The Realities and Ministry Philosophy of Full Cost Tuition

By Dan Krause , President
GraceWorks Ministries
As posted on The Christian School Journal
January 31, 2009

Try this experiment. Ask an ardent supporter of public education what’s wrong – from a philosophical, societal good point-of-view – with private Christian schools. Chances are, a top reason you’ll hear is that Christian schools “cherry pick” the wealthiest and highest functioning families in the community, leaving public schools to pick up the pieces with lower income (and therefore lower functioning) students. Of course students in private schools do better, they’ll say; these same higher functioning students would do well - if not better - in public schools. Ipso facto, it’s not what private schools do that makes them successful, it’s the students private schools attract. Public schools, by societal decree, have to service everyone, and therefore cannot achieve the same stellar results as private schools.

Let’s evaluate this argument two ways:
(1) as a statement of reality, and
(2) as a statement of philosophy.

Click here to read the rest of the post! Complete with charts and graphs!

Leading Your School In Uncertain Economic Times: Practical Suggestions

Dr. Barrett Mosbacker
Superintendent, Briarwood Christian School (Alabama)
Full article posted on The Christian School Journal

Many experts predict that we are headed for a recession. A recession in and of itself is not particularly worrisome. Like breathing, expansions and retractions in the economy are normal and keep the economy healthy and vibrant over the long-term.

Whether the predictions of gloom and doom come true or not, it seems clear that we are in an extended economic slowdown, which may affect many of our schools. As school leaders, it is our responsibility to assess the situation and then to provide prayerful, faithful, and steady leadership.

So how do we prepare our schools for economic turndown, or even a possible prolonged recession? The role of the leader is not to react but to respond prayerfully and strategically. If the economy spirals into a long recession it will affect our families and in turn, our schools.

I offer the following series of possible contingent responses for your prayerful consideration if, as seems inevitable, there is a sharp economic downturn. Obviously, every school and local market is different, but perhaps one of these suggestions will be helpful.

• Pray faithfully for your families and for your school ministry.
• Look at possible ways to prepare your students for an economic downturn.
• As much as possible, move toward zero-based budgeting or at least look at your budget from that perspective.
• Smaller schools need to assess the number of students per class to ensure that each class is at break-even on a contiguous basis
• Increase financial aid.
• Stay on top of your accounts receivables.
• Think of ways to expand your market.
• Work on your retention rates!
• Consider merging with other Christian schools.
• If you are a Covenantal school (a school that only enrolls children born to at least one confessing parent (1 Cor. 7:14), consider enrolling the children of non-believers.
  
  

Click here to read the full post, including detailed information on each of the above suggestions.

Spread Too Thin: The Peanut Butter Syndrome in Christian Schools!

Are You Spread Too Thin?
How to THRIVE and not merely SURVIVE as a Christian school!
Originally posted by Dr. Barrett L. Mosbacker
The Christian School Journal

I recently read an interesting article by the CEO of Yahoo! titled The Peanut Butter Manifesto. For the purposes of this blog article I want to focus on the following statement from the memo because it is instructive for us as school leaders.

"We [Yahoo!] lack a focused, cohesive vision for our company. We want to do everything and be everything -- to everyone. We've known this for years, talk about it incessantly, but do nothing to fundamentally address it. We are scared to be left out. We are reactive instead of charting an unwavering course. We are separated into silos that far too frequently don't talk to each other. And when we do talk, it isn't to collaborate on a clearly focused strategy, but rather to argue and fight about ownership, strategies and tactics ...

I've heard our strategy described as spreading peanut butter across the myriad opportunities that continue to evolve in the online world. The result: a thin layer of investment spread across everything we do and thus we focus on nothing in particular."

The Christian school movement is not particularly healthy. Based on recent statistics that I have seen, the number of Christian school and overall enrollments are stagnant or declining.
Although there are external forces beyond our control that affect our schools, many of our problems are self-inflicted.

One of our self-inflicted wounds is similar to that articulated by the CEO of Yahoo!--we are often not strategic in the allocation of our tangible and intangible resources and as a consequence we are not offering a substantial marginal value to our current and potential clients. I am referring to our parents a clients because notwithstanding our missions as Christian schools, our parents are essentially paying clients who make economic calculations in deciding whether to enroll or re-enroll their children in our schools.

If our schools are to survive, much less thrive, we must stop "spreading the peanut butter too thin." We need to think far more strategically. Where should we place our resources? What is the basis for our decision? What programs should we eliminate? What programs should we add? The the marginal value of our schools been stagnant or declining?

These are important questions that we must answer with ruthless honesty.

Click here to read the rest of the post on The Christian School Journal.