I agree 100% about the secrecy issue. We're also going to do some educational outreach to the whole congregation, not just the parents of OWL students, to make sure that everyone has the basic facts about what we're doing and why we think it's a valuable part of religious education.
Do you have any sense about how many kids are likely to do the course? Will there be kids from outside your congregation, whose parents hear about it and want their kids to be part of it?
This is a topic of discussion right now. There are ten kids who have been in the RE program in the past few years who would be the right age for OWL, but we're only sure about 6 of them - the others haven't been attending recently. Of those six, only two are girls. (And only 3 of the whole potential 10 are girls.)
We would really like to have even one more girl in the class. With just two, if one doesn't show up then the other one will be the only girl - which could be very uncomfortable.
Our first step is going to be to ask the OWL students' families whether they know anyone who might like to enroll their child. That way parents can pre-screen for their friends' likeliness to accept the OWL program. As a second step, we'll reach out to the DREs of the suburban UU congregations (although they probably all offer OWL at their own churches) and the local UCC congregations. We won't, for example, just advertise to the larger community.
no subject
Do you have any sense about how many kids are likely to do the course? Will there be kids from outside your congregation, whose parents hear about it and want their kids to be part of it?
This is a topic of discussion right now. There are ten kids who have been in the RE program in the past few years who would be the right age for OWL, but we're only sure about 6 of them - the others haven't been attending recently. Of those six, only two are girls. (And only 3 of the whole potential 10 are girls.)
We would really like to have even one more girl in the class. With just two, if one doesn't show up then the other one will be the only girl - which could be very uncomfortable.
Our first step is going to be to ask the OWL students' families whether they know anyone who might like to enroll their child. That way parents can pre-screen for their friends' likeliness to accept the OWL program. As a second step, we'll reach out to the DREs of the suburban UU congregations (although they probably all offer OWL at their own churches) and the local UCC congregations. We won't, for example, just advertise to the larger community.