This committee is responsible for religious instruction of the meeting’s children and youth, and for creating a safe, welcoming, accepting environment for all young people. At Chatham-Summit Friends Meeting, a structured, yet flexible First Day School program is available for children from birth through 12th grade. This program, which runs from September through June of each year, is devised by the Religious Education Committee, with input and support from the meeting as a whole where required. Curriculum material may be drawn from an existing age-appropriate Quaker curriculum or other outside materials, or developed by individual members or the committee as a whole. Whatever materials are used, it is important that they be agreed upon by the committee and the individual teacher(s) for the classes.

The committee is also responsible for ensuring that teachers are available for ALL classes each week, and should maintain a supply of classroom materials stored in a neat, easily accessible location.

Curriculum for the year, as well as class structure and divisions, are often best determined at a summer planning session, held prior to the start of the school year. Monthly meetings of the committee are helpful and advised, in order to adjust the program as necessary, and stay on top of issues that may present themselves during the year.

The committee also oversees special activities held for the meeting at large that relate to the youth of the meeting, such as the yearly end of First Day school picnic, usually held in June. Religious Education works with other committees such as Ministry and Counsel and Social and Hospitality to oversee any holiday functions the meeting chooses to undertake, and is an integral participant in planning for events such as the meeting’s annual retreat at Powell House. Other special activities may include local, US or overseas service projects and fundraisers for emergency relief, and may be undertaken in connection with the Peace and Social Action committee, or separately from them, as we are led.

In addition, the committee makes sure that all students graduating from eighth grade are presented with a Bible, which is a gift from the Meeting.

The Religious Education Committee Chatham-Summit Monthly Meeting >From 1995 Revised 2010