Managing a school budget is no small task. With more than 400 expense accounts and more than 160 employees, it costs nearly $50,000/day to run Valley Christian Schools. Our annual budgeting process is robust; here’s a glimpse into how it works:

• December: the Head of School and Executive Director of Business Affairs put together preliminary enrollment projections and an initial estimate of our next-year expenses, in collaboration with our Admissions, Marketing and Communications, and Accounting teams, along with all of our department Directors.
• December/January: Our Finance Committee, made up of Board members, VCS parents, the Head of School, and the Executive Director of Business Affairs, review an abundance of information, including: our historical enrollment, projected enrollment over the next 5 years, expected retention, a nearby zip code analysis, a comparative analysis of local Christian schools, a review of our current-year (23-24) budget progress, our historical teacher pay, a comparative analysis of teacher and staff pay in other Christian schools and public schools, recommended tuition updates from our accrediting agency, our currently planned capital expenditures and maintenance plan, our long-term financial sustainability goals, and tuition recommendations, among other things.
• January: After this review and discussion, including significant collaboration and prayer, the Finance Committee officially recommends specific tuition amounts for the following year, presenting these findings and recommendation to our Board of Directors. Board members are then able to review the overall analysis, ask questions to the Finance Committee, and review the research, eventually approving the next-year tuition amounts.
• January-April: The school spends the next few months updating each of the items above, as needed (projections, enrollment numbers, etc).
• April-May: A preliminary budget for the next school year is prepared by the Head of School, Executive Director of Business Affairs, and Finance Committee that provides the resources VCS needs to successfully fulfill its mission.
• June: The VCS Board approves the proposed budget for the following school year.
• Late August: Since enrollment and tuition drive ~92% of our revenue, we review the year’s budget at the end of August (2-3 weeks after school starts). Specific budget items are adjusted up or down, as needed, and the rest of the school year then operates on the final iteration of the budget. A few months later, the budgeting process begins again for the following year.

2024-25 VCS Tuition

More information re: VCS tuition can be found on our Tuition & Financial Aid page. 

VCS teachers are our #1 resource and are compensated based on their total years of experience and academic credentials. Teacher and staff salaries are funded completely by tuition dollars, and 60-70% of our annual budget is made up of salaries.

Employee compensation at VCS includes a competitive salary, one of the most generous time-off policies in Arizona, a highly competitive medical insurance benefit, dental and vision insurance opportunities, a matching 401(k), a tuition discount for staff students, and the opportunity to serve in a ministry context that is near and dear to our employees’ hearts. We do our best to compensate our employees competitively for their work. As is the case for most Christian schools, our teacher salaries are generally 80-90% of the salary of the local public schools.

VCS offers three different types of discounts to our families in order to make a VCS education as affordable as possible:

• Courtesy discounts
• Competitive scholarships
• Internal financial aid

Courtesy discounts are “stackable,” meaning that families may receive both an alumni discount and a multi-student discount, if they qualify for each. Courtesy discounts include (read more here):

• VCS Staff Student discount
• Pastor discount
• Alumni discount
• Sibling/multi-student discount
• Christian educator discount

Competitive scholarships are provided from the earnings of multiple endowment funds. These range from one-time $1,000 scholarships to $6,000 scholarships over three years. More information can be found on our Endowment page.

Internal financial aid is provided by VCS out of our operating budget, dispersed based on financial need through FACTS Grants & Aid Assessment.

In total, VCS provides more than $1,100,000 each year in courtesy discounts, competitive scholarships, and internal financial aid each year to our families. This is in addition to other funding sources like STOs and ESAs.

In an era where larger schools are employing more and more non-classroom staff, VCS is insistent on employing more teaching and classroom staff than non-classroom staff. After all, teachers are the lifeblood of what we do.

• Our target is to employ ~55% classroom staff and ~45% non-classroom staff.
• In 2024-25, VCS employs 56.2% classroom staff.
• By comparison, public schools in AZ employ 46.0% classroom staff (nces.ed.gov).

As an-IRS registered 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, VCS submits public 990s after each fiscal year. These documents are publicly accessible on websites like Candid, Pro Publica, Cause IQ, and more.

As a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, all revenues must be used toward the operation of VCS. Our goal is to budget to approximately $0 after all of our expenses and facility investments; in cases where we are able to produce a small reserve in any given year, those dollars are invested directly back into our students and facilities. There are no shareholders and no earnings that would benefit a director, officer, or private individual at VCS. This also means that no individual owns, nor has an equity stake in, the organization. This allows us to completely and continuously focus the entirety of our budget on our students and families.

As communicated to VCS parents on May 23, 2024

In our ongoing effort to best equip students to be culture changers for Christ, we regularly evaluate our systems, processes, and schedules. Over the past few years, our K-8 programs have released early on Fridays, while our high school program has fluctuated between a late Monday start, early release on Wednesday, and early release on Friday. After significant discussion and planning, we are adjusting our early release for all grade levels from Fridays to Wednesdays for the 2024-25 academic year.

The primary motivation for this change is to best equip and prepare students. The school primarily utilizes early release days to provide collaboration, professional development, and training for our staff. Currently, Friday early releases provide stunted and disconnected opportunities for each, while also resulting in high absenteeism for students. Wednesday early release will allow teachers to make adjustments and/or pivot mid-week, based on the first three days of weekly instruction and collaboration with their peers. These critical times for collaboration will allow teachers to make immediate/next-day adjustments to their instruction instead of three days later. This also allows our dedicated teachers, lifelong learners themselves, to experience professional development while their minds are fresh and to implement these learnings right away for the benefit of VCS students. Ultimately, this update helps us to better accomplish our core value of pursuing excellence, and benefits our organizational goals of measuring everything, classroom as core, and teamwork & collaboration.

For 2023-24, K-4 grade levels had early release on Fridays at 2:00pm, and 5-12 grade levels had early release on Fridays at 2:10pm.
For 2024-25, K-8 grade levels will release at 1:30pm on Wednesdays, and high school grade levels will release at 2:10pm on Wednesdays.

Although we do not anticipate eliminating all “half days” throughout the school year, this change also gives us the opportunity to evaluate and consider these days, as we work to create as few weekly disruptions as possible.