At this point, it will be helpful to identify who will be taking more of a leadership role in leading, initiating, and shaping of the vision.

Here is the current SBH Director’s Job Description to use a template.

The details and salary of a director won’t be addressed until step #10 and #12. So there is some flexibility and trust in the Vision Team for the Director to move forward without total clarity on some of this.

The Vision Team should consider who:

• Has a passion for CCC education

• Has the margins in life circumstances to dedicate time and energy

• Shares the general vision of the Vision Team

• Has a willingness to learn on the job and is teachable and humble

• is good with relating to both parents and students

• is gifted in keeping multiple plates spinning

• can see a plan through from vision to reality in the micro and macro

It may be more prudent to have a Administrative Team work together rather than a single person for the first year to get things launched.

One model might be:

• One person responsible for all the finances and logistics with facilities.

• One person responsible for all the admissions and hiring of teachers

• One person responsible for all the curriculum and class schedules and communication to parents.

This document should be written by the Director/Admin Team and include:

• Why start a CCC school in your community?

• Proposed CCC values for the community.

• Proposed connection to the Church.

• How many days a week is proposed?

• Will your program focus on some core academic classes or electives? We chose core academics except for Math. Doing multi-grade classes doesn’t work with formal instruction in Math. We give our parents resources and suggestions, as well as an optional Math Study time in the afternoons. We cover Classics & Composition (Reading/Writing/Grammar), Humanities (Literature/History), Latin, Bible, Gymnasium, Music, and Nature Studies.

• Will you have multi-grade “Form” classrooms? If so what will the breakdown be? We have Kindergarten, Lower Elementary (1st-3rd grade), Upper Elementary (4th-5th grade), Middle School (6th-8th), and High School (9th-12th grade).

• What classes will be offered in each Form? We chose 5 classes plus all school gymnasium and music classes.

• How will you compensate teachers? At SBH we compensate teachers 1 child in the program for every class taught. As program dues increase 5% per year, so does the pay.

• How much are tuition/program dues being proposed? We started with $3000 for 3 days and increased that 5% every year. We are starting our high school at $4000 per year.

• What are the possible locations for the school?

• A proposed statement of faith, school name, and mission statement.

See the SBH Vision Document from 2018 that got us started.

Then get feedback and input from your Vision Team. After editing and clarifying the scope and vision, you can start to communicate the vision beyond your small group.

Before you can build out a website, you will need to purchase a domain name. Discuss what you want that to be and see if it’s available. You could use:

Google domains

Go Daddy

Your school website will be the single most powerful marketing tool you will have.

There are plenty of website design platforms, but we would recommend the easy and intuitive Squarespace.

Your website should include the information from your Vision Statement to create a place for interested families to go and explore what you have in mind. The website’s link can easily be shared throughout your community.

Also create a dedicated school email account for school related communication.

Name Cheap - will create emails to your domain name url

or use the classic and powerful (and free) Gmail

Your Director or Admin Team should be responsible for hosting these meetings to communicate the vision and gauge the interest in your community.

These meetings can be with several families or with a single family at a time depending on your scope. In larger contexts, having a polished presentation made by several people in your leadership team can work. Or just having one family over for dinner at your home at a time can work for smaller contexts.

Make sure that you emphasize that the school will grow and evolve as it grows, so be ready to be flexible. These founding parents are pioneers and need to have a spirit of resilience and grittiness.

You can use an interest form to get a sense of interest.

As you continue to spread the word and the network effect starts to occur, begin compiling a email list of interested families. You can create an email list in google contacts that makes it very easy to send out email blasts to your group with updates and information.

We found that it is prudent to always bcc in the blasts. It keeps everyone’s emails more private and secure especially as you expand to more and more new families.

Your Vision Team and Director/Admin Team should have a meeting after a couple months of informational meetings to then gauge the interest.

You can intuitively get a sense of where people are at who come to the informational meetings, or you can create a interest form where families can provide contact information, level of interest, and willingness to join staff eventually.

This is the point of no-return, where it becomes very difficult to turn around past this point. Does there seem to be the critical mass of interest, resources, facilities, staffing possibilities, to make it a realistic actuality? If not, it may be wise to wait for a year.

If the group isn’t unanimous, take your time and regather for a follow up meeting after more reflection and prayer.

At this point, you want to have the leadership team transition and modify into a school board. Not everyone on the initial leadership team needs to be on the school board, and it should be discussed where people are at.

Discernment, full-of-grace, honesty, and having a love for the school are the most important characteristics to look for. We have found that these are more important than impressive resumes of success in business or educational degrees.

Your board chair should be in charge of creating agendas. Boards should meet at minimum quarterly, but really once a month is more ideal. See Classical U’s training on School Boards.

We’ve found that a school board who are all parents becomes more complicated and biased. The Board should ideally have a mix of parents and other older and wiser individuals who bring a broader perspective.

The Board is not there to discuss the details of the school, but the big vision. The Board shouldn’t be discussing curriculum or who to hire, but considering the issues and challenges one-three years away. Your director or administrative team should be delegated to work on the day-to-day issues.

Among the first things the Board should address are the budget, director/admin salaries, and any amendments to the Vision Document.

Even if your school is a ministry of your church, having bylaws is very helpful to outline how you will be governed.

Also creating a roles and responsibilities outline can help your team not step on each others toes. This was very critical at the beginning stages to figure out who was responsible for what.

We started by using another school’s bylaws and then have edited and adjusted them to fit our context over the years.

You can view our bylaws here.

Churches that aren’t currently using their classroom space, don’t typically need rent money. They usually ask to at least cover the utility and cleaning expenses so that they aren’t losing money. We’ve found churches to be very generous once they catch our vision.

However this has been one of the hardest issues for us this past year. If your school isn’t paying market value price, then your school needs to be always very flexible to plan the calendar around the church’s events.

Most churches we’ve asked, don’t have available space or aren’t in a position to host a school. Warming up pastors with having your school families that attend their church ask, has been helpful for us.

It’s important to discuss storage space (you’ll need at least space for 6 large bins) and ideally a printer you can set up to use.

We’ve found that cleaning is a major concern for our landlords. The better condition you leave the space, the better your relationship with your host church becomes.

It’s worth buying the church a nice quality vacuum to make sure your labor actually leaves the space clean!

SBH will be considering paying someone next year to do cleaning at the end of the day, but until then I do all the vacuuming and final walk through at the end of each day. It doesn’t seem like much, but leaving the space clean is VERY important for the survival and growth of your school.

Save a copy of this template and begin editing for your school’s context.

The Director/Admin Team will be responsible for creating a proposed draft that they then bring to the School Board for review and voting.

Your Director or Admin Team should be responsible for creating a clear process to admin new families. You are the gatekeepers of the community to discern which families are going to work or not.

Here is the SBH Admissions Process outlined for parents on our website.

I highly recommend creating an online application on your website.

Online applications are MUCH better than hard copy applications.

We’ve created two admissions teams that include some of our teachers and myself- one for our K-8 program and one for our 9-12 program.

The team reviews the new applications and then sit in on the interview and listen to the new parents talk about their educational journey, why they’ve come to us, what their kids are like, and their faith backgrounds. Then we share our vision for formation, some of our curriculum highlights, and our house system.

Then following the interview, we share our thoughts with each other. It is the director’s responsibility to make the final call on admitting each family, but listening to the feedback and insights of the team is invaluable.

The admissions team is a voluntary service some of the teachers are invited to and agree to commit to a year at a time. It gives them some ownership of the program and it also helps prepare to get to know the new families that will be joining us next year.

We schedule the interviews during lunch times so the teachers are already on campus and eat lunch during the interview.

We also have a Tour and Interview webpage I can send to all families who have confirmed a date to visit.

Following the admissions tour and interview, the admissions team gives input on the family. The director makes the final decision whether or not to admit the family if it unclear. Most of the time the team is unanimous in their discernment.

I then send an acceptance letter to the family, stating that they have two weeks to consider our offer. Then after two weeks I reconnect to see if they are still interested.

Once confirmed, the new families get a link to our new new parent dashboard (password “2021”) and instructions to submit a deposit to save their seat for next August— they pay the first month’s dues in advance as a non-refundable deposit. They have until May 1st at the latest to pay their deposit.

I keep a tab open during the Spring on my computer that has the admissions roster that keeps a running tab on all the names and where they are in the process.

We chose to cap our classes at 13 students due to our classroom space and what our teachers were comfortable with. You should have a cap size, but will depend on your context how much it will be.

Create a business account either independently, or as a second account tied to your church’s account. I would recommend that the board approves the director with a credit card or debit card attached to the account for purchases.

If you are creating a seperate non-profit from a church, you need to do that in your specific state.

If your school is going to technically be a ministry of your church or network, you can fall under their umbrella. This is what SBH does.

Otherwise, you will need to submit your own IRS tax documents. You should find someone who is familiar with non-profit taxes to help you the first year.

Update your website as you grow and develop more resources.

We’ve found that word-of-mouth marketing is KING…better than any Facebook or Google Ad…better than mailers etc.

So I’d recommend that you focus your energy into your webpage and work with a gifted web designer (maybe a school parent or student) to make your webpage content pop!

Paying an amature photographer with a high quality camera to come to campus for a morning once a year, has given us a catalog of high quality photos for the website that has been very valuable. We pay a mom about $350 for that.

Create an Academic Calendar to share with your families. This will help teachers know how to plan and also families as they plan for vacations etc.

Being clear about money and what is expected is essential.

Here is the SBH Program Dues Information

We also created a “How can I pay my Program Dues” parent document?

Here is our Financial Aid webpage.

We were advised to not offer scholarships or tuition discounts for multiple kids. If families are facing difficulty paying their dues, we encourage everyone to apply for financial aid.

We have a Financial Aid committee made up of individuals who do not have children at the school that then reviews the applications and meets with families to discuss aid.

Our fundraising has been expressly aimed at creating a financial aid fund to assist with needy families who can’t afford the program.

Many larger schools 100 students and above find it best to pay for a Student Information System (SIS) like Renweb/Facts or Sycamore.

SBH has been fine using Google sheets, Google docs, and Slack— all free applications.

You’ll need to create documents that track family information and class rosters.

We’ve found that using a Google account is adequate for storing all the basic files we need in the Google Drive.

We use MailChimp for weekly newsletters. I include all calendar updates and events, general announcements, pictures, and the occasional note to parents.

We use Slack to communicate between teachers and parents. We have channels set up for each class and the teachers submit lesson plans and homework each Sunday night for the following week.

Rather than choosing your teachers by getting volunteers to teach, the Director/Admin Team should prayerfully consider who they think would thrive as teachers. Initiate and ask those individuals in the community who you think may be gifted. Consider retirees in your church communities too who may not have kids in the program, but nevertheless have a mastery or special interest in an area you need.

We require our staff at SBH to personally believe and hold to the Nicene Creed and support the ministry of SBH. We don’t require them to be Anglican.

Contracts are helpful tools to show your teachers that you are respecting their time and commitment to join your vision and team.

It also clarifies up front compensation and what is expected of them, which avoids misunderstandings.

See a sample SBH Staff Contract here.

We also have all our staff read through the DRM Child Protection Policy together, and have all our teachers take a Ministry Safe full background check ($56), and then watch Ministry Safe Videos (1.5 hrs) and take a test ($5). All this is done before they are allowed to be with kids.

A scope and sequence outlines what is taught at each age level until graduation. It is rather daunting to create this before you even start classes, but the more you can do the better. This helps you plan all that you will cover so that there are no missing pieces in your students’ education.

Here is the document that SBH had as we worked on this during our first year as a program.

This is to help you get a broad understanding of what your educational scope you hope to accomplish and the sequence that you want to introduce material and ideas.

Creation of logos can cost anywhere between $500-$3000 for a whole branding package. You can decide what is best for your school. A logo is a powerful image that will help new families feel that your program is “legitimate” and also an image your community all associates with.

Choose a primary color, color combinations, and a family of fonts you want to be consistent with.

As you develop what is actually going to be taught in the classroom, it would be good to meet with your teachers one-on-one to go over the curriculum.

The easiest way to choose the particulars of a curriculum is to use a set curriculum from a publisher like Ambleside, Memoria Press, Classical Academic Press, or the Good and Beautiful.

SBH choose to pick and choose from different publishers.

• Bible (Alfred Rex Curriculum)

• Latin (Picta Dicta Curriculum & Lingua Latina per se Illustrata)

• Nature Studies (nature walks and projects in Forms 1 & 2. Apologia, Novare, and Canon Press for Forms 3 & 4)

• Humanities (various primary source literature and history books; Story of US history books)

• Classics and Composition (All About Reading; WISE Guide for Spelling by Wanda Sanseri; Shurley English Grammar; Excellence in Writing; Well Ordered Language; Poetry; Shakespeare; Classic Myths & Literature)

• Music- School Choir singing various songs

• Gymnasium- group exercises and physical games

Then order curriculum. We use mostly Amazon and Christianbooks for affordability.

After the first year, we realized that we needed to do a better job sharing the scope of each class with the parents. We created syllabi, much like a college class would have.

Teachers can start working on their long range plans over the summer and writing up their syllabi.

See here the collection of all of our syllabi for the 2021-2022 school year.

Like other classical schools, we chose to start a House System that ALL of our students are a part of. They get house T-shirts at the beginning of the year, play games by house in gymnasium, rotate chores by house, and host one feast for the school each year.

Here is more information on our house program.

It’s helpful to have a Parent Orientation Night before the beginning of school to help get all the parents on the same page and with clear expectations.

Click here to view my notes and schedule for the Parent Orientation Night.

Since we are still a relatively small program, we just have a single handbook for students, parents, and staff all together.

It includes all our school policies, philosophies, and logistics.

See here our program handbook.

I would suggest working on a handbook as you build and develop the first year.

A teacher in-service is a morning or two mornings to gather together a staff before the beginning of school to get on the same page, go over policies, safety procedures, and class schedules.

I have a New Teacher Training Day as well as a whole staff in-service day.

Create a single school weekly schedule that includes all classes.

Match each teacher with a color— See the SBH class schedule here.

Unless you get a rental space you can use 24/7, which is uncommon the first few years of a school plant, you’ll be doing a lot of set up and take down.

We found that durable 6’ white plastic tables and chairs from Costco are best. Churches will often have tables and chairs already which you could possible add to if you need more for the school. Remember to label your tables underneath!

Whiteboards are the other crucial furniture. You can find $150 fold up whiteboards on Amazon. We store these in closets or classrooms and set them up for class. Our host church was generous enough to allow us to drill large 6’ whiteboards onto the walls.

Other supplies to consider purchasing:

• Printer

• Ink

• Copy paper

• 1” 3 ring binders

• stapler

• whiteboard markers

• whiteboard erasers

• scissors