EAGLE RIDGE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL GOING UP

It doesn't look like a school yet -- it could pass for a warehouse under construction -- but it's certainly bigger than the building the Eagle Ridge Christian School occupies today.

Janice Margrabe, the Eagle Ridge school principal and third- and fourth-grade teacher, hopes to move children into the building by the beginning of the next semester. The school's current rented quarters are awfully crowded.

Founded in Scott City in 1982 as the Christian Faith Academy, the school has grown from fewer than 30 students when it moved to Cape Girardeau in 1994 to nearly 100 students last school year. Their ages range from 4 to 18.

Last year, the school was spread out among two buildings, with the high school at 2109 Boulder Crest and the elementary schools next to the Christian Faith Fellowship Church at 207 Pind Wood Lane. Both buildings were rented. This year, the once-growing schools enrollment is actually less than 90 because, Margrave said, it lost its lease at the high school and there's no room.

The new school site is at 4210 Route K, a mile west of Interstate 55.

Dozens of people toured the site Sunday as part of the school's fund-raising drive. All they saw was a steel frame, a concrete floor, some rolls of insulation covered with plastic and some artist's renderings of what the school will look like.

The projected cost is $1.3 million, with nearly $500,000 raised in cash or pledges, said Christian Faith Fellowship pastor Mark Carbaugh.

Although the school and church are legally separate, the church regards the school as a mission of the church, Carbaugh said.

The idea is to provide an education grounded in Christianity, Margrabe said. No students are admitted unless they or at least one of their parents "has made a profession of their Christian faith because we want them to be under the same terms," she said. "In the process of admitting, we get a pastoral reference."When teachers discipline students, they ask them what the Bible says about their behavior and try to get the children to ask forgiveness, Margrave said.

The school holds daily Bible lessons. Students must maintain a C average even with grading standards more rigorous than public school, she said.

Margrave hopes the school's appeal holds and that it expands once the space is provided. The new school site could hold 200 students.