This is our review of the school concerning any vulnerable children or children with disabilities…read moreattending Mercy Culture. Far stray and cry from Godly intervention, love, grace, mercy, or protection in our estimation.
Our family has five children enrolled at Mercy Culture Preparatory, and this year alone we are paying over $50,000 in tuition. We chose this school because we believed we were choosing a truly Christ-centered environment where Jesus, honor, character, and protection of children came first.
Our experience has been heartbreaking.
Our son has a speech impediment, which is a recognized disability, and he already struggled with self-confidence because of it. Throughout the school year, a student at Mercy Culture Preparatory repeatedly harassed, antagonized, and bullied our son. This student's family is very involved at the school, and one of the teachers' boyfriends lives with that student's family. That relationship made the school's lack of action feel even more concerning to us as parents.
After this repeated harassment and bullying, our son's emotional health declined significantly, including depression and suicidal thoughts. In our view, this was not normal childhood conflict. This was repeated emotional and psychological bullying of a vulnerable child.
The school knew. I personally informed the superintendent twice. Multiple adults were aware of incidents involving this student and our son. Yet from what we experienced, this student received no consequences. There was no detention, no in-school suspension, no out-of-school suspension, no serious protection plan, and no intervention that actually stopped the pattern. The other child's parent later told me the school had not even contacted them about the prior incidents.
That is very hard to reconcile with a school that repeatedly talks about "honor."
Our children had never received a detention, in-school suspension, or out-of-school suspension before this. Quite the opposite, they have been praised for their attitudes, behavior, and performance at the school.
Then, after our son finally reached a breaking point and handled the situation the wrong way, the school immediately disciplined him. We do not excuse the physical altercation, and we told our son that in this particular situation, it probably should not have reached that point. But we also believe this situation should never have been allowed to reach that point in the first place.
We were first told he would receive a two-day out-of-school suspension. The very next day, the school changed it to three days. Then, during the suspension, he was not allowed to receive his schoolwork to complete from home. For a child already emotionally impacted by repeated bullying, it felt like the school failed to protect him before the incident, then punished him academically afterward.
What hurt even more was that when we pushed for accountability, we felt questioned as a family. In one conversation, the pastor connected to the school made a comment that came across to us as suggesting we may not "belong" there. For a family with five children enrolled, asking for basic protection for a vulnerable child, that was deeply painful.
Mercy Culture Preparatory presents itself as deeply godly and Christ-centered. But in our family's experience, when our vulnerable child needed protection, documentation, parent notification, accountability, and compassion, the response did not match the values being promoted.
A Christian school is not proven by how often it says "Jesus" or "honor." It is proven by how it treats the child who is hurting, isolated, vulnerable, and inconvenient to protect.
Based on our experience, I would strongly caution families who are looking for a safe, truly Christ-centered school to look very carefully before trusting Mercy Culture Preparatory especially if their child has a disability, social vulnerability, or needs adults to step in with courage and consistency.
