Hi, we are the Bennett family, Quincy, Terri and Quentin. We would love to share our story about how we became a part of the Cornerstone Christian School family. It started in second grade where we had noticed that Quentin needed extra help in one subject. We began helping him at home and it was taking 3 to 4 hours each day along with the extra help he was being given at his public school. After nine weeks, there was no change, so we added a tutor on top of everything else. The classrooms were so crowded, with about 25 students, that we knew his teacher didn’t have time to help those who might not have gotten it the first time. That is a big problem because children just don’t learn at the same rate and some need to find other ways to help things connect. His public school offered an Individual Education Plan that sounded great for what we needed, but in reality it was more work for Quentin to do that he just didn’t understand. Instead of this being a solution, it made matters worse.

Because they were so limited in resources and people, they just couldn’t take the extra time out to really find out what worked for Quentin. All they could do was place him in different programs that made no change in his progress. By the second nine weeks we felt that the public school wasn’t working and we prayed to ask God to lead us to the school that would be best for us.

Out of the four schools that we toured, CCS stood out because of Mrs. Janet Etter’s warm friendly welcome and her eagerness to find out about us and what we were looking for in a new school. As we talked, she shared with us that she had worked with children that needed a smaller student-teacher ratio in the classroom. This gave more individual time to help them progress better and gave the teacher an opportunity to work with the families as a team. At that point, we could tell that she was very passionate about helping students achieve their potential at all cost to her and her staff. She was honest that it might take a little time before he would show great progress, but that he would. Our minds were already made up with the decision to enroll Quentin at CCS for the third nine weeks and not waste any more time.

Our prayers had been answered. Miss Rachel Blackburn was our first teacher and she really put in the effort to learn Quentin’s work habits. If she saw he was struggling with something, she would always let us know what we could do to help him at home. This was something he just couldn’t get in the public school system. In the following nine weeks, we fell in love with Miss Rachel and we believe she fell in love with us too. When we thought things couldn’t get any better, the school offered extra help over the summer, since he had started so late in the year, so he could finish all his assignments over the summer break. They went the extra mile for him.

Mrs. Wendy Weist was our second teacher and she made a special connection with Quentin where he seemed to start putting all the pieces together. He seemed to understand his assignments better and this was the breakthrough we had been waiting for! His attitude changed from not being confident to now wanting to do his very best.

His progress continued with Mr. Boyce and then Mrs. Smith. Even Mrs. Gainey in the front office would assist him in the mornings when she had extra time. Everyone worked together to help our son. They went the distance for him and came through with a method we thought didn’t exist. This year he has Mrs. McElrath and Mrs. Galloway and they are wonderful at keeping us informed with what’s going on in class whether with the monthly calendars or a text when needed. We are all working together to benefit Quentin.

What I’ve been saying really is that the one best blessing about having Quentin enrolled at Cornerstone is that he is seeing that Christ is LOVE. They have shown it to us from day one to today, five years later. He learns about Jesus Christ by the people and the curriculum. At first it was Quentin needing extra help. But it was also Jesus wanting us to have faith in Him that He would work everything out if we would just believe. Five years later our faith is stronger than ever! Thank you Jesus for everything we have gone through to get here. We never gave up as parents to seek help and Cornerstone Christian never gave up on Quentin. He is currently on the ALL A’s HONOR ROLL and is a member of the Beta club. The Bennett family can’t express our gratitude and appreciation enough for not giving up on Quentin and for the dedication they have given us. We want to be a blessing back. We recommend to all families that CCS is the best school to be a part of. The Bennett family hopes we have inspired someone with our story to never give up the faith because Christ did not give up on us.

Best wishes,

The Bennett Family

Quincy, Terri and Quentin