBER
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11-12
GREAT CLOUD OF WITNESSES
COVENANT THEATRE PRESENTS: MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
Alumni are invited to join us for a drive-thru coffee morning as we embark on a new school year!
Delve into mystery and intrigue as we uncover the classic Agatha Christie tale of murder, lies, and the truth coming to light.
OCTOBER
OCTOBER
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FALL CONCERT
VIRTUAL GRANDPARENTS DAY
Join us for an evening of music as we celebrate our first concert of 2020!
NOVEMBER
DECEMBER
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COVENANT CELEBRATES
CHRISTMAS CONCERT
We’ll be celebrating all that God has done and is doing in our lives and at Covenant with a special keynote speaker and look toward the future together.
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Even though we can’t be together physically, we will still honor our grandparents and meet with them virtually on this special day.
A season of hope and wonder set to music both traditional and new. You are invited to join us!
FEBRUARY
JANUARY
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18-20 COVENANT THEATRE PRESENTS: THE SECRET GARDEN
The magic of childhood and the bonds of friendship shine in this treasured tale; live the story along with us.
MARCH
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SENIOR SHOWCASE J-TERM
Students at Covenant will plunge head first into a wide range of immersive, exciting, experiential learning.
APRIL
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MAY
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GONE SERVIN’
We’ll be taking the day from academic study to get our hands dirty serving our community.
MAY
FINE ARTS FESTIVAL
Celebrate our entire Fine Arts Department as they present their final event of the year.
Follow us on social media
Join Chamber Chorus and Treble Ensemble for an evening of music about places we love from all genres, featuring the Seniors from each ensemble.
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@cchsindy COMMENCEMENT
Congrats, Class of 2021! Join us as we send off our graduates to the next chapter in their lives! We want to connect with you! Come join the conversation and see for yourself who we are, what we do and how we do it for the glory of Christ!
May 15, 2020
Art Gallery | 5:30pm
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COVID-19 UPDATE
NONPROFIT U.S. POSTAGE
Due to the current COVID-19 situation, 202021 Shadow Days and Open Houses are TBD.
PAID
Indianapolis, IN PERMIT NO. 2093
Please follow @cchsindy on social media and check our website throughout the school year for updates and alternative options.
7525 West 21st Street, Indianapolis, IN 46214 317.390.0202 | covenantchristian.org
