Kara-Balta School

On September 1, 1999, Kara-Balta school opened with grades K-4 in a former Soviet kindergarten building.  After considerable difficulty the first year in selecting reliable, competent people to work as administrators and teachers, the Kara-Balta school began its second year of operation on August 31, 2000, with a solid and strong faculty and an added fifth grade and 2B class for neglected children, a number of whom, aged 10-12 had never before attended school.  The school has 173 students (as of November 2000).  About 25 of these students with particularly bad home lives have recently begun living in the adjacent Kara-Balta Children's Home, also an ACSCA project. 

The school is licensed with the Department of Education of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan.  Like the other ACSCA schools, each school day begins with a meeting with songs and prayers for all students whose parents consent (second picture).  After the official lessons required by the Department of Education, the Kara-Balta School, like the other ACSCA schools offers optional after-school activities available which include Biblical Hour, Spiritual Music, Arts and Crafts, English, and Kyrgyz.  

The interdenominational orientation of ACSCA is especially visible in the Kara-Balta School, where administrators include a Catholic, a Russian Orthodox, and Protestants of several denominations. 

Again as at the other ACSCA schools, the children of Kara-Balta School receive a nutritious breakfast and lunch (third picture), a service government schools in Kyrgyzstan have had to eliminate due to very limited budgets over the last several years.  In November 2000, repairs on the school swimming pool were completed and the children were able to begin swimming as part of the physical education cirriculum.

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