8 minute read
Stewardship
One of the most important things that we teach our students is that they are uniquely created by God–they are not chemical, biological accidents. And in their creation, their Creator crafted them with skills, talents, and intellect that he intends to use for His purposes. It is so crucial that they truly understand this and resulting reality of their lives. The types of books they enjoy reading, the hobbies that they have, the teams they participate in, their favorite classes, the things that they love to talk about–these are passions and interests that God gave them. Their job as students, and our job as a school, is to grow these abilities and teach them how they can be used for Kingdom purposes. As a school, we need to model that belief within our stewardship. This means that the resources that God gives us–whether these are financial, facilities, or even human resources–need to be carefully cultivated and grown. The third pillar of mission fulfillment is “Stewardship” and in this section of the “Rowing not Drifting” presentation, you’ll learn about Northwest Christian School’s performance as a steward of the resources that God has provided that that you as a family have given.
Parental Perspectives of the School’s Handling of COVID-19
How would you rate Northwest Christian School’s handling of COVID-19 as well as the school’s response to the pandemic?
During the 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 school years, Northwest Christian School was the single largest school in the state that was open for in-person instruction for the most continuously uninterrupted instructional days. Additionally, Northwest Christian launched, and continues to this day, NCS Plus as an online means of augmenting on-the-ground instruction and facilitating instruction for students that missed school due to COVID. In the Spring 2022 Parent Partnership Survey, parents were asked to evaluate the school based on a five-point scale with “one” indicating that the school had an extremely poor response and “five” rating the school’s response as “outstanding”.
4.3
Average Rating
Rating on a 5 Scale Parent Percentage 5
62.36%
4 3 2
22.47% 6.18% 3.37%
1
5.62%
Raw Response
111 40 11 6 10
Working to Keep Christian Education Affordable
Northwest Christian’s Participation within the Arizona Tax Credit Tuition Scholarship Program
Northwest Christian families benefit significantly from the tax credit scholarships and the effort that the school invests in educating parents in their use. In reviewing total tax credit award in all categories since 199o, Northwest Christian has been a top twenty school in award totals since 1998. As of the latest report from the Arizona Department of Revenue, Northwest Christian is the top Christian school all-time award leader with $46 million in total student awards. In terms of “Switcher Scholarships”-awards available to students moving from public to private education for the first time-in 2021, the 1,044 awards to students at Northwest Christian made us the top private school in the state out of 352 private schools. Taking into account all types of scholarship awards, the average award to a Northwest Christian student in 2021 was $1,570. Just a little over sixty percent of tuition revenue per year is drawn from state tuition tax credit scholarships.
Working to Keep Christian Education Affordable
Careful budgeting has worked to keep Northwest Christian the most affordable Christian education option in Arizona with, arguably, the highest value proposition.
A comparison of high school tuitions for area Christian Schools in the 2022/2023 school year
Fundraising: Too Much? Too little? Just right?
What do parents think of the amount of fundraising that is happening at Northwest Christian School?
Fundraising is an important aspect of the school experience but it is important that the school work to control the amount of fundraising that is put in front of families. It should be recognized that Northwest Christian operates a “black budget” (revenue exceeds expense) prior to any fundraising. This means that fundraising is used to move the school forward and not to cover annual operating expenses. In this query within the Spring 2022 Parent Partnership Survey, “fundraising” was defined to include all attempts by the school, teams, programs, clubs, etc. to raising money from within the community of NCS parents. The response options provided were “Far too much fundraising is taking place”, “Fundraising is abundant but not excessive”, “I’m satisfied with the level of fundraising that is taking place”, and “The school has too little fundraising taking place”.
Student Retention: an annual summary
A measure of whether or not families believe that Northwest Christian School is keeping its commitments
Student retention is a critical measure to which the school pays very close attention. Why? Because, in a form, retention, which measures the annual percentage of students that reenroll and return the following school year, illuminates the number of families that believe Northwest Christian School has kept its commitments and is fulfilling its mission in the lives of the students within the family. The percentages also illuminate when several enrollment transition points: points in which families may seek out or choose to leave Christian education. For example, the greatest number of students “come and go” between Early Ed and K and between middle school and high school. High school also represents the single greatest influx of students annually into the school. Since the 2014/2015 school year, the average annual retention of Northwest Christian preschool students into kindergarten has been 69.85%, the lowest retention percentage for the school. Largely this has been because the enrollment funnel from preschool to kindergarten narrows significantly which capacity for approximately 75% of our students moving on from preschool.
Annual Summary of New Students
How many new students start at Northwest Christian each year?
Why does the number of new students per year vary so widely? The annual number of students that start attending Northwest Christian School has a few variables which feed into it as a data point. As illustrated on the previous page, year-over-year student retention runs very high meaning that, aside from graduating students, there are traditionally few open spots per year—a factor that means the new student count varies by the number of students that move away and things of that nature. But, this data is useful to help families that are new to Northwest Christian understand that their new student won’t be the only new student in a class or a grade.
How does Northwest Christian compare to other Christian schools nationally in terms of fiscal sustainability?
Resolve Consulting Group is a specialist Chartered Accounting and Consulting firm based in Gosford, Australia. During the 2021/2022 school year, Grand Canyon University partnered with the Resolve Consulting Group as part of the pilot study of U.S.-based Christian Schools in an attempt to establish school viability benchmarks and key performance indicators. Understanding that the school would represent a large, healthy, and viable school within the pilot study, GCU invited Northwest Christian School, as one of just twelve schools nationally, to participate in the study. The scope of work performed by Resolve within the study covered 25 key performance indicators (KPI) and included analysis of financial years 2017 to 2021 historically and financial years 2022 and 2023 forecast financial information (comprising audited financial statements, enrollment and staffing FTE information and forecast budget modelling). What follows over the next several pages is a summary of their findings and within each category of study, a statement of risk level--low, medium, or high— relative to the other benchmark schools.
How does Northwest Christian compare to other Christian schools nationally in terms of fiscal sustainability?
As a second part of the 2021 Grand Canyon University-commissioned pilot financial viability study performed by Resolve Consulting Group, the following pages illuminate how Northwest Christian performs relative to 5 other Arizona-based Christian schools and 4 Colorado-based Christian schools in ten key performance indicators. In each of the following graphs, the identities of the other schools were kept confidential by GCU and Resolve. But, for the purpose of comparison, Northwest Christian is school #5. Generally speaking, of the ten schools compared within the pilot study, Northwest Christian was the most financially viable and, from a fiscal perspective, the most sustainable. Note: In Australia, where Resolve is based, “enrollment” is spelled with one “L” as “enrolment”.
The Superintendent: Anonymous Evaluation
Annually for twelve years, the school has evaluated the performance of the superintendent, Geoff Brown, through and the online parent partnership survey as well as an anonymous survey of his performance by all faculty and staff. The results of the Spring 2022 Parent Partnership Survey for the superintendent are here:
To accomplish the faculty and staff evaluation of Geoff Brown’s performance, we have used twenty-one essential qualities of school leaders as presented by author Dr. Toby Travis in his book, “The Trusted School Leader”. The results follow:
