Bobcat Blog

No matter what difficulty you may be facing or what challenges may arise, take solace in the reminder of the birds that are singing, the grass that is growing, and the flowers that are blooming. Let these be tangible reminders to you after this long winter that hope springs eternal.

To know Brian and Andrea Hanson is to know two people on a mission––and to know they have the skillsets necessary to accomplish that mission. Appreciative of RCLS as they are after having partnered with the school’s remarkable faculty to raise their two children, the Hansons have long been a part of the mission of the school, but it is the future of the school that has their attention now. It is that future––the future of RCLS and the legacy of RCLS in their own family’s life––that has given shape to one of the family’s most significant missions in recent years. Will you join them in the mission of building this legacy for the school?

Grace. Faith. Learning for Life. No culture or era ever gets it all right, but these...these are words that transcend time and place, words that rightly order the chaos. Indeed, when children are immersed in them for the better part of their childhoods, these are words capable of setting our students free from the tyranny of the self and the temporality of alternative “truths”––capable, even, of turning the world right-side up again.

As I interact with prospective school families, one of the questions I am always asked is, “How do RCLS students do in high school?” Until now, we’ve only had such anecdotes and stories to share. But now, after a recent survey of parents of RCLS’s 2018 graduates, we have some numbers to support the stories. And, truly, the numbers are astounding.

Knowing what we know now about Jon Dicke, a 2011 8^th-grade graduate of RCLS, it’s no wonder his earliest memory of RCLS is the school’s annual invitational basketball tournament. Now, since he is an Exercise Science/pre-medicine student and football player at Southwest Minnesota State University, it is clear that this one-time Bobcat has always been drawn to the thrill of sports. Indeed, basketball is not just his first RCLS memory, but makes up many of the graduate’s “greatest memories” from his first school, where he obtained the immeasurable value of foundation, friendship, and fortitude.

Two years ago, one RCLS 5th grader was a very different little girl than she is today. As her mom tells the story, she notes that  the change she has seen in her daughter since her move to RCLS "is nothing short of amazing. It truly is amazing what caring teachers and peers will do to a child’s self-esteem.” Relationships and the care and kindness that characterize them offer a “dimension” of academic achievement that is so often overlooked and undervalued. One girl's story shows us just how valuable this dimension is to a child––inside and outside the classroom.