March 3, 2003

Valley Missions/Education Center
to discontinue high school component
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___HARLINGEN--Trustees of the Valley Baptist Missions/Education Center in Harlingen have voted to discontinue high school classes after this semester and to begin seeking a new vision for the institution.
___Citing drastic declines in enrollment for several years, the board of trustees at its Feb. 6 meeting voted 9-2 to suspend the high school component of Valley Baptist Missions/Education Center.
___The center will continue to offer English as a Second Language classes, as well as leadership classes administered through Howard Payne University and theological training. It also will continue to house mission groups working in the lower Rio Grande Valley and northeastern Mexico.
___At its high point 30 years ago, Valley Baptist Academy--a residential high school for

In the mid-1990s, the peso devaluation in Mexico and rising tuition costs created a crisis at the school as enrollment dropped.

Spanish-speaking students--had 225 students enrolled. High school enrollment had dropped in the current semester to 32 students, with about 50 additional students enrolled in the English as a Second Language program.
___"We need 130 to 140 students just to break even," said Jerry Johnson, interim president of Valley Baptist Missions/Education Center. "The board felt we needed to put our resources and efforts into the training of leaders for Hispanic churches in Texas and around the world."
___The institution has been struggling financially for several years, and it would have been required to discontinue its high school program much earlier had it not been for significant supplementary support from the Baptist General Convention of Texas, Johnson said.
___"We grieve the loss of the high school, but we thank God for the contribution that the school made through the years, and we rejoice for the future that the Lord has in store for Valley Baptist Missions/Education Center," said Keith Bruce, coordinator of the BGCT institutional ministries section. "There is still a significant role for this ministry in preparing Hispanic leaders in many other avenues other than the high school program."
___Trustee Chairman Jim Hatley of First Baptist Church in Grapevine noted the board has enlisted a professional consultant to help Valley Baptist Missions/ Education Center discover a new vision for the future, as well as to analyze needs in the region.
___"We want to reach out and meet the needs not only of the Valley, but of all South Texas," Hatley said.
___In 1947, Woman's Missionary Union of Texas, the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board, the Mexican Baptist Convention of Texas and leaders of churches in lower Rio Grande Valley Baptist Association founded Valley Baptist Academy. The boarding school offered a high school education in a Christian context for Spanish-speaking youth.
___In the mid-1990s, the peso devaluation in Mexico and rising tuition costs created a crisis at the school as enrollment dropped. In 1997, the academy's trustees and members of the BGCT State Missions Commission voted to expand the institution's purpose, making it a broad-based missions and instructional center. Valley Baptist Missions/Education Center was selected as a new name to reflect that expanded ministry.
___The Valley Baptist Academy boarding school--which has related for the past two years to the BGCT Christian Education Coordinating Board--continued to provide education for Hispanic youth in grades six through 12 as one component of the more comprehensive missions and learning center.
___The academy graduated more than 750 students in five decades, and at least 2,000 have attended the school for one or two years.
___

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