Enrollment ‘blitz’ at Tri-City private schools drives spending spree for learning space

It’s a busy and bustling time to be at Liberty Christian School.

In the midst of expansions, renovations and more classes, teachers and students are scurrying for classroom space at the drop of a pencil.

It’s kind of like a game of musical chairs.

The room that housed the library last year now plays host to a class of 6th graders. And an old cafeteria currently under renovation is temporarily housing the library, high school media productions class and a 2nd grade Spanish-language arts class.

“Every year, it’s a lot of movement and squeezing every inch that we can get out of instruction spaces,” said Superintendent Jim Cochran. “We are blitzed.”

It’s no secret that the Richland-based school is seeing a modern day enrollment boom.

Attendance has soared 54% since the 2018-19 school year, and now nearly 590 K-12 students are enrolled for classes this fall. They could open another 7th grade class today, if only they had the space and time.

As interest in public education alternatives see a revival, schools like Liberty Christian are pushing the envelope to expand to fill the need.

Liberty Christian has committed to a number of projects — including heating and cooling system upgrades and roof repairs — to extend the life of their building.

The school also is funding a $2.2 million renovation for the seven-decade-old multi-purpose room and cafeteria, which used to be part of the old Spalding School building.

For years it was used for storage, but will soon be transformed into a new “fine arts” wing. They’re funding it with a community campaign and hope to not take on debt.

“The goal with this is that music, drama and arts would use this wing as they see fit,” Cochran said.

Liberty Christian also installed its third modular portable classroom on campus this year to serve 5th grade students.

Unless the school can find suitable off-campus space for its existing high school programs, three more portables may have to be installed on the 19-acre campus in the next three years.

“We need partners,” Cochran said.

Liberty Christian isn’t the only private school in the Tri-Cities that’s expanding to meet demand.

The 500-student Calvary Christian School is adding junior and senior grade levels, and building a sports field off West 10th Avenue, according to the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business.

And Tri-Cities Prep Catholic High School has begun filing permits to add 83,000 square feet of classroom space and facilities to its Pasco campus over the coming years.

Private school, homeschooling

The boom in alternative learning has been in part to blame for an ongoing enrollment crisis and public school budgeting shortfalls seen nationwide, after swarms of parents pulled students out of public schools during the COVID pandemic in favor of alternative in-person learning opportunities.

Private school enrollment locally rose at least 17% between 2018 and 2022, according to public data from the Washington State Board of Education.

And home-based instruction saw a 33% bump between 2019 and 2022, per data from the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Three-fourths of that growth were students who left the Kennewick School District.

Today, 2,500 Tri-City students attend private school and 1,000 are home schooled.

Educators say parents and legal guardians are making the shift for a variety of reasons, including politics, religious beliefs and program offerings.

Many private schools also were able to accommodate an earlier return to in-person learning during the pandemic.

Jen Garrison Stuber, advocacy chair for the Washington Homeschool Organization, said the number of students receiving home-based instruction nearly doubled between 2019 and 2020, although that number fell sharply in the following years.

Parents choose to home school for multiple reasons, including vaccine choice, assistance with mental health, social reasons, to give specified instruction or special education, or other reasons, she said.

Meanwhile, Tri-City public school administrators still don’t know where hundreds of students went during the pandemic. While Richland School District enrollment has returned to pre-pandemic levels, Kennewick and Pasco haven’t fully bounced back yet.

But alternatives are only partly to blame for public school enrollment woes — changes in demographics, declining fertility rates and chronic truancy problems also play a part.

It’s also possible parents are turning their students away from kindergarten since school is optional for students until they turn 8.

Public school remains the most popular and affordable option for most Tri-City parents, with nearly 53,000 kids enrolled this year. The state on average spends about $17,000 annually to educate public school students.

Garrison Stuber said public schools are placing road blocks in front of home schooled students — including holding them behind in grades and not accepting outside credits — that make returning difficult.

“I don’t understand why schools aren’t bending over backwards to allow any student who wants to come back to do so,” she said. “If they want the students back, they sure aren’t acting like it.”

Diversity initiatives

Liberty Christian School is entering its 44th year of ministry.

Its mission — to provide “biblically-based education, marked by academic excellence in a nurturing environment” — has largely gone unchanged in that time, Cochran said.

“There’s been wave after wave of variables that have brought people to us,” Cochran said, and it wasn’t just controversy around COVID, critical race theory or comprehensive sex education.

In 2017, Liberty Christian implemented an initiative to make school more accessible and to diversify the student body.

They dropped annual re-enrollment requirements and implemented a continuous enrollment model, assuming most students and families would decide to continue their education there.

Liberty Christian also started a variable tuition plan where families can get a discount matching the amount they’re able to pay. So far, the school has given out about $1 million in discounts.

Cochran has been in Christian education for about 40 years, and has led the school for about a decade.

He said he sees similarities today with paradigm shifts at the height of the Christian school trend in the early 2000s.

Culture, politics and technology are all changing at breakneck speeds, while Christian-based private school instruction is slower to the catch.

“I think people are looking around and saying, ‘What do we want for our kids,’” he said.