For Families
The Family Covenant
Eight commitments, signed as a household and renewed each year. Private until eight families in a grade have signed — no family stands alone.
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As parents at [School], we believe our children are made in the image of God, and that how they treat one another is the truest measure of what we are teaching them. The Golden Rule is not our goal; it is our standard. We therefore commit:
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The standard. We hold the Golden Rule as the standard of conduct for our children and ourselves — not an aspiration, a standard.
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Humility. We accept that our child is capable of unkindness, exclusion, and cruelty, as all children are. If another parent approaches us about our child’s behavior, our first response will be to listen and thank them — not to deny, dismiss, or retaliate.
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Directness. If we have a concern about another covenant family’s child, we will bring it privately, charitably, and promptly to those parents — never to the bleachers, the group chat, or the rumor mill.
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Teaching the standard. We will actively teach our children to include the excluded, to refuse to be an audience for cruelty, and to speak up or get help when they see someone mistreated.
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Accountability at home. When our child harms another, we will require of them a genuine repair — apology, restitution, changed behavior — and we will follow through on consequences at home even when the school does not.
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Digital oversight. We will treat technology access as earned, not entitled: whatever devices our children use will be filtered, supervised, and age-appropriate; their messaging will be open to our review at any time, and they will know it; devices will stay out of bedrooms overnight; and we will never hand our child unfiltered, unsupervised access.
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Presence. We will show up — to homeroom and grade gatherings, to formation nights when we can, and for one another’s families in difficulty.
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Prayer. We will pray regularly for the children of this school by name and grade — including, especially, the ones who are hardest to love.
| Parent signature | ______________________________ |
| Parent signature | ______________________________ |
| Family name | ______________________________ |
| Children’s grade(s) | ______________________________ |
| Date | ______________________________ |
How signing works
Your signature is private until your grade activates. When eight families in the same grade have signed, all eight are notified and introduced to one another. Until then, no one knows you’ve signed. This is deliberate: no family should ever be the only one holding a line. Once a grade activates, new signers join the activated group immediately.
Signing is free, and always will be. There are no dues, no fees, and nothing to buy — see the Stewardship Commitment.
The covenant is renewed each school year. Renewal is a choice, made freshly, every fall. A covenant signed once and forgotten is a signed PDF; a covenant renewed annually is a practice.
The covenant binds only its signers. It judges no one, names no one, and asks nothing of any family that has not signed it. It is enforceable by nothing except conscience and community — which is the point.
A note on commitment 2
Commitment 2 is the heart of this document. Every failed conversation between parents begins the same way: “There’s no way my kid did that.” The covenant asks you to give up that sentence in advance — not because your child is bad, but because your child is a child. The parent who thanks you for coming to them directly, listens, and follows up has done something harder and better than the parent whose child never stumbled. When another parent approaches you, the Parent-to-Parent Protocol shows you both what to do next.