There are many ways to measure a school. For an Adventist school, there is no more important measure than the evidence that the Holy Spirit is working in the lives of individual students. Some might view spiritual formation and academic excellence as mutually exclusive processes, but at Mount Ellis Academy (MEA) they are considered closely connected. An awareness that we are created by a loving God gives all the educators' efforts a purpose and a reason to excel that goes far beyond a desire for prestige or affluence. These best efforts are an act of worship — an offering to Him.
For this reason they have good reason to set high standards. The recent CognitiveGenesis Project provided empirical evidence for the outstanding quality of academic instruction in Adventist schools across North America. MEA's fall achievement test scores confirmed the finding of CognitiveGenesis and showed several remarkable things about the sophomore class' scores:
As a group, the class ranked in the 99th percentile compared to all the other 10th-grade groups in the nation.
100 percent of the class scored at the proficient level or above in every tested subject.
At least 45 percent of the class scored at the advanced level in every single subject tested, with 82 percent advanced in reading and 73 percent advanced in science.
The MEA mission statement commits the campus family to "Discover the Reality of Our Creator, Develop Our God-Given Gifts, and Serve in His Kingdom." For MEA, the purpose of academic achievement is to make students better able to serve, and with humble and grateful hearts they strive to achieve at the highest level.
Taryn Johannes, Mount Ellis Academy sophomore, ponders a question on her achievement test. (Darren Wilkins)
