I recently interviewed Charity Pitton, principal/teacher at C.F. Richards Christian School in Staunton, VA, and asked her why a parent or guardian of a K-8 child in the Staunton/Waynesboro/Augusta County area should enroll their child/children at her private Christian school in Staunton, Virginia.
Charity responded, “I think the biggest advantage Adventist education has over other schools is that we focus on the whole child: physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional. Public schools have a very specific directive from the government as to what they are supposed to do. Not only do we have more freedom, but we actually have a mandate to address the whole child.”
“One of the things our school brings to the table right now is a wide variety of teaching experience,” she continued. Ms. Pitton has taught every grade from PreK to 12, and this year she will work with the upper grade levels at CFR, specifically grades 5-8.
“In working with a distance learning program, which I did for more than a decade, I had the opportunity to work with 20 to 30 different schools around the country, and I saw how a lot of different schools made Adventist education work in their various communities,” she explained.
This is valuable experience as Charity takes over the helm as principal at C.F. Richards.
Charity is excited to be working with Heidi Wagner, who has worked as a part-time administrator and teacher at CFR for five years. Before joining up with C.F. Richards, “Heidi was a substitute teacher in public schools for four years,” Charity said. “You could hand her a troop of marines, and she could tell them what to do!”
Heidi has a deep love for children and Christian education. “She is super organized,” said Charity, “And, when you are substituting three to five days a week in the public school system, you must be adaptable; able to read the room and know right away which students need extra attention.”
“Also, as a substitute, you can’t just try to be in there and use coercive control. You must have the skills to get them on your side and get them to work with you,” Charity explained.
Adventist schools use the NWEA standardized tests to measure a student’s progress. Normed over 11 million students, NWEA is not just used within Adventist education but is used by over 50,000 schools.
“When we get the results back, we can ask for a predictive analysis of what their expected outcomes would be on other tests,” Charity said. “So, while these standards are not the Virginia SOLs, they do give us predicted outcomes compared to SOL scores because they’ve done a lot of work to correlate their results with state standards.”
C.F. Richards has small class sizes with multiple grade levels in a classroom. This setup provides benefits. “The older students get to act as positive role models for the younger children,” Charity explained. “Book buddies and other school-wide activities help the younger students feel like they have a larger support structure in place, and they have lots of people cheering them on!”
Because the school has a small staff, Charity seeks as much help from the outside as she can get. “We cherish and appreciate our volunteers! If anyone is interested in volunteer training, I would love to talk with them because there are tasks like running copies in the office, or organizing an art group, or so many other opportunities that would help. Believe me, we will find a way to put their skills to work,” Charity chuckled.
The school also offers a growing preschool program with room for more kids. “Our preschool program (for three- and four-year-olds) is a fabulous program, and Miss Christina Sheffer does a lot of teaching through play and hands-on activities. There are short intervals of teacher-led instruction and a lot of time spent outside. We want to make sure that bodies are strong in addition to brains!” said Charity.
C.F. Richards is one of approximately 10,000 Seventh-day Adventist schools operating in over 100 countries worldwide and you don’t have to be an Adventist to attend. “We accept anyone without regard to religious background,” Charity explained. “The fact is, we have many Adventist students, but we also have had atheist students, Muslim students, Jewish students. While we are unabashedly Adventist, we are also accepting and respectful of other faith traditions or non-faith traditions if they would like to join our student body.”
“Loving God, Learning Together, and Serving Others” is the school motto. “Training kids to work with each other and support each other here at school is the starting point,” Charity says. “If we help kids develop a strong relationship with God in-house, then it makes sense they will be carrying that out with them outside the school setting.”
If you or someone you know has children in Staunton, Waynesboro, or Augusta County, Virginia, who could benefit from attending a small, Christ-focused school in Staunton, Virginia, please contact the school at 540-886-4984. The first day of school for the 2025-2026 academic year is Monday, August 18th, 2025.
This article was written by Mark Hackley, C.F. Richards Board Member