17 How Do You Enroll in Christian School?

The open house at which Erica and her husband had enrolled their oldest child in Christian school had been a fun and exciting evening for their whole family, their children included. The children had enjoyed meeting new little friends in the midst of games, activities, and a bounce house. Erica and her husband, who had already toured the school privately, appreciated meeting other excited new parents to the school, while watching how the school’s administrators and staff joyfully shared their hospitality and expertly carried out their duties. Late that evening at home, after the children were in bed and asleep, Erica let her husband know how deeply she felt that they had just begun something very special, maybe the most special thing that they would ever experience together as a married couple.

Enrollment

Once you and your spouse have made the decision to send your child to Christian school, you must enroll your child. Enrolling your child in Christian school is an exciting time. Expect school officials, teachers, parents, and students to be just as excited as you and your child. Enjoy the time, and help your child look forward to the experience of the new school community with equal or greater eagerness. You have every reason to feel that, by enrolling your child in the new Christian school, you, your child, and your family are not just embarking on an exciting new journey but also coming home. When parents finally see their youngest child graduate from a private Christian K-12 program, after having children at the school for a decade, even two decades or longer, the joyful celebration can also feel like an almost-painfully poignant closing of the couple’s greatest chapter in life. That pinnacle richness of a married couple gently weaving their family life into the gorgeous tapestry of a Christian school community all begins with school enrollment. Appreciate how the small seed that you and your spouse plant when enrolling your first child in Christian school will eventually grow into your marriage’s veritable tree of life.

Openings

Enrollment at a private Christian K-12 school typically begins with your inquiry to the school about an available opening. To enroll your child, you need to know whether the school has an opening in your child’s grade level. Private Christian schools generally cap their class sizes at a smaller number of students than the public schools. Waiting lists for a child to get into a capped class can be common, especially for students who transfer in from another school rather than start in preschool or kindergarten at the school. Naturally, Christian schools typically give preferred admission (first choice) to students already enrolled at the school. Once your child starts at the school, your child should get to advance through every grade and finish, without any enrollment issue. Your challenge is getting your child into the school, not keeping your child in the school to advance through the full program. To ensure that your child has the opportunity to enroll, inquire early, before classes fill. Apply promptly, and otherwise act diligently to complete the enrollment process. Expect school officials to give you reasonable time and abundant support to navigate each stage of the enrollment process.

Application

Once you confirm that the Christian school you have chosen for your child has an opening for your child’s enrollment or has a waiting list your family can join, giving your child a reasonable prospect of imminent enrollment, your next step is completing the school’s application form. Application forms are typically online. Don’t be surprised or disappointed at the thorough nature of a private Christian school’s application process. That process serves important objectives that you will soon come to appreciate, once you have enrolled your child at the school. Private Christian schools generally maintain an application process that both informs parents of the nature, conditions, and requirements of the school’s program, on the one hand, and ensures the school community that it can properly welcome and serve the children the school enrolls and their parents. For the best start and finish, both you and the school need to have full confidence in the relationship. The school designs and implements its application process for that laudable purpose.

Consent

Your child’s private Christian school’s application process is likely to require you and your spouse to review and sign a cooperation or consent agreement regarding the school’s faith statement and instruction. Parents can rightly be sensitive to the faith forms and doctrines in which a church or school will be instructing their child. The school’s cooperation or consent agreement is the primary way that the school ensures that parents know the school’s faith tradition and approve of its faith instruction. Your research regarding the school, including visits, tours, and review of the curriculum, policies, and handbooks, should already have satisfied you as to the fitness of the school’s faith commitment and instruction. But take your time to carefully review the school’s faith statement accompanying the cooperation or consent agreement. If questions remain, ask the school principal, enrollment coordinator, or other school representatives to address your concerns. If questions still remain, seek the guidance of your pastor or other trusted spiritual advisors.

Participation

Whether private Christian K-12 schools require the parents of enrolling children to belong to a specific church or adhere to a specific form and tradition of Christian faith varies widely. Some Christian schools are closed schools, also called covenant schools. Covenant schools reserve enrollment to only those children of families who belong to a specific church or who belong to a church within the specific tradition, while actively practicing the faith. A covenant school’s application process may require you to provide documentation of church membership and even character references from the pastor or other leaders or administrators of your church. At the other end of the spectrum are open-enrollment schools, enrolling children of any families, whether or not church members and actively practicing or professing Christian faith. In an open-enrollment school, the parents of enrolled children need only consent to the instruction of their children in the school’s Christian faith tradition. Open-enrollment schools see their program’s relative accessibility to be a witness to the community’s families who may be exploring and growing in faith. Christian schools can fall at other points along the spectrum, requiring different levels or forms of parent faith commitment in the application process. Respect the stance of your child’s new school on parental faith participation.

Documentation

The application process for your child’s Christian school enrollment may also require that you supply certain documentation with the application or soon after with formal enrollment. State law likely requires you to show a birth certificate for your child, confirming your child’s age and legal name, at least for your child’s first enrollment in school. State law may permit alternative documentation such as a passport, baptismal certificate, or affidavit. State law, rule, or regulation may also require your child’s immunization records or your executed immunization waiver forms. If your child is transferring from another school, the school may require report cards, transcripts, and school discipline or disability records from the prior school. You may need to request those records from the prior school and sign an authorization for release to the Christian school of those confidential education records. Don’t be unduly frustrated over documentation requirements. School officials may have no choice under the applicable law. Documentation practices can also promote school safety, security, and order, and parent confidence.

Interview

Private Christian K-12 schools often require that parents enrolling their child for the first time in the school participate in an interview with the school principal and other school administrators or staff members. An interview has several functions. First, the principal and other school personnel attending the interview get to meet and learn about the family and its goals, interests, commitments, and challenges. The parents likewise get to meet key school staff members, both to share their goals and interests, and to learn whom to contact and how the school can help meet their child’s needs. The interview provides a firm and friendly footing for good relationships. Both the parents and school representatives, though, may also be assessing and confirming the suitability of the child’s enrollment. An interview can both raise concerns over the school/child/family fit and resolve those concerns. Don’t fear or resent an interview. Instead, treat the interview as a valuable part of the enrollment process, getting your child and family off on the right foot with the school and its key personnel. Once you and your family and child are an integral part of the school’s warm and caring community, you’ll likely appreciate that school leaders are interviewing new families seeking to join.

Accommodations

The enrollment process at private Christian K-12 schools also typically includes some assessment of the child’s potential need for disability accommodations and services. State and federal laws and constitutions generally obligate public schools to enroll every child who applies, given the rights of children to a free and appropriate public school education. The state and federal governments also fund and equip public schools to serve every student in all their educational, behavioral, physical, mental, and emotional needs. Private Christian K-12 schools stand in a significantly different position as to those legal requirements, public taxpayer support, and facility, personnel, and program suitability. Christian schools, for instance, do not generally receive federal or state funding for certain disability services that the public schools can and do readily supply. For example, a child with such a severe mental, physical, or emotional disability as to need a personal aide assigned and devoted to the child full time in school, with a specially equipped isolation room also available for the child, may receive that accommodation and service in public school. A private Christian school, though, wouldn’t generally have the public funding to serve and accommodate that child. Help your child’s new school ensure that it can meet your child’s special needs.

Screening

For older children transferring into a private Christian K-12 school, the school may also assess the student’s prior academic and discipline record. Public schools sometimes suspend and even expel students for academic or behavioral misconduct. States generally have alternative disciplinary schools and programs for those students. Yet in some cases, a public or private school may not formally suspend or expel a disruptive or disobedient student but may instead urge the student’s parents to find another school. Or the parents may on their own attempt to move their disruptive or failing student, hoping for better behavior and academic outcomes at the new school. Christian schools will thus assess older students with a troubled prior record, to ensure appropriate school safety and order. The school’s principal, teachers, and social worker may meet with the prospective student, review the prospective student’s prior school records, and observe the student interacting with other students already enrolled at the school, to assess the prospective student’s attitude, academic preparation, character, and conduct. Those assessments help the school determine the prospective student’s capacity and willingness to meet the school’s academic and behavioral standards. Respect whatever screening process the school requires for your child, to ensure that it can serve and accommodate your child’s needs and best interests.

Contract

Once the new Christian school has approved your child’s enrollment through its application process, the next step is for you to execute the tuition agreement and enrollment contract. As already indicated above, private Christian schooling isn’t a public right. When you enroll your child in a private Christian school, you aren’t relying on state and federal constitutions, statutes, rules, and regulations to define your child’s school rights and responsibilities. You are instead entering into a contract, covenant, or promise between you and the school as to those rights and responsibilities. Your family and the school thus need a document articulating those promises, along with the related rights and responsibilities. Read the school’s enrollment and tuition agreement carefully. It grants you and the school certain contractual rights, while also assigning responsibilities. The contract will also state when tuition payments are due, in what amounts. Schools typically require an initial tuition payment with the contract’s execution or shortly after, while scheduling other tuition payments for later. Ask the school principal or enrollment coordinator any questions you have regarding the school’s enrollment and tuition agreement.

Handbook

Other school policies and practices fill in the details of your family’s relationship with your child’s new Christian school, including the parties’ rights and responsibilities. Christian schools typically produce and publish a student/parent handbook that both states key policies and provides abundant other information orienting you to the school’s program. Once you, your child, and your family grow accustomed to the school, you may not refer again to the school handbook. Schools have natural rhythms and routines that parents and children quickly learn to appreciate and follow. But when your child’s new Christian school first makes the student/parent handbook available to you, read or at least review it cover to cover. The school maintains the handbook to ensure that you and your family have the details you need to fully participate in and enjoy the benefits of the school’s rich programs. You may learn from the handbook that the school has programs and resources about which you never dreamed but that have significant value to your child and family. Communicate with the school principal, enrollment coordinator, and teachers for their other support.

Reflection

How excited are you, your spouse, and your child about completing your new Christian school’s enrollment process, to join the school community and get your child started? What celebration might your family have to mark the occasion? Have you confirmed that the school has an opening for your child? If so, have you applied for enrollment, so that the school can reserve your child’s place in the open enrollment? Have you reviewed, approved, and signed the cooperation and consent agreement, after reading the school’s faith statement? Can you and your family meet any church membership or faith commitment conditions the school may have for your child’s enrollment? Do you have your child’s birth certificate or other proof of identity? Do you have your child’s immunization record or waiver form? What disclosures do you plan to make to school personnel in the family interview process, about your goals and needs for your child’s instruction? If your child is transferring from another school, are you prepared to request that the former school release your child’s academic and conduct records to the new school? Do you believe your child has any condition or record that may require that the new school’s academic team assess your child for enrollment fitness and program suitability? Have you read the school’s student/parent handbook for program details?

Key Points

Christian school enrollment procedures ensure your child’s good start.
Make early inquiries about an opening for your child’s enrollment.
Complete the school’s application promptly to ensure enrollment.
Review, approve, and sign the school’s parent consent agreement.
Meet the school’s church membership or faith requirement, if any.
Supply the state-required immunization or waiver and identity records.
Value the school’s interview process, to communicate goals and needs.
Communicate any disability accommodations your child requires.
Expect academic and behavioral screening for school transfers.
Review, approve, and sign the enrollment and tuition agreement.
Read the school’s parent handbook for policy and program details.

Read Chapter 18.