| Sager Classical Academy educates students to love the things that are worth loving, with God as the supreme loved One and all other things true, good and beautiful as coming from God and returning us to God. The Board of SCA is tasked with ensuring the institutional viability of our beautiful school — not just for next year, but for 5, 10 and 20 years. We want our Pre-K kids to have the joy of graduating from SCA!
To maintain the institutional stability of SCA, the Board has made decisions on both tuition rates and the Arkansas LEARNS act.
To understand the rationale for this decision, note that SCA is committed to (a) small class sizes, (b) excellent teachers, (c) acceptable facilities, and (d) financial accessibility (i.e., a school for our community). Each of these positive commitments brings institutional dynamics. Recruiting and retaining excellent teachers requires just pay and professional development, having acceptable facilities requires rent, utilities and maintenance costs, while small class size results in more cost per student.
The Board consulted with a third-party organization, Independent School Management (ISM), to assess our current institutional stability. Among the 15 markers of institutional stability, three are of note: (a) Hard Income Coverage, (b) Salary and Benefits, and (c) Tuition.
ISM has found that for a school to be considered stable, the school should operate at 100%+ Hard Income Coverage (HIC), that is, at least 100% of your operating costs should be covered by your hard income (e.g., tuition). This means a stable school should not fundraise to cover operational costs. Over the past five years, SCA has operated only at 75% or less HIC.
ISM also holds that stable private schools offer salaries and benefits that are at least 85% of the public school rate. Currently SCA is at 55-75%.
Lastly, tuition prices are the main driver for HIC and teacher salary and benefits. When compared to like schools — apples to apples — SCA tuition is significantly lower than like stable private schools, all factors taken into consideration.
Thus to maintain our commitment to small class sizes, excellent teachers, and acceptable facilities while ensuring the long-term stability of SCA, the Board has approved the following tuition rates for next year (2025-26):
Pre-K: $3650 (unchanged)
K-2: $5900
3-6: $7200
7-12: $8400
Note that these rates now include classes, curriculum (which will be distributed by the school), and trip costs (e.g., field trips, Boston, Washington D.C., and Italy).
However, the tuition increases create a level of tension with our fourth institutional commitment: financial accessibility. For many families that are missionally aligned to the school and desire this formative experience for their kids, these rates put SCA out of reach, even with financial aid.
After much research and consultation, the Board also approved that SCA would become a LEARNS eligible institution beginning next year (2025-26). This means that you are able to redirect your tax dollars toward SCA as your school of choice. Note that this is not “government money” being given to SCA. This is your money you have paid for education through taxes now going to your school of choice (instead of by default the public school system, whether you used the public system or not).
For the 2024-25 school year, the amount eligible for redirection was $6837 per student. Projecting this number to be the same next year, the result is the following out-of-pocket amounts for tuition:
Pre-K: $3650 (not covered by LEARNS)
K-2: $0
3-6: $363
7-12: $1563
Again, this includes classes, curriculum and trips.
Be assured that SCA will work with you around the infrastructure of redirecting your tax dollars.
We hope this overview gives you an understanding of the Board’s decision to uphold institutional stability while keeping access to SCA. We are excited for the future.
This communication is not intended to answer all your questions, such as continued use of public school resources, Oklahoma families, and more. For more detailed information, please see the Q&A section of our website dedicated to LEARNS here.
If you have even further questions, please reach out to our Head of School, Kyle Rapinchuk ([email protected]).
With prayer and thanksgiving to our Lord,
The SCA Board of Directors
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