WCS SUPT. CURT CLOUD

Good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome, welcome, welcome. It is time now for our community connection right here on Gay one, the one you trust, and we have a familiar face in here today. I used to call him Coach Cloud. Now I'm Superintendent. How are you doing, Superintendent?

I'm good. How are you?

I'm doing just dandy. You got a little bit of a new office, Huh.

Yeah, yeah, Actually we're transitioning offices and remodeling right now, so I'm I'm just kind of setting out in the hallway right now.

But yeah, we're I do have a little bit of a new job.

And it's been about the last three weeks and it's been it's been interesting.

Uh and uh, Superintendent Cloud, You've been at Wesley and Christian off and on for a good many years, so you know where everything is, even though it's expanding.

Yeah, yeah, I do know where everything is.

I've been associated with the school off and on since two thousand, so my kids started going to school there, my wife started working there, and I came on in two thousand and two and this is my seventeenth year of employment coming up.

Wow, We've got a whole lot of students coming in this year.

Don't we Yes, we do, we do.

We're last year, we ended the year about three ninety and if everybody, if everybody was to come that has inquired, we'd be about five hundred, but we anticipate four fifty probably.

Wow, right around there.

That's a pretty significant milestone for the little school that cut.

It is it is.

We just now added our last two classes, the second section of our last two classes. We have two kindergartens and two fifth grades next year for the first time, which gives us two sections of every class that we have in the school. So it allows us about forty forty average of forty per class.

So now, with all these people finding out the great quality education and opportunities available at Wesley and Christians School, are you are you a little nervous about space?

Yeah, we are, but you know, we've done some creative things. We built out to some activity an activity center, to a couple of classrooms. We're utilizing some other buildings on campus for a couple of high school classrooms. We have the high school kids kind of spread out a little bit and traveling all over campus, but we are are managing and still good space. We have great security on campus. This next year, and we are really looking forward to what the year has for us.

My goodness, it's a beautiful campus that you have there. Yeah, it's very nicely laid out, and even with all the creativity that's come into play, no one would know that you've gone, you know, and modified a few things. It looks like it came there kind of factory, if you know what I mean.

Yeah, it does. So they've done a great job.

We've had local architects help us design those things, and we have big plans for the future and we're hoping to build out our shop building in the next couple of years and put add two or three more classrooms, get some the kids a little more consolidated in the same in the same facility, and gives us a little bit more flexibility.

Right now, we have people officing.

In It seems like small spaces, like closet spaces, but it's working and everybody's everybody's excited about our future.

They should be one building that gets one part of the campus, it gets a lot of use. Is your multipurpose building, and that's your gym, that's your stage, that's your graduation.

Yeah.

When you say multipurpose, boy and it's always in use.

It seems it is always in use.

It seems like seven days a week. We keep a calendar.

And and we have to reserve that and we use it almost all day long. And if it's raining outside, we have pe or a recess in there. Of course, we have pee in there all day long. They we use it every Sunday for church service and you know, graduation and music concerts and plays and musicals, and yeah, we use it quite a bit.

I had the privilege of walking in on a volleyball tournament that was there. Well, you had people moving.

Yes, yeah, yeah, we have courts.

That first day of the volleyball tournament, we have two courts going sideways.

And yeah, it's quite a spectacle to watch.

But you know, it really works, and we're.

Excited to have that.

You know, in the first my first eight of nine years, we didn't have that. We borrowed gyms all over town and that was a lot of.

Work and effort.

So we're just feel blessed to have what we have now.

Superintendent Cloud, we're coming up on a big market fiftieth anniversary coming up this year.

Yeah, tell us a little bit about that.

The school started in the church basement in nineteen seventy six as a pre k in kindergarten classroom, and it slowly expanded to a full daycare and an elementary school.

And in nineteen.

Seventy eight I think they built the CEC on top of the hill and they expanded to a full elementary And in nineteen eighty they built the other building, the annexes, which is where the middle school will be next year, but they expanded to K through eight along the ride around in there. And then in two thousand is when we started our first high school class. We had nine freshmen that first year in two thousand. I wasn't actually there.

Into sakes, and this is just incredible. What is it about Wesley and Christian School that makes it such a good choice for students and for parents in your.

Estimation, well, you know, it's always good people.

We get a lot of people that grew up maybe in a rural area sometimes and they like to go to a smaller school, and so the small atmosphere, you know, the more one on one.

Is always great. But you know, probably not.

Probably the most important aspect of Wesley and Christian School is the Biblical integration, and we are teaching the Bible and integrating that into every aspect of the education. We don't just have a school that has chapel once a week in Bible every day. All of our teachers are believers, and.

We're integrating.

That into every aspect and we you know, our mission is to come alongside parents and help them train their kids biblically. So that's the most special part to me is that we are affecting lives and kids and families for eternity.

That's awesome. Another thing I hear from some of the students who've graduated is that the instructors are not teaching at students. They're working with students, coaching them. If you will not only be a better student, but just a better individual, yeah, better citizen.

Yeah.

We have absolutely the best staff. And of course I'm prejudiced, but we have a great staff. We have a lot of tenured teachers that.

Have been there.

I think we have four or five teachers that have been there over twenty years, and we have some high school teachers that have been there right.

At fifteen twenty years.

And we have tremendous staff, fully certified, fully accredited, state recognized, and we have a tremendous staff and they do a great job.

So how does it feel now three weeks into the job, Superintendent? Feel pretty good?

It does.

It feels busy, and there's a lot of decisions and at times it feels like you walk in the door and everybody wants a piece of you.

But that's just part of what it is. I've done it for.

Six years at another school, and I kind of knew how it fell, and so it'll be a good year.

I'm excited for it.

I think a lot of people are excited for the new year. And also having you a familiar pace being at the Helm. This is going to be, I think really going to be something special here. I'm kind of looking forward to this new era.

Yeah, we're looking forward to it as well.

And if people are curious about the school, what's the best way that you could recommend them to to learn more about Western christ.

Well, you know, we have we have a website Western Christian School dot com. You can see a lot of stuff about our our teachers and our faculty and staff on that website.

What we offer, the programs that we offer. You know, we have sports programs. In the fall, we have cross country, girls volleyball.

We have almost sixty kids playing girls volleyball from fifth grade all the way to twelfth grade. This next year we have four four volleyball teams. We have high school in junior high football eight man we play in the os A A. In the winter time, we have basketball. I was telling you before, we have eight basketball teams, eight fifth and sixth grade, Junior high, seventh and eighth grade, JV, and high school. And so we're having over one hundred

You know, if someone said, why honestley in Christian School, I'd have to say, after that, why not?

Yeah, exactly exactly.

I want to thank you very much for being here a superintended cloud, and I want to wish you all the success in the world at the wonderful school you have out there, and you produce some pretty darn wonderful young people that go out into the world.

Well, thank you, and I appreciate being here already.

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