Vision and Mission Statements:

Anchors Against Drift

September 2022

If you are new to Prince, once a month you will receive a letter from our leadership team focusing on a topic germane to our PreK-12 community. The purpose of these letters is to share topics and issues relative to your investment in a Christian education to promote communication and strengthen our partnership. As we begin the 2022-2023 school year, it is appropriate we start with reviewing our mission and vision statements and their purposes.

More than ever in our nation's history, Christian school leaders must be clear and deliberate in defining and upholding their schools' vision, mission, and purpose – but that is not enough. From our school's articles of incorporation, bylaws, employment and student admissions contracts to compliance with government regulations regarding business practices, the changing moral standards of today's American society necessitate diligent and proactive actions to preserve Prince's Christ-centered culture.

Mission statements today are legion, and their prominent display in many organizations speaks to an awareness of their importance. The carelessness by some leaders of yesteryear's great Christian organizations who allowed "mission drift" resulted in destinations their founding members could have never imagined. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in our nation's public schools, which have replaced moral absolutes from the Bible with value systems based on relative morality.



Our mission statement captures our nonnegotiable core principles of biblical discipleship, the pursuit of scholastic excellence, and recognition of the critical role the arts and athletics play in students' cognitive and social development. Our mission statement is prominently displayed throughout our campus and reads:

"To partner with Christian families to provide scripturally based discipleship while pursuing excellence in academics, fine arts, and athletics from a biblical worldview."

Seasoned leaders are replete with advice on the perils of confusing mission and vision statements and emphasize the latter should contain guidance and inspiration concerning what the organization wants to achieve in the future. Our vision statement defines the foundation of our beliefs, our objective, and the method to accomplish that objective in the following statement:

"Guided by God's Word as our foundation, we aspire to be the preferred choice for Christian families in the greater Athens area by providing a premier college preparatory education while discipling students to grow in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ."

As a faculty and staff of professing believers, we understand the critical importance of remaining on a steady, fixed course charted by biblical principles. We are also attuned to eschew legalism (our staff will tell you I detest legalism because I believe it drives young people away from Christ) and fixate our focus on the master teacher, Jesus. Prince will remain unapologetically a Christian, American school regardless of the environment around us, and to Him be the glory.

Seth Hathaway, Ed.D.

Head of School

Twitter: @PACS_Head