Calvary Preparatory Academy · Where we stand · August 2026

For faculty, staff, families and our accrediting association

We are larger than before the pandemic, in a state that has shrunk.

Enrollment is 14.6% above where it stood in 2019–20, while California public schools have fallen 7% and comparable online programmes have lost between a third and two thirds of their students. Seventeen years of records show a school whose students leave in an orderly way and graduate at rates worth being proud of. They also show, clearly, the one thing we have never solved.

Enrollment vs pre-pandemic +14.6% CA public −7.0%

Graduation rate, diploma path 28.6% 72% for grade-12 entrants

Unplanned departures 8.3% 92% leave on schedule

Time we keep, of time available 49.5% 1.63 of 3.36 years

Enrollment fell from a pandemic peak of 394 school-year students to 298 today. Taken alone that reads as decline. Set against the market it reads very differently.

How comparable schools have fared

Sector	vs 2019–20	vs pandemic peak
Christian schools nationally (ACSI average)	+35%	still growing
Calvary Preparatory Academy	+14.6%	−24.4%
US private schools overall	flat	—
California public schools	−7.0%	—
Comparable online school programmes	—	−35% to −62%

Every school that grew quickly in 2020 has given most of it back. Programmes in Baltimore County, Indianapolis and across Arizona lost between 35% and 62% from their peaks. Our fall of 24.4% is the mildest in that group, and measured against the last normal year we are meaningfully larger than we were.

Our local market is also genuinely shrinking, and not because families are choosing other schools. California enrollment has fallen for eight consecutive years, the state’s own department notes no matching rise in private or charter schools, and a further decline of 586,500 students is projected by 2034–35. Lower birth rates and reduced migration mean the children are simply not there.

One comparison should hold our attention. Christian schools nationally grew 35% over the period in which we grew 14.6% — growth driven largely by state school-choice programmes. We are an approved provider in Arizona, Alabama and West Virginia, where the family’s award covers our full tuition. That gap between 14.6% and 35% is not a warning. It is the opportunity in front of us.

Any honest account of 2024–25 and 2025–26 has to begin with something most of the school community already knows.

From July 2024, a health emergency and bereavement in the leadership family meant that two people central to how new families find this school — our Director and our marketing coordinator — were substantially unavailable for an extended period. Some effects are still being worked through. Both are now back and rebuilding what was interrupted.

The school’s response deserves to be stated plainly, because it was the right one. No teaching staff were let go. No programme was cut. Nothing was borrowed. The school drew on reserves built during stronger years, which is precisely what reserves exist for.

What could not be protected was recruitment. Much of how families discover Calvary Prep runs through personal relationships — conferences, and networking with counsellors, pastors and other schools. Those are not tasks that can be handed over at short notice.

New students by how they found us, school year of entry

Channel	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25	2025-26
Referral from a counsellor, pastor or school	65	68	56	29
Conference	3	3	3	1
Word of mouth	44	38	34	29
Internet search	47	40	26	29
All new students	203	189	141	102

The pattern is unmistakable. Referral and conference enrolments fell from 71 to 30. Internet search — the one channel that does not depend on a person being available — actually rose over the same period.

And the recovery has already begun. Enrolment for 2025–26 is 293 students, eleven more than the year before — the first increase in five years, achieved while both key people were still returning to full capacity. Conference and travel activity has resumed at close to pre-disruption levels.

If referral and conference enrolments return to where they stood in 2023–24, that alone is roughly 41 additional students. The gap between the school’s current position and a balanced budget is twenty-seven.

For the first time we can answer this from records rather than impression. One hundred and fifty-four exit forms were completed between December 2020 and July 2026, covering roughly a fifth to a third of all departures.

Reasons given for withdrawal (families could select more than one)

Reason	Forms	Share
Learning style — the online format did not suit	63	40.9%
Moving or relocation	24	15.6%
Other / written comment	21	13.6%
Wanted an in-person school	20	13.0%
Financial	19	12.3%
Health or mental health	14	9.1%
Not satisfied with curriculum	11	7.1%
Not satisfied with the whole programme	6	3.9%
Workload or time	5	3.2%
Not satisfied with a teacher	3	1.9%

Four in ten departures are about the format itself, and adding those who wanted an in-person school takes it past half. Where families go next says the same thing: 31% transfer to another private or Christian school and 19.5% to homeschooling. They are not leaving Christian education. They are leaving online delivery.

That points somewhere specific and hopeful. If the largest single reason a family leaves is that online learning did not suit their child, the most effective intervention is not remediation after the fact — it is an honest conversation at admission about what this mode of learning genuinely asks of a student and a parent. Declining a poor fit early is kinder than losing a family in March, and it protects the child.

Financial reasons appear in 12.3% of forms. Real, and worth continued attention through the scholarship and state-funding routes, but well behind fit.

Our quarters close in October, January, March and June. When departures are read against that calendar, a reassuring pattern appears.

94.6% of diploma-path departures fall on a term boundary. Students complete a quarter, a semester or a year, and then decide. Genuine unplanned attrition — a family leaving mid-course, mid-relationship — runs at 8.3%, and dipped as low as 1.7% in 2021–22.

That distinction matters because it changes what helps. A crisis calls for intervention. A renewal decision calls for a conversation — asking early, asking well, and giving a family a reason to commit before spring drifts into summer.

Two related findings support the same conclusion. 96.5% of students have perfectly consecutive enrollment, so almost nobody leaves and returns; prevention matters far more than win-back. And the leak is concentrated in the first year: 35–49% of students continue from year one to year two, but 57–66% continue from year two to year three. Once a family completes two years with us, they tend to stay.

Because our students arrive at very different ages, counting years enrolled tells us little. The fair question is: of the years a student could spend with us, how many do we keep?

Share of available years we keep, by grade at entry

Diploma-path students only — students taking individual courses are excluded

Grade 6		25%
Grade 7		38%
Grade 8		44%
Grade 9		56%
Grade 10		58%
Grade 11		77%
Grade 12		100%

Outcomes by grade at entry, students on the diploma path

Entered in	Students	Years available	Years we kept	Graduated here
Grade 6	62	7	1.74	1.6%
Grade 7	121	6	2.31	14.0%
Grade 8	126	5	2.22	19.8%
Grade 9	305	4	2.23	27.2%
Grade 10	170	3	1.73	24.1%
Grade 11	129	2	1.53	51.2%
Grade 12	64	1	1.00	71.9%

We are outstanding at finishing what someone else started. Students who arrive in grades 11 and 12 receive 77% to 100% of their available time with us and graduate at 51% to 72%. For a family whose child needs to complete a diploma, we are demonstrably very good at it, and that is real ministry.

The other end of the table is the finding this school most needs to face. Of 62 diploma-seeking students who began with us in grade 6, one has graduated from Calvary Prep. A sixth-grader arrives with seven years ahead of them; on average we deliver 1.74 of those years and hand the family to another school to finish.

Every version of this analysis has produced that result. It is not a measurement artefact, and it is the single most consequential thing in seventeen years of records.

Two encouraging signs

Graduation rates are rising. Students entering between 2012 and 2016 graduated at 18.6%; those entering 2017 to 2020 at 23.6%. The programme is getting better at finishing what it starts.

And departures have become far more orderly. In 2015–16 more than half of all departures happened mid-year. By 2024–25 that was down to a quarter. Something in how we support families through a year has improved substantially, and it is worth identifying so we protect it.

Three hundred and thirty-nine students have enrolled through an institutional partner — a Calvary Chapel congregation, an affiliated school, or a mission field. Compared fairly, they outperform on both measures that matter.

Diploma-path students, partner-enrolled versus independent

Cohort	Students	Graduation rate	Unplanned departures
Enrolled through a partner	84	38.7%	4.8%
Enrolled independently	1,110	27.9%	8.5%

Partner students graduate half again as often and leave unexpectedly at little more than half the rate. That makes intuitive sense: a student who arrives through their own church or school comes with a community already attached, an adult who has vouched for us, and peers enrolled alongside them. It appears to be worth about eleven percentage points of completion.

The largest single example is recent. Calvary Chapel Honolulu grew from a handful of students to 37 in one year and accounts for essentially all of our part-time growth. It is proof we can open a channel and that the model travels.

Only 84 of 254 partner students are currently on the diploma path; the rest take individual courses to graduate elsewhere, which is entirely legitimate. But the relationships already exist and the trust is already earned, and moving even a few more of those families onto a full diploma programme is the most promising growth available to us.

The same records carry a caution. Five partnerships have ended over six years — New Life Academy, Horizon in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Calvary Costa Mesa and GCIS — and none appears to have been anticipated. When an institution leaves, an entire group of students leaves at once. These relationships need tending well before renewal becomes urgent.

Faculty, families and our accrediting association are all entitled to an honest summary. This is it, at the level appropriate to this document.

The school has operated for sixteen years and has been profitable or approximately balanced in most of them. It carries no debt and never has. Revenue per student has kept pace with inflation, and in real terms the school is roughly 20% larger than before the pandemic.

The last four years have run at a deficit. The first two were deliberate, board-approved investments that came in better than planned. The most recent two fall inside the leadership disruption described in section 02, and account for roughly three quarters of the total.

Cash reserves have fallen from about five months of operating costs to about two and a half months. That is below the range generally considered prudent, and the board is addressing it. It is also worth saying clearly what those reserves bought: the school came through a prolonged leadership emergency without losing a teacher, cutting a programme, or taking on debt. Reserves built in strong years were spent for exactly the purpose they were built for.

What everyone in the school community can usefully know is the arithmetic of the gap. Twenty-seven additional students at our current average tuition would close the deficit entirely. Fifty students funded through a state education savings account — where the family pays nothing because the award exceeds our tuition — would produce a surplus.

Almost everything in this report points at the same two places: the first year a family is with us, and the spring conversation about whether they return.

Teachers The exit data is about you, in the best way Of 154 exit forms across six years, three cited dissatisfaction with a teacher. Whatever else this school needs to fix, the quality of its teaching is not on the list. The leak is the first year, and it is mostly about format rather than instruction. A student drifting in October is the highest-value person in the school to reach. If you sense a family wobbling about next year, say so early — February is a conversation, June is a decision already taken.

Staff & administration Set expectations honestly at admission Four in ten departures are about the online format not suiting the student. An honest conversation before enrolment — about self-direction, screen time and what is genuinely required of a parent — is the single highest-value change available to us. Then a structured welcome: a named contact and check-ins at thirty, sixty and ninety days. And keep completing the exit form. It currently captures about a quarter of departures; at full coverage it would be the most useful management data the school has.

Parent Ambassadors You are our most persuasive voice Students who arrive through a church or partner school graduate at 38.7% against 27.9%. A parent’s account of this school carries further than anything the school can say about itself. If you have family or church connections in Arizona, Alabama or West Virginia, those are the three states where a student can attend at no cost to the family. Please tell them.

All of us Twenty-seven families That is the whole gap. It is roughly one additional student for every eleven we already have, and it is well within reach of a community this size in a single admissions cycle. The most reliable route is the one already proven: a partner church or school, where the students stay longest and finish most often.

Included for our accrediting association and for anyone who wants to know how these figures were produced.

1. Sources. 4,525 enrollment records covering 2,482 students from the 2009–10 pilot year onward, joined by student identifier to seven years of tuition records, the partner register, and sixteen years of financial statements.
2. Diploma path. Completion rates count only students enrolled full-time on a diploma track. Students taking individual courses to graduate elsewhere — a legitimate and valued part of what we do — are excluded, since measuring them against a graduation rate would be meaningless.
3. Graduation. Identified from a final grade-12 enrollment ending at a January or June semester boundary, with individual cases verified by the registrar. Early graduation is real but rare: of 132 juniors whose enrollment ended at a term boundary, three graduated.
4. Currently enrolled students are excluded from all completion rates, and recent entering classes are still accruing, so no trend is drawn from them.
5. Enrollment counts carry a measurement band of roughly 3–4%, arising from families billed together and from registrations that were never completed.
6. Benchmarks are drawn from the California Department of Education, the Public Policy Institute of California, the National Education Policy Center, the Cato Institute’s private school survey and ACSI. Association averages are self-reported and should be read as indicative.