RELIGION / JOHN DART : Village Christian Schools, Though Little-Known, Are Among Largest

With nearly 1,900 elementary and high school students on its pastoral campus, it has one of the largest enrollments of any Christian school in the country outside the Roman Catholic educational system.

Yet Village Christian Schools in Sun Valley are relatively unknown, even in religious circles. The 30-acre campus lacks connections to a denomination or a large church. Nor is it visible from any thoroughfare.

“We had a telephone installer come to campus once and he kept shaking his head in amazement because he said he had been all over the San Fernando Valley and never knew this was here,” said David L. Wilson, director of development. “We do very little advertising.”

The school got its name from Village Church in Burbank, which launched the school on Victory Boulevard in 1949. Ten years later, the school moved to land in La Tuna Canyon nestled against foothills of the Verdugo Mountains.

Today, with registration at 1,882 students, Village Christian is third in enrollment behind the 2,100-student Pensacola Christian School in Florida and the 1,950-student Dayton Christian Schools in Ohio.

By comparison, Catholic schools in the Los Angeles Archdiocese average 646 students at high schools and 308 at elementary schools. One of the largest high schools is Bishop Amat in La Puente, with 1,700 students.

Steady growth has been the reward for high standards, an ambitious busing program that once used teachers as drivers and, ultimately, a campus removed from the increasingly urbanized Valley floor.

“We fitted the needs of parents interested in the education of their children and in an atmosphere of good Bible teaching,” said Elementary School Principal Victor E. Frendt, who will be honored at a retirement party Friday night for his 38 years at the Valley school.

“The setting is a factor--away from busy streets and where parents don’t worry about drive-by shootings,” he added.

Although Village Christian subscribes to a policy of non-discrimination regarding racial and ethnic enrollment, it has a higher percentage of white students than public schools in the area. Supt. Ronald G. Sipus said that Village Christian has about 27% Latino students, 9% Asian American and less than .5% African American.

“We’ve never had high interest from the black community,” Wilson said. “It’s probably more for financial reasons than anything else. We have a larger Latino enrollment because Sun Valley has a high Hispanic population.”

Village Christian offers no scholarships or subsidies for minority students, Wilson said. Tuition ranges between $3,000 and $3,630 a year, which Sipus said is about the median for non-Catholic Christian schools in the region.

A campaign for an endowment fund to provide tuition aid to minorities and large, moderate-income families will be launched Friday at Frendt’s retirement party. The fund will bear Frendt’s name, Wilson said.

Now 65, Frendt started working for Village Christian Schools part-time in 1956 while completing ministerial studies at Talbot Theological Seminary in La Mirada. He had intended to go into missionary work but was convinced that he was needed more as a teacher.

At that time, classes were held at Village Church and another Burbank location. That congregation grew to about 1,000 members until 1969 to 1970, when a series of internal disputes began to decimate the church, said the Rev. Wade Mikels, the current pastor. He said average Sunday attendance has risen from 150 to 300 people in the last two years.

Village Christian Schools incorporated as a separate institution during the 1970s. “The only connection today is that all school board members must be members of the church,” Wilson said.

Wilson, who began his association with Village Christian a few years after Frendt, said the two of them are the “dinosaurs” at the campus. Both learned to run heavy machinery to help build the fledgling campus.

In 1958, Frendt supplemented his teaching salary by driving a school bus morning and night and his wife started teaching in public schools. It was nearly 20 years before his bus-driving stint ended.

“When I was in seminary I had expected to go into missionary work, so the idea of sacrifice went with my training,” Frendt said.

The schools still operate 10 bus routes in the East Valley, Glendale and the Sunland-Tujunga area. The longest run is to Santa Clarita and Canyon Country.

Students applying to the secondary school grades are asked to provide a recommendation from their pastor.

While grades and citizenship count, a notice on admissions policy states: “It is desired that the student be one who has accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior, and one who is active, and whose parents are active in an evangelical church whose teaching is in agreement with Village Christian Schools’ statement of faith. The student, if not a professing Christian, must be in agreement with the spiritual emphasis of VCS.”

School officials Wilson and Sipus emphasized that applicants are considered case by case and that they consider their religious approach to be mainstream evangelical, not fundamentalist in a legalistic sense.

There is a rather detailed dress code, however. No extremes in hair style are allowed. High school boys may have well-groomed mustaches, but their hair should not hang over their collar or their ears. No earrings are tolerated on males. Girls’ skirts and dresses measuring more than three inches above the top of the knee while the girl is standing are banned.

During the warmer months of May, June, September and October, modest shorts are permitted. But banned are tank tops and T-shirts portraying the rock culture or controversial themes.

In standards of faith and conduct, Sipus said, “we believe there are rules that people should follow . . . that there are black-and-white issues. Not everything is gray.” At the same time, Sipus said, “nobody is perfect. We are trying to become more Christ-like.”

Wilson said that some parents think of a private school as a place that will “straighten out” a child. “Sometimes we can be very helpful in that area, but that’s not really our prime purpose,” he said.

Village Christian, which is located at Penrose Street and Village Avenue, signed an agreement in 1992 with the neighborhood to stay within its present acreage for 10 years. School officials also let neighbors use the horse trails on 77 acres it owns to the east of the campus.

After the moratorium ends, the schools’ facilities may be expanded to include tennis courts, a swimming pool and baseball fields, Wilson said.

Its enrollment will not grow much more--the city has imposed a cap of 1,950 students, Wilson said.

“The economy caused us to dip below 1,900 students a year ago, but we expect to be above that mark again next fall,” he said.

For once, Village Christian had to “be a little more aggressive” with advertisements and recruiting follow-ups, he said.