Diana Beach Batarseh On Diverse, Private Education
Diana Beach Batarseh is an accomplished educator, trainer, and presenter with experience working with students from preschool to high school. Currently, she serves as the Head of School at King's Academy, which offers a Christ-centered classical education as part of its mission to develop a socio-economically and racially diverse school body. In this episode, Diana shares what makes King's Academy unique, highlighting its diversity, financial assistance programs, and strategies for fostering the growth of both the school and its community.
About Diana Beach Batarseh
Diana is an educator, trainer and presenter, having worked with students from preschool through high school. She has a life filled with ministry leadership and Kingdom work aligned with the mission and values of King’s Academy.
Diana has mentored and counseled teachers, parents, and church volunteers. She was the Founding Director of Mustard Seed Preschool, a Classical preschool, a ministry of Christ Community in Franklin,TN.
Her classroom experience includes teaching at Franklin Classical School, West Harpeth Christian Tutorial, and a leading volunteer at New Hope Academy. She developed Ask Me WhoOo, the children’s First Catechism set to music. Prior to Kings Academy, she served as Director of Discipleship and Equipping at Christ Community Church.
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Spencer 00:06
Diana Batarseh, welcome to Signature Required.
Diana Batarseh 00:09
Thank you so much. It's wonderful to be here with you two.
Spencer 00:12
You are head of school for kings Academy, a cause that Carli and I care a great deal about, so we know your story. I can't wait for everybody to get to know your story. Tell us who you are, your kings Academy experience. Let's start there, and what kings Academy is all about.
Diana Batarseh 00:31
Absolutely. One of the things I love to say is that I get to be the Head of School of Kings Academy. It's such an honor. It's been a work of a lifetime. I have this hysterical moment in my mind's eye in the first year where I was teaching on, what is the image of God and the sign language for it is this. But the way I teach it is I hold up a picture of myself, and I'm like, Who is this? And, you know, I'm trying to this is an image of me, and here's the real me. And one of the kids said, You look so young. And I said, Well, I started a school so few more grays, few more wrinkles, but it's really been an honor, because I get to do work that is creative. It's purposeful, it's intentional. It's life changing, not only for me and for those that I hired, the Champs on our team, but for the students and families who could only hope to have this kind of education, and I get to do that every day, maybe
Spencer 01:30
just start off with kings Academy. For those that have never heard about it, just give us the basic 101, if you've never heard of Kings Academy, no clue what it does. Talk to us about what it is, because it's such a unique mission. Yes,
Diana Batarseh 01:44
King's Academy is a Christ centered, culturally and socioeconomically diverse, classically inspired school. How's that?
Carli 01:54
Wow, I got that all you had to say that sentence many times. Can you do it like 10 times.
Diana Batarseh 02:00
It is Christ centered, culturally and socioeconomically, classically inspired school. I forgot the word and in there that time, but I think I could let that go. But honestly, it's a school that wants to show God's love to all its students. It does not require that one or both parents be professing Christians. It's a mission school, and I have started a school like that before, and it's just a beautiful thought that, why wouldn't I we want students from all parts of the world to come and experience God's love, and what is a community based on those values like and I would say the first descriptor, it's joyful the kids literally. I mean, I am telling you the truth the last day of school. You think it's the end of summer camp because there are kids crying because it's the last day of school. I mean, if I hadn't seen that myself, I would find it hard to believe. But it is a non public school that's committed to quality education for students, it's there's a difference between accessible and affordable. I mean, things cost a lot, so I'm not going to say that it's necessarily affordable, but it's accessible. We've made it accessible to families through our kind of rigorous fundraising, through foundations and grants and through vouchers. You know, all of these make a way for families to come experience King. So we have great diversity, lots of cultures. We end the year with an international pot luck dinner. And it is extraordinary. I know that we have 17 different dialects in seven languages represented in our community, yeah. So it's just beautiful. We're only three years old.
Spencer 03:45
Wow, yeah. So some of the like, quick facts, exactly, what's the grade level? Where are you located? What's your enrollment? Like? Give us some of the quick facts.
Diana Batarseh 03:51
Got it. We're on Nolensville pikes, or we are in the most diverse corridor of the whole state, where there are 70 nations represented. So we're strategically located, and that was part of our design, was to be somewhere where we would draw the folks we want to serve. We will eventually scale all the way through high school. This past year, we went up to sixth grade. Next year we had a seventh and so on and so forth, until we get all the way to 12th, starting at kindergarten, started starting in pre K, okay? And we started with 93 students. Year one 145 year two 171 year three, and we're slated to have about 215 in year four.
Carli 04:33
You got to be bursting at the seams. Are you all in one building? How are you?
Diana Batarseh 04:39
Well, forcing really great questions. So we are being hosted by Tusculum Hills Baptist Church, and they're a dear fellowship that's been around for a long time, and they've been great supporters of kings. It's a very big campus. It's 100,000 square feet, and it's more space than they need. And like many churches in our country, you. And, you know, they just don't need all the space that they find themselves with after, you know, decades of the mega church model. So they've gotten really creative, and they have looked for ministry aligned partnerships with para church organizations or international churches. And so we kind of fit the profile I loved the day that one of my Burmese dads came in to pay tuition early. I just happened to be on campus in the summer before we even launched, and it was so great because coming down from the elevator were ladies who had just gone to a citizenship class. They were all Burmese, and it was church sponsored. So I'm like, here you are. You're home. You know, this is not a place where you're othered. You know, the church is already doing this, you know, timing, yeah, it is it. That's exactly right. I happen to be there. They came down from the elevator. But we occupy the whole lower level. That's our elementary, our lower elementary program. And then there is, it's a three story building, and then on another floor, we've got third all the way through seventh, we're going to be two sections per class as we scale, and eventually, when we scale all the way through eighth grade, we'll have 320 students with two sections per grade.
Spencer 06:19
Yeah. What's your average class size like right now?
Diana Batarseh 06:22
It's 16 students. Yeah, and we do fill up really quick. Folks who are interested in learning about kings and visiting need to really anticipate a year prior. Come look on social media around September. There's an announcement about our tour and preview, and we begin with applications November one, and we like, I think the first day, we had 110 applications. So it's, there's a ton of interest. I think we are scratching an itch in our city.
Spencer 06:57
There's something, as a business guy, that has always driven me crazy about churches, in that you have vacant space for 95% of the hours in a week. I mean, most churches have this beautiful campus, all this land, and it sits for the overwhelming majority. So as a business guy, I see that and think this would not be acceptable in any normal format, like this. Business model is bad.
Carli 07:29
Clearly, we gotta talk to Jesus about it. Church business model is bad, like,
Spencer 07:34
From a purely financial perspective, you look at it and say that, you know, there's gotta be a better way. Yeah, so to see a church use its space for a school that brings its kind of occupancy, its utilization percentage, maybe not to 100% but certainly a lot higher than Sunday, only to the extent that you can speak to other churches in Tennessee that maybe are sitting on just vacant space, what to the extent you can disclose it, and you may not be able to, but what is the arrangement between you and Tesla? Right? Yes. What is the arrangement so that way other church members might say, okay, that could work in our community, and maybe we can use this facility in a way that continues to advance his kingdom.
Diana Batarseh 08:27
Absolutely. Well, the conversation starts, obviously, prior to you sitting down and signing a lease. And I think what's really important is, you know, my value is I want to be a place that is hospitable. I don't want to start from a place where, oh, don't touch this. Don't touch that. You know, here we are a new program. And I want to link arms with the church and say, Hey, let's welcome those who walk in the doors. And that is what is happening. So there is an alignment. We are not a ministry of the church. We are literally leasers, but they, I mean, they're not leasing to a Starbucks and turning the lower level into a drive through, right? Yeah. I mean, they want to be missionally aligned, so with that in place, the other thing I'll say to you is that I think that if there are any listeners who are church leaders thinking, Uncle, this is a good idea because we've got the space, and it is a pain point. And to your point about the business model, I think it's an endemic of where our country is. There was a time where community centered around the church. How many people went to, you know, covered dish dinners, and you were just always there for Bible study and youth group and all those things, and it's just a different day in our world. And so churches are having to get creative. So I think that conversation is important to have. And I know for me, I came from an executive team of the church staff, and I've seen lease you know, people come in lease space. I started a school for our. Church, and so I really do know some of the pain points, and that's something that up front we would discuss, like, it's not that there will not be any damage. It's when the hinge comes off the cabinet door and when that book goes missing and when that kid falls a few steps down the stairs. Here's what we will do. So we've really done a lot of work of kind of looking at, what are the things that could go wrong, what are the ways that we can kind of mitigate this. And I think, above all, I have a really high view of the church. I think that that's the central place for spiritual formation for people. And so I'm not competing with the church. I want to be respectful, even though, numbers wise, in that building, I've got the vast majority of people, but if they want to take a small group and occupy a space for their ministry purposes, I'm all for it. And so I think that's really important. It's that whoever, whatever relationship you enter, that it's not just You're my landlord and I'm your tenant. It's as a church, this is something God's given our people to worship him and to grow and to, you know, develop community, and we're trying to do the same thing. But I will never call myself a church. I'm a school, a Christian school, that wants the same ends as the church.
Spencer 11:20
Thank you for that. That's really helpful. And I think it's useful to hear for churches that this arrangement doesn't have to be free, right, that this is something that you're missionally aligned, but it's not a pure handout from a church to say, Gosh, as a church, we've got to deal with having the desire to use our space. But, you know, can we really charge for this? What happens for the damages? Because you got, you know, 200 300 kids that are running through there, so
Carli 11:50
I only have four damage Hello, in the next five minutes while I am staying here, yes, yeah, yeah.
Spencer 11:58
Thank you for that outline. I really appreciate that.
Diana Batarseh 12:00
Well, should I tell you about the time that we found the doorstopper flush down the toilet? That was just very unfortunate, and that was a $2,000 toilet repair. We repaired it because these things happen. I mean, sure and but you know, I think this is why you have to have to have a strong relationship, because I'm not trying to abdicate responsibility, and we do supervise our the thing that I think you would really enjoy is that our kids just as fun as kings, is you. If you come to a chapel, all I say is 123, all eyes on me. And they say one, two, eyes on you, and you can hear a pin drop you really can. And every time I thank them for their respect, every time I say thank you for that respect. And so it's a respectful school. It's a lot of kids, but you still gonna find a kid that manages to flush like what would happen to
Multiple Speakers 12:55
Say it wasn't my kid, because he doesn't go there, but it could have been my kid. Yes, yes, yes. So, right?
Carli 13:02
Tell me about the community. I think about it's this glimpse of heaven, right? So many different backgrounds and ethnicities and perspectives, I could imagine that being so beautiful but also uniquely challenging as humans can be. So how has that been for the community, as they've come alongside? This was a new idea when it started, what, three years ago? And so I'm sure you've had the best of times and the hardest of times.
Diana Batarseh 13:27
What a great question. I can tell you that when we started school, I had to just pinch myself because I thought, how are we already here? Like it felt like we were instant community. I don't know why, except I think that our intent is aligned with God's also probably because one of the very intentional things we do is a family interview with every family, and we talk about the core values of the school, which are diversity, humility and unity. And I tell every family, every staff member, every prospective board member. This conversation goes a little like this, just because you have a diverse group of people in a room doesn't make you necessarily united. And kings asserts that humility is that pathway towards unity. And so I invite my staff, I invite my families towards humility, one that's characterized by a need for God, knowing that you know he asks us to consider others more important than ourselves, and then a humility towards one another that's characterized by curiosity. You know you want to know more about them. You go through that awkward phase of not understanding what they just said their name was. And if you're anything like me, I have a very low name IQ, which is super unfortunate as the head of school, but I have also learned that most people have a low name IQ, and if we just all admit it, then we can just keep asking each other what our names are until
Carli 14:52
It's never heard it phrased that way, low name IQ, but you can have it. Thank you. Pretend I came up with it. I know.
Diana Batarseh 15:00
Oh, so, so I do invite, I ask them to think about it. And I've had moments where I'll have a parent say, Well, I'm kind of shy and, you know, a little bit reticent. I'm like, Well, I'm not asking you to go outside of who you are, but just organic opportunities. When you're in chapel, think about sitting beside somebody that you don't know. And if everybody's been asked to, think about it, if everybody's been asked to, you know, take that invitation up, then we're all in the same boat. So I'm amazed at just how much unity there is now. There are moments there, thankfully tend to be kind of closed door moments of like, I think you should have done more of this, and I have in the next hour, the same conversation with I think you should have done less of this so and I can hold attention of that. And I think the important thing I'm very committed to civil discourse. I'm very committed to people feeling like they have a voice, understanding what those pain points are, and seeing where we can find a middle ground. So that's work that I love to do. Call me crazy, but I just, I think there's something in the way I'm wired that many diplomat I love to do that. Also, I was raised by culturally. My parents immigrated here from South America. My father was really, really poor and a genius, and so he joined the military, because after three years, he'd get free education, and he went to medical school. My mom was in the sliver of a middle class, and she went to medical school. And that was pretty boss in the 50s as a woman to go to medical school, and she dad and mom like, were first and second in their class the entire time through. So the competition, right? Yeah, so it was pretty funny to hear the dinner table conversation, because my mother had one opinion and my father had another. And after his passing, mom, of course, was smarter than dad. She always, she's always smarter than dad, actually, but knowing what their experience was like immigrating to the United States, they made a new life for their entire family in Chicago, that's where I was born and raised, and so I have a unique seat, first of all, being bilingual, and also understanding the struggles that my parents experienced in a dominant culture where their English wasn't perfect, but goodness gracious, they had thriving practices. English must have been good enough, you know, they did great. And so I'm in a unique position with bicultural families, or families that come from other cultures. And even if I can't really, because I don't speak Burmese, I can speak Spanish, but I have had conversations with refugee families. I'm like, you know, look at me. I'm your daughter, she's going to be just fine, you know? And just giving them hope that they've done such a brave thing to come to a land where there's opportunity, and so there's so many beautiful moments, and I'll say one more. This is a long answer to your question about community and the challenges, but here's a perspective that I found so beautiful. It was year one. We were doing something just like this. It wasn't a podcast, it was donor video. And so we invited several families to come and why kings and all of this. And I picked up a Burmese mom with her daughter, who was just in her shiny new dress, and she was so excited, but very nervous. Miss Diane, I'm very nervous about my English. And I said, Your English is really good. And she kept saying it. And I said, you know, your English is so good, you have nothing to worry about. And I said, Tell me, how many languages do you speak? And she said, four. Four. Okay, I only speak two. So we arrive, she gets her mic on and the lights, and she's very nervous again. And so I just said to the videographer, Eric, how many languages do you speak? And he said, two and not very well, no one and not very well. That was no one and not very well. And it dawned on me that that was exactly a picture of what we're trying to do at King's diversity, humility and unity. And I don't want her to feel apologetic for what she knows of her English and her emerging English, but to be celebrated for her four languages. How awesome is that? You know, that was my retort to him. It's like she speaks four languages, and we you know, so what a beautiful thing to have that opportunity to celebrate people and their gifts and what they contribute to the world, rather than the Apology of not being enough in the dominant culture,
Carli 19:35
When you talk about it, you come alive, like your face gets so Bright and you seem so excited. So were you always wanting to be an educator? Or did you always know that diversity, unity was your passion because of your childhood experience, or did it just kind of manifest through the Lord's hand
Diana Batarseh 19:54
In King it's gotta be that it manifested through the Lord's hands, because I saw this hilarious commercial once about what. What we all aspire when we're kids to be ballerinas and firemen and presidents and all those things, and then you grow up and you're in middle management, which you didn't even know that as an option, right? So I actually am a musician and a songwriter, and I've done a ton of music, and I thought that's what I want to do. I read a critical book somewhere in my career called Life keys, and I realized I had been describing myself primarily as an artist, but what that book helped me to see is that I'm a communicator, and what is it that I want to be? So it brought all my disparate activities and vocations into one circus tent, and I realized, okay, what is it that I want to communicate? And really, it's just the love of God, the hope of the gospel, that we are Christ's Beloved. And so the way I have primarily exercised that happens to be through teaching and education of both children and adults. And so I didn't see myself here, and I thought, Lord, this is interesting that this pathway brought me here, because my satchel is full of, you know, disparate experiences, and yet I There are moments I think, Oh, this is why you have me doing this here, because it is a unique work. I'm bicultural, also very comfortable. I mean, my parents being immigrant, but also they were of means, and they were able to educate their daughters, and they were able to make an impact in the world in huge ways. I could we could do another podcast about mom and dad, you know, and just how beautiful it was that they took their opportunities and changed the world with it. And so I am almost as surprised as anyone else. I found myself sort of to keep my music hobby going, teaching, you know, in a tutorial, and working in an after school program, and, you know, and and, and and all these things. So I had lots of years in the classroom. Lots of years I started Mustard Seed preschool ministry of Christ Community Church is still going strong. It's about to go into its 20th year, and so it's interesting I and, and I'm just delighted that I get to say that I get to do this. And thank you for observing the coming alive. Because if I were talking about the strength sprinkler system installation, I don't think I'd be less coming alive, or the paved black top that's happening, you know today,
Carli 22:23
When you are running a business that you have to think about because you are here running a business. It's an education business,
Multiple Speakers 22:30
That's your own business. That's right.
Spencer 22:31
Diana, I've got a big question to uncork on you that I think you are the perfect person to help answer this for me. So when our culture hears the word diversity, a meaningful portion recoil immediately, because in so much of our culture, just the word diversity has been weaponized in such a way that the phrase you used earlier humility as a pathway to Unity. Really sticks in my mind as such a different way to talk about diversity is beginning with a place of humility. But my question asks you, as someone that has now been in the educational space for a long time. What is kings doing differently as it relates to diversity versus what you see occurring in a lot of our institutions of higher learning, where diversity is in many ways a substitute for judgment, For shame, for the opposite of unity. Can you help unpack that? Because there's so many emotions that I feel, and a lot of people feel just hearing that word, and I know it's not supposed to be that way. Help me Absolutely.
Diana Batarseh 24:03
What a phenomenal question, and you're definitely conferring more more confidence than me than I have in myself. But I'll take a stab at my version of this. You know, the first thing I'll say is that we aren't trying necessarily to be counter cultural. We're trying to be a kingdom culture. What does that mean? Like, I don't think that Jesus is any political stripe. He's who he is. He created the world, and He created the world. I love the concept of his radical hospitality, where he created the spaces first and then filled it with what would be populated with the fish the ocean and the birds of the air and the animals and people. And so there is a way of living that was intended for us that we strayed from, from the first bite of the apple. Yeah, Adam and Eve ate at the wrong restaurant. That's what happened.
Multiple Speakers 24:58
And that's the second one. We're gonna take from you today.
Diana Batarseh 25:01
I have to credit Pastor David Cassidy for that one, but yes, I need a pen. Hello. Yes, continue. Well, and honestly, what happens when what you're actually trying to do is not sanitized and misunderstood cultural term, but actually live out what Christ said? So one of the things that guides me is I tend to avoid vernacular that has baggage, even though I led with it. It's in our core values, but also it's a straightforward word, and I don't use it from a political place. I use it from a biblical place, one that says that God intends to have every single tribe, tongue and nation, represented when we get to heaven. And it's like, you know, what is that with a question we should ask ourselves, are we looking forward to that? Like, is that something that appeals to you? The other question I'll ask is that I think there's an innate goodness people, even though we're fallen, we didn't lose absolute goodness. Think about the people that you see on the side of the road helping someone with a flat tire, or, you know, a distressed child on a playground. I mean, are we thinking about stripes and colors, or are we just moving out of goodness, trying to help? I love Mr. Rogers when he quotes his mom, who said, Whenever there's a crisis, look for the helpers, and they're there. Don't you want that? I mean, that's what we want. We don't want boxes and categories and fights and contentions in it. We're all kind of tired of it in today's day. So at the same time, I'm constrained to speak English. I've got to use terms that make sense when I speak diversity. This isn't about quotas. This isn't about a political alignment. This is about what God wants is to be glorified by every language. There are over 6000 languages in the world, every nation. At last count, my husband and I were trying to figure out the United Nations recognizes 196 nations, okay, but there's probably more than that. The last count I knew was 192 that's what I'm talking about. And it's not an invitation towards an alignment toward a political view. I am very sad to see what you are seeing in our culture. I agree, and so I tend to try to speak in a kingdom context. And it's, I mean, it's infinite. You know the parable of the great feast, the host wants invite all these folks who can't go. I mean, what a great RSVP. Can't come about our new field. Can't come. Have a new wife. Can't come have a new horse. I'm like, I've never said that on an RSVP.
Carli 27:49
Um, right, in rescue.
Diana Batarseh 27:51
Hello, exactly. And so. But what happens is that the invitation extends to just the outer ends of the earth, because he wants his table full. So I want kings to be a place where the table is full, and we've been intentional also about trying to equip our community with Okay, we have diversity of all kind. We have neuro divergence in our community. We have those who are physically other able. They're just not, you know. So we see all that, and shouldn't that be God's kingdom? Shouldn't that be the slice of what we see? And you described it Carly as a slice of heaven? That's what we're trying to do. And I find that it's beautiful, and there are occasional bumps in the road that comes with a territory. But what I'm most interested in isn't the absence of those things. I mean, that's ideal, but rather that I have a team of people who are faithful interpreters of life for our children, and I try to be the faithful interpreters of life for our families when there are question marks and we're just doing the best we can. And I would say that the retention that we're experiencing in families, is a vote of confidence that we might be doing it pretty okay, yeah.
Spencer 29:06
I think people, what are those stats? What are the retention?
Diana Batarseh 29:09
We're 92 94% somewhere in there. Yeah, we've one of the things that we're beginning to recognize is the area that where we live is just becoming really expensive. I mean, not the actual street we're on South Nashville, sort of isn't a little bit of a bubble, but we've had families having to move further out in order to afford housing, and so that just makes it that much more challenging to travel and come to kings and families do it the at the launch of every school year, right before we do something called a cookie drop and we divide up into teams of four.
Spencer 29:44
I'm liking how this is going cookie drop, all right, yes,
Diana Batarseh 29:46
And our team goes to every single family with a cellophane bag of cookies and a welcome to Kings. We're so excited for the year, and I tend to get the route with the furthest mile, not only but. Yeah, I've driven so far, and it gives me such an appreciation for my gosh, this family drives this far every morning to bring their child this afternoon and afternoon, unless
Multiple Speakers 30:11
You're like, sleeping over exactly, they don't leave them with you. No, no, that's not part of the gig.
Diana Batarseh 30:18
Why it's so humbling? Because it matters that much, and so we do, because it's such a niche vision. We have people that come from everywhere, which is great.
Spencer 30:27
Maybe just the last thing to explain about King's Academy, because I think it's really vital to understand it is the tuition model and the amount of your families that are paying versus non paying. Can you just talk about that in speaking about business models that make me scratch my head, this one is an aspect of that, so tell me how it works.
Diana Batarseh 30:49
I love to be intriguing to you. Spencer, yeah, so this is a model that we have seen before, and it's been successful even with all the challenges that it represents. But we wanted not only cultural diversity in our midst, but also socioeconomic diversity. And so in every classroom, 30% of our families are full paying families. 30% are sliding scale, and 40% are nearly full ride. Everybody pays something, so no one gets 100% scholarship. And that model has been, you know, it's not that I have 16 spots in a class. I if I'm talking to prospective family, I've got one of five spots or one of six spots. So if somebody applies, I might not be full in the class. But if I have all my full pay families already, kind of all my full pay students, then I can't accept anymore if I want to preserve that model. So it works pretty well, except that I've got siblings and, you know, and that can kind of mess it. But school wide, that's essentially where we are, and that that's an area of challenge as far as community, because just think about when we grew up and you come home or not home, but go to school after summer break. So where did you go on your summer vacation? It's a presumption, right? There are some kids that have never gone anywhere. So our teachers have been, you know, many of them sensitive, or they're trained to ask different questions, you know, what was your favorite day this summer? Or, you know, things like that, so that you are not dividing the haves and haves nots and the uniform policy also is something that helps us, because you can't necessarily tell by looking at someone who's on scholarship and who isn't. The teachers don't know who those students are. It's a very small group of folks, really. The teachers don't know. They don't know, no and I mean, I think it becomes apparent when there's expressions of food insecurity or housing insecurity, so I think they figure it out, but we don't furnish that information up front.
Carli 33:03
Sure sounds like you need, almost like a unicorn type of teacher that would be willing to be sensitive and also be open to you. Said, 17 languages,
Diana Batarseh 33:13
17 dialects
Carli 33:14
17 dialects in your school. Can you tell me how it was? And then we hear about there's a teaching shortage, right? Not enough retention of teachers, and there's not enough teachers to go around. So how are you following that?
Diana Batarseh 33:26
You know, thank you for this question, because it allows me to boast about my staff. I couldn't do what I do without them. They are absolute champions. And that was my prayer. My prayer was that God would send champions. And I think I have a sniffer, a good Sniffer, not bill proof, but I really look for heart, obviously experience. And while it's not required, the vast majority of my teachers hold master's degrees. We also try to be competitive in pay and benefits. And I love that. You want excellence, get the best candidates, but you've, you've got to be able to to pay, right? So all of that, throw that into your head scratching model, right? We, you know, that's a thing. So to my unicorn teachers, one of the things that I discovered is that some of my teachers, coming from other settings, described transactional relationship with administration, and especially during COVID, when teaching went remote, and, you know, it just was so hard. And so I think that that is a huge difference at our school. We are very community minded, very relational. Um, especially the vast majority of my teachers are women. There are a few men on our staff, and many of them moms, and it's a tough thing to be a professional and a parent, and I really want them to feel good about both. I feel like God doesn't give us a gift and then cancels it out with another gift. I feel like there's just seasons and given. Take and I'm it's probably selfish, because I'm a mom. I mean, most of my kids are gone, and some of mine return home for a minute and then back out. And so in the years when they were home, it was important to me. So that is something else I really want to honor their multiple callings, as as wives, as moms, as professionals. I look for places in their lives that seem to intersect with our core values. That's important. Some of it is aspirational for some of them, like they've never been in a context, but I can just tell they've got a heart the size of Texas, and they love kids, and so let's just do this hard work together and others who have been in those environments and have the experiences and know the pain points. So it's been, it's been amazing. In this teacher shortage, I can't hire everybody who applies. I have too many applicants. What is that? I'm amazed by that, and it's word of mouth, I am so grateful. People want to be at Kings. People want to work at Kings. Now I have started to say, you realize we're only in year three. Let me tell you what that means. You know, year one was far more dramatic. We're getting a little bit better. Our copiers didn't come on time, and for three weeks we had a run to FedEx Kinkos for a school. Can you imagine that? And so the day that we got our actual laptops last year, at the beginning of year three, you would have thought it was Christmas. I mean, you just need a laptop for the job, don't you? But my laptop budget became my cabling budget because we had to do Wi Fi in the building. And so the teachers year one and two got student Chromebooks. Oh, I'm embarrassed, but that's all I had, right? And so when they got their their max last year, generous, generous donor did a matching grant, and everybody got new computers, it was like, How beautiful though, everybody was so grateful, because everybody gets it that we're starting from absolute scratch. I'm saying, like, the first paper clip, the first thing that Palmer and I did was went to the bank to open a bank account.
Carli 37:11
I imagine that makes a pretty scrappy workforce. Like, you're getting the bang for your buck out of every
Diana Batarseh 37:17
You're right. You're right, absolutely Carly. And so at the same time, the field itself is one that lends itself to burnout. I've just sat through so many teachings and presentations and read about the retention is so difficult because it is grueling, and if it's unrecognized, I mean, that's just so hard. So, you know, we did a really wonderful professional development piece led by our Chaplain on self care. It was so good. And just kind of a sort of looking at the pie chart of your life and the physical, spiritual, emotional, you know, intellectual, all the things, where are you like? What are you feeding? Where are you lacking? And, yeah, yeah, all of us were sort of like because I think balance is hard for all of us in this culture with all the things that we're trying to do. So that is a concern. And you know, we do get tired, and so we try to recognize that. And did you hear about the teacher who got fired because she used sick days to go to some concert. Do you remember this article that appeared, and there was this huge backlash from social media about this teacher? I can't remember what state I think somewhere. I don't think it was Tennessee. It might have been the South, but it was amazing, because everybody was like, she worked so hard. Let her use her sick days for you know, and so I don't want people to abuse the things that we, you know, provide. But I don't care if you need to go visit your mom and go have, you know, homemade pie or whatever, like, go do that. Like, we just need to care for ourselves. We need to you're giving yourself away day after day, and so looking actively for ways to underwhelming my staff, because it's a lot.
Carli 39:01
If you can see your job, if that's your job, to shepherd all these professionals and these families. I mean, who's shepherding you?
Diana Batarseh 39:11
Oh my gosh, do we cut at this point? Really, really good question that gives me pause. Well, I'll tell you this, I could not do what I do without my husband, Peter. That might bring me to tears. He's such a champion for me. So our daily process, you know, we I recently went away with a dear friend for several days, and I went in service to her grief. It was doing a grief intensive and but the conversations and a like minded friend who is just supportive and who hears those things, I also feel like art the team at. Self, I read a book called leading with a limp, and so I tell on myself, and there's a whole lot of things that I don't have, but it's not that I commend myself to the job because of my resume. I feel called to what I'm doing, and that's a very mystical way of putting it. It's one of those things you almost have to experience. I think, rather than someone to spell out, how do you know you're called? I just have a sense that this is where God wants me. And so I don't feel bad for not having all the things, I mean, tad bit of imposter syndrome, yes, but for the most part, I feel like, okay, let me build a team. I know what I don't have. Let me round out the team with people who have gifts that I don't have. So that doesn't really answer your question, because I don't have an answer. So that's my homework. It's really good. But I'll also tell you that my team also cares for me. It's kind of a mutual thing, so I feel cared for and seen by my team. And they know when things get hard, and I don't, I mean, I don't want to freak them out, because, believe me, there are moments I'm like, Oh my gosh. You know, when is that check coming? You know, there are moments like that. Everybody experiences that. I try not to stress unnecessarily. But I think in the big picture, the things I carry I feel seen by my colleagues, by my executive team, by those that I've hired. And, you know, it's more I look at it like, Yeah, I'm the Head of School. That's the seat I occupy. But I can't do what I do if you don't do what you do. So I do want to provide care, and I also know that I need care. I did sign up for something fun this fall, and it's actually one of our teachers who's doing who's doing this. It's a creative Lectio. So it's like an exercise where you do art and meditate, not meditation, but it's like prayerful consideration of the art that you're working on, and it just sounds wonderful. And that rings my bell, which is a little bit about what my artifact is actually cool. Look at my segue there.
Carli 42:10
Do you need a job?
Diana Batarseh 42:14
Well, I was thinking about when I was invited to bring an artifact, what would it be? And I actually threw one in the bag, and right at the end it's in my bag. Still, it's a little picture of my parents when they were a young couple and pregnant with me in Chicago, because it's just like the word I'd put over is just promise. You know, there's so much promise in their life, and you know, all the sacrifices they made to make a new life for our family. And you know, I get to do my life, and my kids are out there eating the world now and but then I saw this as I left, and it is something I bought the bird, and I hand lettered the poem by Emily Dickinson. Hope is a Thing With Feathers. And I don't know if you know that poem, but I just love it so much. And can I pick it up? Yes, sure, sure.
Spencer 42:59
For those that are just listening, maybe give a verbal description of what is here.
Diana Batarseh 43:04
It's a little ceramic swallow and lettered with oil based ink. Is the our three stanzas of the poem, hope. Hope is a Thing With Feathers that purchase in the soul. And I don't have it totally memorized, but it's so beautiful. And I think one of my teachers had her class is one of my favorites. She had her class memorize that poem. And I just to me this typified beauty and rigor, which is a descriptor of what we want kings Academy to be. I think sometimes people think beauty is a luxury, but I think it's God given, and that it nourishes us, and there's a real ministry in it. And I think that when kids see your intention to provide a beautiful context, they notice, whether they notice cognitively or subconsciously, they know. I mean, you've been to a place where it's plastic tablecloths and paper plates and plastic forks and, you know, sometimes there's nothing better and sometimes there's nothing better than when you guys have a bowl of cereal for dinner and just catch up on a busy week, right? It's not the filet mignon necessarily, right? But I think those things matter, and then the rigor, it's like, the content, those things, to me, are transcendent. They are a picture of God Himself, the beauty of the words, the beauty of the art, the meaning behind it. I've listened to a professor analyze this poem, and you know, there's so much to savor, and so it's an example of the kinds of things that this class will do that I'm involved in. So that's a little bit of care for me that I'm looking forward to this fall. That's exciting.
Carli 44:49
You'll need it when school starts.
Diana Batarseh 44:50
I definitely will. No doubt.
Spencer 44:54
We have a segment that we love to do that's called no dumb questions, and we basically subject our guests to. To hear our questions, and because you're already here, you don't really embarrass us by saying, well, that's a dumb question, because you kind of have to answer it anyway because you're here, and that would get really awkward. So I've got a couple of dumb questions for you, as Carly and I were just reading your bio and hearing you go through the explanation of what kings Academy is that kind of seven or eight word description. I was looking at Carly. I was like, I don't know what like five of those seven words mean, I understand the English words coming out of your mouth, but I'm not sure what it means in an academic format. So at the risk of asking you to give me that sequence one more time that you gave us at the beginning, and maybe just give a quick teacher based definition of if you had to describe it in a sentence, what does that mean? It would really benefit from.
Diana Batarseh 45:52
That's awesome. Well, I love it, you remind me, and I've got to look it up. But I saw this little cartoon, and it was piglets who were students, and the pig teacher with the, you know, kind of graduation cap, and the caption just said, well, there is no such thing as a dumb question, but if there were one, that certainly would have been it. So we need to find that yeah, that was absolutely not a dumb Yeah, not a dumb question. So at the beginning, I described the distinctives of our School of being Christ centered. What do I mean by that? That's a that's a whole nother podcast, but I think it's a teaching with an end in mind, right? That everything is from Him, everything is through him. Everything is to him. That's Romans, 1136, that we recognize that he holds the universe together by the Word of His power, that we recognize that he is both our journey and our destination, and that when we study absolutely anything, whether it's primary colors and art or whether it's ukulele and music, or whether it's the Ottoman Empire in third grade, that all of it points to something about Christ. None of that escapes is noticed notice, and it's, you know, I think it's just a saturation of seeing the world through a lens that recognizes that he is everything.
Spencer 47:24
So that's a good answer I did not have on my bingo card a link between the Ottoman Empire and ukulele. That was not happening,
Diana Batarseh 47:34
Tying that together. But big and small points to Christ.
Spencer 47:38
Okay, so Christ centered, got that.
Diana Batarseh 47:41
Okay, culturally and socioeconomically diverse. So what we want to see represented in our community is people that represent different nations, different languages, different traditions. We aren't aligned with the denomination. So even though we're in a Baptist church, we're not Baptist. We have everything from Anglican Orthodox, Pentecostal, Methodist, Lutheran, you know, non denominational, you name it. So we have a wide array. We have one family that's not a Christian family this year coming as a Buddhist family. And I did kick the tires. I'm like, did you come to chapel? And they did. They're like, little, religion doesn't hurt anyone. I'm like, okay, the doors are open. You are welcome to be here. So it's diversity of all kinds. We have a number of neurodivergent students, and what I mean by that is students who may have some intellectual challenge, whether it's being on the spectrum, autistic, some of our students, you can't necessarily see it, but they may have severe dyslexia, or they may have mild ADHD or severe ADHD. We've had a good number of kids with anxiety. I'm sad to say that in our community, we've had a number of kids who've actually lost a parent. And so that's not necessarily a neuro divergence at all, but the needs are there. These are the you know, not everybody comes from a family with two parents and 2.2 kids and a pet, you know. So the constellation Family Constellation is different. So the socio economic diversity, I think that kind of speaks for itself.
Carli 49:27
Families that are that might have been one word he knew.
Diana Batarseh 49:31
We got classically inspired. Okay, so classical education is an ancient methodology of education developed by the Greeks, and when St Augustine got a hold of it, he took the Greek kind of pattern for education and ran it through the grid of Scripture. So I could go into what that Greek methodology is, but we are more aligned with how St Augustine kind of had us sort of look at that. And. There are three stages of learning. This happened after Augustine, but he did tie the grammar stage, logic and rhetoric stages, to the verse in Proverbs that says, by knowledge, understanding and wisdom, a house is built so roughly a kid from their earliest ages through about fourth grade, they're in the grammar stage, which is why, in our country, we didn't call them elementary school or primary schools. We called them grammar schools. That was a vestige of classical ed i have heard that to the entrance exam for Harvard and Yale and some of our Ivy League schools were just memorizations of large parts of the canon of the, you know, classical canon, of the greatest literature of the Iliad, or, you know, Homer. And it's like, yeah, we don't do that anymore. But back to that Trivium. We humanities is sort of the main thread that is emphasized in classical education, and it's all of world history divided into four equal time periods. So the kids at Kings will study from antiquity to modernity, from first to fourth grade, pre K and K are in creation, land, water and sky and what fills it for my pre K kids, then for the kindergarteners, the seven chronological days of creation, which is beautiful because it's also very science rich. And then my fifth through eighth graders, they repeat the same pattern of history from antiquity to modernity, but this time from the logic stage. So where the grammar stage is the what of every discipline. It's the ABCs of every discipline, the history dates, the you know, numbers and multiplication tables, the logic stage of learning. You go deeper. It's asking why behind whatever theater of war there may have been, or whatever you're studying, and then in the ninth through the 12th grade, you're in the rhetoric stage of learning, which is the wisdom stage. And in Hebrew, wisdom literally means skillful fingers. So how do you apply all that you've learned? So we try to approach everything from that kind of lens. When I teach chapel, it's not just singing songs. I'm actually teaching from the short the derivation of the Westminster shorter catechism. And we don't get through all 150 questions in a year. There's no time, but we get through the first 50 question and answers of the faith, and it's remarkable. And the kids learn that, memorize it, and they can do the sign language to it too, International Sign Language. So it's pretty remarkable. So that is classical education in a nutshell. And really the end is that that we are building virtues in our students to love those things that are good, true and beautiful. And so we give them a feast. And when you give a kid a feast, they'll eat it, and that's been beautiful.
Spencer 53:02
I got so much more than I bargained for out of that question. That was amazing.
Diana Batarseh 53:08
Well, thank you.
Carli 53:09
You should teach people about that. Yeah, maybe you should do that for your job.
Carli 53:15
That's hilarious.
Spencer 53:16
Your vocabulary, too is just incredible. From antiquity to modernity. I got Trivium like this is amazing vocabulary. I just got so much there.
Carli 53:27
So if you will, you got a feast? Yes, well, I want to really ask, we ask everyone to bring a book that, yes, shaped them, and it's one of my favorite parts. Can you tell us about the book?
Diana Batarseh 53:39
Yes, well, so I have a lot of half written read books like my nightstand and then in my office, the only one of genius that we need.
Diana Batarseh 53:50
Let's go without Charlie. Yes, yeah. As US geniuses here, I'm about halfway through this listening, but that's because I'm re listening and realism. I probably would do better reading and highlighting. You know, I think I'm probably a little more kinesthetic than auditory. However, I'm fascinated by this book for a number of reasons. Dr Peter Attia is a he was a general surgeon. He actually this. I relate to this because my oldest daughter was just completed her first year of neurosurgical residency, and she's now switched to general surgery. So, but he left his general surgery for a lot of reasons, but comes full circle, without telling you the whole book, he comes back, and he's very fascinated with the models of healthcare and medicine. So with my parents having been in healthcare, and my daughter in healthcare, and also, I think we often live very disembodied in our culture, we are rational thinkers, or rational and maybe spiritual, but gosh, we've got to go to sleep, you know? We've got to eat, we've got to take care of ourselves. Do you feel logy if you haven't moved your body like I know, if I sit in a chair too long, what happens when I stand up? It's like an event. So my body matters and it means something. And so I'm fascinated by the models that we've experienced. We live in a model where you have presenting symptoms, and were looking for how to resolve those symptoms rather than getting to the cure. He talks about Dr Attia, talks about this recurring dream he kept having. I want to say it was like eggs that kept being thrown, and he was trying to catch each one. Some he'd catch some, they would fall. And he just didn't understand what this meant. But he realized that in his vocation, he was catching some patients and some were dropping. But then he wanted to know what was who was throwing the eggs in the first place? What was it that was propelling us? And so we've got a lot of compromises in our world, as you've probably heard about our you know, depleted soil and and water sources and all those things. So it fascinates me, because, you know, I want to eat healthy, I want to eat organic. I want to, you know, and as much as I can. And so I've just been curious about this. And he's just, he's clearly hit an Earth because he's on the New York Times bestseller list, and he's got a huge following now on social media, and I just read an article about him. I think it was in the Atlantic Monthly, and so it's a book I definitely commend, and the name, the title of it is outlive, the science and art of longevity. And it's excellent. And I'll tell you one big thing. If you get nothing else, he's like, we definitely need to exercise.
Carli 56:46
Not like a new life hack.
Diana Batarseh 56:48
There's not a new life hack, although he did say, if you got a smoker and you've got someone who doesn't exercise, there, the person who doesn't exercise is a greater risk of all cause mortality than the person who's a smoker really, hello, kind of framed it a little differently for me. So, yeah. So anyway, that's kind of my little side. I gotta go read that I know do audible. It's a lot easier to consume.
Spencer 57:13
Yeah, Diana, it's been such a treat to have you here today learning about what you're up to with such a kingdom purpose and a mission purpose in a field that carries so much potential baggage with it, there's a lot of deeply held and passionate beliefs around all things education and the way that you all are breaking a lot of paradigms, some of which, as a business owner, make me scratch my head, and I think that's a great thing. That's just like the upside down logic that the Lord has put into the script of how we run life, that if you're scratching your head saying, why does it work? Yet it's working so well, oftentimes Jesus is somewhere close by. That's right, I really learned that in my life. So to see you head up King's Academy, and what you've done in three years to grow the enrollment from zero to over 200 kids is incredible. So congratulations.
Diana Batarseh 58:19
Thank you so much. No, if I can make another comment that kind of goes back to some of our conversation. There was a question on a grant that asked, How will kings Academy teach about culture? I thought, what a fantastic question. And so I set out to answer this. And it was a long essay, but it became the kind of template for a vision paper that I now present called a primer on cultural conversations. And essentially, if you want to answer that question, you look at the three prevailing views of culture in Christendom today, and these are a fortification mentality that basically says we need to hide from the evils of the world, the bunker mentality. So we often get a sanitized version of secular offerings, and you get, you know, a Christian version of the Harry Potter series type thing. And then there's this domination mentality, or the, you know, triumphalist mentality, that's like, we have to stop the evils of the world. We've got to overcome it, and we go and we're at war with with the world and so and we've see a lot of evidence of that. And the third would be an assimilation mentality. That's like, we've got to be relevant. We need to lower the obstacles. We need to just love everyone, right? And all three have merit. You do want to protect your kids from the evils of the world, and you do want to push back against injustices. And you do you want to use language that's understandable in everyday living, right? But kings is not prescribing or is not described by. Any one of those three. So then what do we say? So I love the question, what is our salvation for? Is for the life of the world. In Jeremiah, he represents the Lord, and he says, Israel is about to go out into exile, but tell them to go plant gardens and build building and take sons and daughters. And he says, because in finding the welfare of the city you're in, you'll find your own welfare. He's tied our good to the world, so he doesn't want us to hide from it, and he doesn't want us to hate it, and he doesn't want us to beat it. So what does that mean? He wants our kids to find what they are called to do what's their thing, and there are ways that we're actually helping them find out what is their thing, and then to go contribute and care for the world in the broken places. What a different model that is. You know, we don't see that in a lot of places, but that's what we're trying to do. We're not trying to be scared of the world. We're not trying to hate the world, and we're not trying to be the world. We're trying to equip ourselves with the things that we're impassioned by, and then go give and contribute in little and big ways.
Spencer 1:01:07
What a perfect synopsis of the mission. Thank you for that, Dana, it was really, really good that hits home.
