Bethel Dunkard Brethren Church - Bethel, Pennsylvania - Private School

From: Charisse Aungst | submitted: Oct 24, 2008
I also am a graduate of the Bethel Dunkard Brethren Christian school, and I would not have traded my experiences there for anything. The protection it provided me from the peer pressures of the public school system, the challenging A Beka curriculum, the small class sizes, and close supervision by the teachers all contributed to a terrific, well rounded schooling experience. On graduation day I publicly thanked my parents for the sacrifices they made to send me to the Bethel Dunkard Brethren School, and I still feel that gratitude, strongly. I have been out of school seven years now, and I am currently a licensed Commercial Insurance Agent. I have been working in the industry five years. I have earned the CISR designation, and am currently working on the CIC designation. These are college level courses, and I have found them challenging, but by no means unattainable. Christianity is unashamedly taught in the Bethel Dunkard School. As Daniel Webster so succinctly put it, "Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens." I have retained the conservative Christian beliefs I was taught at home and school, and have found them to be a very firm foundation for my every endeavor, aiding in the success of my career, the opportunity for extensive international travel, and myriads of faithful friendships. My school years were an inextricable stepping stool to the heights I have reached. By the grace of God I will continue to be a faithful witness for Him, and a positive testimony for the Bethel Dunkard Brethren Church and School.

From: J E Moser | submitted: Jan 23, 2008
As a former attendant of this institution, I feel compelled to comment. This is not a school I would recommend sending anyone too. If you're looking for private schooling, there are many many other schools to choose from. Essentially this school is one large homeschool group. The teachers have no further education other than a similar school system, which becomes a serious problem in the higher grades when studying the sciences or music and such things. In fact, when I was there, my best friend and I would often be called upon to teach the grammar lessons for the day because the teach did not understand the material as well as we did. Several of the courses I took were work at your own pace, which many students didn't do. Skewed information tends to be presented in courses like history and science. And I don't mean teaching creation as the only way to explain how we are here, but the rejection of many other proven sound scientific facts, or the misrepresentation of historical fact. Physical punishment is also employed, with parental permission first sought. I myself was spanked when I was in kindergarten because I was telling other children in my class what to do when we were standing in line (which I had been doing and had been warned to stop. I forgot, as 5 year olds tend to, and was spanked as a result). Do yourself and your children a favor. My parents pulled all of my siblings and myself out of the school at the end of my sophomore year. I graduated from a different private high school and am now a Senior at West Chester University where my decided major is Acting and Directing with a minor in music. I started as a Biology major and made very good grades in tough courses, but only because of two things, my parents sent me to a high school that prepared me for college work, and I am a good student. If you want private education for your children, I cannot urge you enough to send them to a different school.

From: Amber L Noecker | submitted: Jan 23, 2008
As a "graduate" of Bethel Dunkard Brethren School (the term "graduate" being used here with great caution), I can wholeheartedly assert that BDBCS is probably the strongest example of why private schools and homeschooling should not be anywhere close to legal in the United States. The Bethel Dunkard Brethren Church is a narrowly fundamentalist Christian denomination, and the school bearing its name is similarly exclusionary and narrow-minded. Quite apart from the lack of basic moral truths (such as the basic worthiness of human beings and the tolerance and sensitivity to different cultural and social perspectives), it directly refutes what it purports to teach; that is, instead of teaching the basic philosophies of Jesus Christ (who focused on improving the treatment of marginalized groups, such as women, domestic servants/slaves, and religious and cultural minorities, they teach that only a very small, select group of people are considered by God as being worthy of eternal life (and that that group who is deemed holy enough is largely determined by their outward appearance and the extent to which they outwardly apply the rules and regulations of the Dunkard Brethren Church). On a strictly educational note, the education that I received is substandard at its absolute best. The teachers that I had had absolutely no training and, as a result, were completely and totally inadequete and ineffective. At age 16, when I was the equivalent of a sophomore in high school, I was single handedly teaching my English/grammar class because my "teacher" at the time was a man who had himself dropped out of high school in the 9th grade (subsequently earning his G.E.D.) and who was unable to correctly pronounce basic English terms. Since none of the teachers at BDBCS are certified in any sort of formal educational training, the degree that they award is useless, and I had to take the PA General Education Degree in order to be accepted to colleges. On the whole, the only possible outcome of attendance at this school is certain academic mediocrity (or, more likely, substandard levels of primary and secondary education). The absolute bottom line of this review is - DON'T SEND YOUR CHILDREN HERE.