Eastern Christian School named District of Character again in 2025

Eastern Christian School was announced a 2025 District of Character today, an award bestowed by Character.org to only five districts and 98 schools in the country. This state-level recognition is the first step in the National District of Character recognition process. Eastern Christian last won this award in 2020.

Schools are selected based upon successful evidence of 11 principles centered around character development. These principles range from promotion of core values, to the creation of a caring community, to a meaningful and challenging academic curriculum, to opportunities for shared leadership. Eastern Christian scored an average of 3.8 out of 4 across the metric, with three perfect ratings and no rating falling below 3.5. 

In its report, the evaluating committee commended the school on doing “amazing work embedding, modeling, and practicing their core values throughout their three-school district,” applauding many specific programs and initiatives, including but not limited to Responsive Classroom technique for elementary students, the Timothy Group program for incoming freshmen, and a robust PTO program. It also commended the school for its regular practices of soliciting and acting upon feedback from the community, opportunities for service learning and student leadership, and its strong planning.

“We want to thank our colleagues who spent time diligently compiling evidence of character development on all campuses. The cross-campus team was led by Naomi Braunius and included Alyssa Westra, Kony Araya and Adam Culp. We also extend our gratitude to Character.org for this honor. Character development is an important component to an excellent, Christian education, and we are grateful to have received this award in recognition of our work in this area,” says Dr. Ruth Kuder, head of school. 

Read the full press release on the character.org website.