THE SCHOOL BEGINS
Two portable buildings were purchased in May 1976, from the Louisiana public school system, to be used until funds became available to build a permanent structure for the church and school. In August 1976, the Slidell Education Center started with fourteen pupils and Susan Hallett, the pastor’s wife, as the teacher. The second year they had thirty-two students and they hired Robert Willis as a second teacher. Since the school now needed two of the portable buildings, the Mandeville church gave permission for Slidell to use their building as a sanctuary (History, 2017). Plans were made for an education building to be built in connection with the new church which was being erected at that time (Van Gorder, 1978). The new church was dedicated March 21, 1997. Now that it was free of debt, attention was directed toward the construction of a new school building (Oster, 1997). In 1993 the school board implemented the uniform dress code for students and it proved very successful. In 1996, after being in existence for twenty years, the Slidell Education Center published its very first school yearbook (Kostenko, 1996).
The school continued operation for twenty-seven years until June 2003, when the church school was closed due to lack of students. The two portable buildings in which the school had been held were demolished in the fall of 2008 (History, 2017).
Citations
(2017, Mar. 25). Slidell Seventh-day Adventist Church History.
Kostenko, Pete A. (1996, Sep. 1). Southwestern Union Record, p. 15.
Oster, Jerry. (1997, Jun. 1). Ibid., p. 16.
Van Gorder, Frances. (1978, Nov. 16). Ibid., p. 16F.
How it all Began 