Pitfalls That Destroy Christian Schools and Child Care Centers

As much as Christian schools and child care facilities are ministries, they are also businesses and are competing against other like entities in their community: Public schools that are free, private sitters, and homeschool co-ops to name a few. Christian schools and child care centers need to operate as a blend of these three entities to maximize their potential. Unfortunately, many Christian learning facilities usually neglect one of those areas and encounter large pitfalls that damage their credibility and can ultimately derail their ministry opportunity. Here are a few major pitfalls to avoid if you’re in Christian school or child care leadership.

1. Ignoring Quality for Quantity

For some Christian schools and child care facilities, their goal is to maximize enrollment to help with their bottom line. You might be thinking, “What’s wrong with that?” There’s nothing wrong with increasing enrollment and becoming financially solid, but think about what makes your school unique and what makes it special. For us, we capped all of our classes at 16 students to maintain a smaller student-to-teacher ratio. We wanted to avoid the problems that plagued the public schools in our area that helped contribute to lower student achievement. We also wanted to be able to create strong interpersonal relationships with each child and their families. Larger class sizes would have diminished our ability to achieve our mission in building connections with these students and families.

Studies have also shown that smaller class sizes increase student achievement. Here is a link that shares many studies and articles discussing this. Our commitment to keeping classes smaller led to results: Most of our students and classes were achieving at or far above grade level, reduced problem behaviors, and students were able to walk out of our school with either their Associate’s Degree or coursework towards that degree. It also became a marketing tool because now our school is showing results, but it’s hard to get in. Increased quality and a demand for your services means you can justify your current tuition or increase your tuition and fees to see the same results as taking in more students.

2. Ignoring Red Flags When Hiring Staff

Hiring staff for small Christian schools and child care centers can be challenging especially when there are service industry jobs like fast food restaurants paying strong minimum wage salaries that can be difficult to compete with. For Christian schools and child care centers, we typically look for individuals that are ministry-minded and that’s essential, but it’s also difficult to have those people apply and be able to hire them at a wage that they need to be able to live. So what happens? We usually hire someone that doesn’t totally match our mission and assume that with the right training and mentoring they can be a valuable member of our team. Sometimes that works, but oftentimes it does not.

I’ve been in that situation myself. One time, I hired two people over the summer to teach second grade. One I was really excited about. She had experience, I knew her character, and thought she was a good fit. She quit after one day. The second teacher I knew was a project. Fresh out of college, loved kids, but her ideologies didn’t align with our school’s. She quit after two days with three weeks left until school started. I had rejected one applicant because the spot was filled and immediately called her for an interview. She was hired days before school began and she’s still at the school and is one of the best teachers I ever hired. Sometimes it’s worth waiting and worth taking the time to continue praying for the Lord to send you the person. If you don’t have peace about making the hire, don’t make it. Wait on Him to provide the right person for the position of need.

3. Think Long-Term and Take Steps In the Short-Term

One of my favorite TV shows is Marvel’s Agents of Shield and I remember Dr. Gemma Simmons saying, “The steps you take don’t have to be big, they just have to take you in the right direction.” And what a great piece of advice that is! When planning your short-term, always keep the long-term vision in mind. When building and growing a business, you have to be flexible. For example: We didn’t have the enrollment early on to have individual classes for each grade so we found ways to combine grades to avoid overloading our budget with staff we couldn’t afford. Now, that school has individual teachers for each grade. It was a long-term goal, but we had to make decisions in the short-term to reach that goal.

Our school began with four kindergarten students and our intention was to grow by a single grade each year. After year two, COVID happened and our enrollment boomed and now, that school has well over two hundred students and is a K-4 through 12th grade school! I had someone ask me once what my marketing strategy was and I replied, “Obedience.” The truth is I always prayed this verse in my office: 1 Corinthians 3:6 (NKJV): “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.” I, Brandon, planted the school, my staff watered what God had given us, but He was the only one who could give the increase.

Closing Thoughts

Running a Christian school or child care center is a tremendous responsibility, but also a blessing. Jesus said in Matthew 25 that if you’re faithful over a few things, He will make you a ruler over many. You may only have a few students in your classroom, but be faithful over them and their families and God will increase your territory. Many prayers for you and your staff for this upcoming school year!