Founder's guide

How to start a classical Christian school: the grade-a-year plan, the church you meet in, the board, and the state

Open with the grammar school, add a grade every fall, and open the logic and rhetoric schools when your oldest class gets there. Here is that plan in the order it runs, with the parts founders meet along the way: the subject list, the church, the board, accreditation, and the state's scholarship money.

By the Pearspark team · Updated October 19, 2026 · About 14 minutes

In short

To start a classical Christian school, open with the grammar school (kindergarten to fifth or sixth grade), add one grade each fall, and open the logic school when the oldest class reaches sixth grade and the rhetoric school at ninth. Put the agreement with the church in writing, settle the subject list and the virtues before the first report card, seat a board that sees enrollment, attendance and money every month, and decide about state scholarships before the first family enrolls. Accreditation comes later, from ACCS, SCL or a regional accreditor.

The grade-a-year plan

A school that opens K–12 on day one needs twelve teachers, a high-school transcript it has never printed, and a senior class that chose it on faith. A school that opens with the grammar school needs six teachers and gets a year of practice before each new thing. Here is the plan in the order it runs.

Open with the grammar school. Kindergarten through fifth or sixth grade is the grammar stage. Dorothy Sayers, whose 1947 Oxford lecture the movement reads as its founding essay, called it the Poll-Parrot age, when learning by heart is easy, and matched it to grammar. The founding class is small on purpose: the families who enroll on trust are the ones who bring the next families.
Add one grade each fall by promoting the oldest class. Your sixth graders become seventh graders; you hire one teacher and write one more year of curriculum. The handbook, the schedule and the report card grow a grade at a time instead of being invented whole.
Open the logic school when the oldest class reaches sixth grade. Sayers put dialectic at about twelve to fourteen, the Pert age of contradicting and answering back. In the office it is the year teachers ask for quarters, weighted categories, and a conduct section the handbook can stand behind.
Open the rhetoric school when that class reaches ninth grade. Sayers put rhetoric at about fourteen. This is the year the transcript starts, so the grade scale, the credit rule and the graduation requirements have to be written before the first ninth grader's first term grade is posted, not before the first senior graduates.
Graduate the first class four years later. If you opened with K–5, the first seniors walk in your eighth June. Their transcript is right because every grade on it was posted the term it was earned.
Keep the K–12 commitment in writing. ACCS asks member schools to serve some combination of grades K–12, to commit to providing or finding a path to full K–12 classical Christian education, and to teach at least two years of Latin or ancient Greek, one year of formal logic and one year of rhetoric; a transitional membership waives the last two requirements for five years. Whether or not you join, the plan above meets them by the time the first class graduates.

The ladder, year by year, if you open with kindergarten through fifth

The right-hand column is what the office needs before August of that year, which is always a year before the classroom needs it.

Year	Grades	What opens	What the office needs before August
1	K–5	The grammar school	The enrollment agreement, the handbook, a subject list per grade, a checklist or letter-grade report card, attendance taken from the first day
2	K–6	The logic school	Quarters or semesters, grade scales with weighted categories, a conduct or virtues section, Logic on the subject list
4	K–8	The whole logic school	Service hours if you require them, the eighth-grade promotion, and an answer for the first family that asks about high school
5	K–9	The rhetoric school	The grade scale and credit rule, graduation requirements, honors weighting, Rhetoric on the subject list, and a transcript printed once to check it
8	K–12	The first seniors	Transcripts for college applications, a diploma, the first alumni record, and the accreditation file you opened in year one

Opening with K–6 shortens the ladder by a year. Opening with K–3 lengthens it by two and keeps the first class small for longer, which is sometimes the point.

Latin and the subject list

Latin is the mark of the school. ACCS membership asks for at least two years of Latin or ancient Greek before graduation, and Sayers wanted it begun as early as possible, calling it the best grounding for education. Choose the grade Latin starts and write it down, because a subject list is also a hiring plan: a Latin teacher for third grade is a different hire from one for seventh.

Write one subject list per stage, not one for the school. The grammar school's list is short and daily: reading, writing, grammar, arithmetic, Latin, history, science, Bible, music, art. The logic school adds formal logic and splits history from literature. The rhetoric school adds rhetoric, a senior thesis or oration, and whatever language follows Latin. In Pearspark the classical starter list names Latin and Logic on the first screen, you add or delete rows to match your own list, and that list is what the gradebook, the report card and the transcript all read from.

Name courses on the transcript the way a college registrar reads them. Latin I, Logic and Rhetoric transfer on their names; Omnibus III needs a course description beside it. Pearspark carries a description on every class and prints the transcript from the posted grades, so the description is written once and travels with the course.

Bible and chapel as courses

Bible is a course. Give it a teacher, a place on the weekly schedule, a grade or a checklist, and a line on the report card, the same as history. A school that treats Bible as an assembly cannot show a family what their child learned in it, and cannot put it on the transcript, where a Christian college will look for it.

Chapel is a period, not a break. Put it on the weekly schedule as its own period with the whole school enrolled and take attendance in it, and the year's chapel record is there when a scholarship program or an accreditor asks about instructional time. Holy days go on the school calendar once, as closures; in Pearspark the rotation, the lesson planner and bumped lessons all flow around them.

The virtues on the report card

ACCS describes classical Christian education as cultivating the seven Christian virtues. On a report card that becomes a conduct section with a scale of your own, and it is the section families read first.

Choose the virtues before the first report card, and keep the list the same from kindergarten to eighth grade, so a family reads the same six words for nine years. Pearspark's classical starter rows are Attentiveness, Diligence, Respect, Responsibility, Orderliness and Self-Control; rename the section (Christian Character, Core Virtues) and type your own rows and levels.
Choose a scale that is not a grade. Excellent, Satisfactory, Needs Improvement says what you mean; a B in Diligence does not. In Pearspark the scale is a school setting and each mark stores its full label, so editing the scale later never rewrites an old card.
Decide who marks it. The homeroom teacher in the grammar school; every teacher, or an advisor, in the logic school. Write that into the staff handbook before the first quarter ends.
Keep it off the transcript. The virtues belong on the report card a family keeps; the transcript a college reads carries courses, marks and credits. Pearspark prints both from the same posted grades and leaves the conduct section on the card.

Meeting in a church

Of the microschools the National Microschooling Center surveyed in 2025, 29% met in houses of worship. A church is a generous first home. The written agreement is what keeps it one.

A written agreement, signed by the church's board and yours, before the first desk arrives. Term and renewal, rent or cost sharing, which rooms on which days and hours, who buys and owns the furniture, who repairs what, who insures what and names whom as an additional insured, the notice each side gives to leave, and what happens to the school's things if the church needs the rooms back. A handshake between friends is the agreement most likely to end the friendship.
Shared rooms need a Friday routine. Sunday school meets in your second-grade room. Agree what gets put away, where it is stored and who does it; buy rolling cabinets before you buy anything else; and photograph each room as you leave it for the first month, so the first complaint is about a fact.
Two calendars, one calendar. Holy Week, vacation Bible school, funerals, weddings, a polling station on election day, the church's own building work: get the church's year in writing in the spring and put every conflict on the school calendar as a closure or a move before you publish it to families.
Know whose school it is. A ministry of the church and a separately incorporated nonprofit that rents from the church are different legal things, with different boards, insurance, tax filings and endings. Decide which you are with counsel before you enroll a family, and write it into the agreement. The board section below says what the choice does to your federal filing.

Accreditation, stated plainly

Nobody needs accreditation to open. Several scholarship programs need it before they will pay (the table below says which), colleges read an accredited transcript with fewer questions, and the self-study is the most useful audit a young school ever does. The routes a classical Christian school usually weighs are the two classical bodies and the regional accreditors.

ACCS. Full membership is a prerequisite. A member school applies for candidacy, hosts a one-day pre-visit with the director of accreditation, has up to a year for a self-study against the published standards, then hosts a two-day visit by three experienced heads of school, with classroom visits and interviews of students, faculty, administration and board. Initial accreditation may be awarded for up to two years. ACCS says the whole process typically takes 18 months, within a range of 12 to 24, and suggests budgeting $7,000 for it. Startup membership, for a first-time member that has recently launched or not yet launched, is $500 for one year, after which the school moves to full membership. All of this is read from ACCS's own pages on 19 October 2026.

SCL. The Society for Classical Learning began accrediting in 2023, requires membership before a school starts, and reviews schools against eight standards with ten indicators each: Christian commitment, classical commitment, school culture, student experience, governance, executive leadership, finances and facilities, and advancement, supported by its playbooks. Its director's note of 16 October 2025 said it was entering its third year of accrediting and would visit 30 schools that year. Indiana's Department of Education memorandum of 10 December 2025, which recommended SCL for a five-year state recognition, records the fees SCL filed: a $600 application fee, $9,000 for preparation and the site visit, and an annual fee of 0.0014 times tuition times enrollment, on a five-year cycle for a school rated established or thriving on every standard. The same memorandum records SCL's state-level approvals in Arkansas (2024) and Missouri (2025) and its cooperative agreement with the Middle States Association, under which a school may be accredited by both through one process.

The regional and other accreditors. Iowa's list of approved independent accrediting agencies, which is the kind of list a scholarship program checks, names Cognia, the Middle States Association, ACS WASC, ACSI, Christian Schools International, ISACS, National Lutheran School Accreditation and the American Montessori Society alongside ACCS and SCL. Indiana recognises fourteen bodies for its program; Texas defers to the accreditors its private school accreditation commission recognises. A school that expects scholarship money picks its accreditor from its own state's list, not from this page.

When to start. Neither classical body publishes a minimum age for a school. Texas will not pay scholarship money to a campus with less than two years of continuous operation, and ACCS's process alone runs 12 to 24 months, so a school that wants scholarship families in year three opens the file in year one: the handbook, the board minutes, the financial policies and the curriculum map are the self-study, written early.

The board, and what it sees each month

A founder who teaches, runs admissions and chairs the board has three jobs and one point of failure. The board exists so the school outlives the founder's energy. Seat it before you open, give it the money and the enrollment every month, and keep it out of the classroom.

Incorporate, and know what that obliges you to file. The IRS does not require an annual return from a school below college level affiliated with a church or operated by a religious order. A separately incorporated 501(c)(3) school files the Form 990 or 990-EZ, or, with gross receipts normally $50,000 or less, the 990-N e-Postcard. Every exempt private school, filer or not, certifies each year that it does not discriminate by race: on Schedule E of the 990, or, for a school that files no 990, on Form 5578, due by the 15th day of the fifth month after the school's year ends.
Give the board five numbers a month: enrollment against last year and against the plan, by grade; the attendance rate by grade; receivables aging and the last six months of collections; the admissions funnel from inquiry to enrolled; and cash against budget from the bookkeeper. The first four are a school-system report. The fifth is an accounting report, and no school system should pretend to be the ledger. Pearspark's board pack prints the first four as one packet, a page per section.
Give the board the head's report under the same five headings every month, on one page. A board that reads the same page every month notices the month it changes.
Keep the board out of the gradebook. Board members are not staff. In Pearspark a board member gets a custom role that sees the reports and nothing else, and every view of a student record is logged, so who looked at this has an answer when a family asks.
Write the year's calendar of decisions: tuition set by January, re-enrollment opened in February, teachers' contracts out by March, the budget adopted by April, the financial review after June. A small school's board meets monthly because the decisions come monthly, and the calendar is what keeps a meeting from being a conversation.

State scholarship money: what a school does before it is paid, in the eleven states Pearspark's program registry covers

Every program pays schools differently and asks something different of them first. These rows are read from each program's statute, rules and handbook for Pearspark's in-product program registry, which was last researched between July and September 2026; the sources are at the foot of the page. Rules change every legislative session, so confirm the current ones with the program before you promise a family anything.

State	Program	Before the money moves
Arizona	Empowerment Scholarship Account	Register as an ESA vendor with the Department of Education and ClassWallet: a W-9, a tax ID, and a bank account verified before the registration counts. No accreditation, testing or curriculum approval is required; the school's duties are the seven-field invoice, fingerprinting staff with unsupervised student contact, and returning money it should not hold.
Arkansas	Education Freedom Accounts	Be accredited, an associate member of a State Board-recognised accreditor, or in the process of applying; a school under a year old posts a bond or brings a CPA's letter. The family links to the school in ClassWallet, and only then can the school invoice there. The department publishes a separate microschool application.
Florida	Florida Tax Credit and Family Empowerment Scholarships	Meet the state's private-school requirements under § 1002.421: a physical location with teachers in regular and direct contact, Level 2 background screening, teacher qualifications, and the annual compliance filing. Step Up For Students raises a quarterly invoice per student that the school and then the family approve, within 30 days.
Indiana	Choice Scholarship Program	Be accredited by the State Board or one of fourteen recognised agencies, apply one tuition and fee policy to everyone, and have each family sign the endorsement form, without which nothing is paid. Choice students sit the statewide assessments.
Iowa	Students First Education Savings Accounts	Be an accredited Iowa nonpublic school, by the state or by one of the approved agencies, which include ACCS and SCL. Registration comes to the school: Odyssey emails the contact named on the Department's accredited list, and the school confirms and connects its bank through Stripe. A newly accredited school appears after the Department's July 15 list refresh.
Louisiana	LA GATOR Scholarship Program	Sign the annual attestations: funds spent only on approved expenses, withdrawals reported within five calendar days, background checks on anyone with supervisory authority, a certificate of occupancy for every building, published discipline procedures, tuition reported annually, and the required assessments. Payments run through the Odyssey portal.
Ohio	EdChoice Scholarship and EdChoice Expansion	Be a chartered nonpublic school. A non-chartered school, including one under the religious exemption, cannot enroll a scholarship student. Chartering runs through the Department against the operating standards and takes a year or more, so it starts the year before. The school, not the family, submits the application.
South Carolina	Education Scholarship Trust Fund	Be organised as a nonprofit, apply to the Department as an Education Service Provider (rolling, year-round), then register with ClassWallet as a separate step: a school approved by the state but absent from ClassWallet cannot be paid. File a $50,000 surety bond before the school year.
Tennessee	Education Freedom Scholarship	Be a Category I, II or III non-public school located in Tennessee and register with the Department by its deadline, renewing each year. An award is final only when the school confirms the student in the portal by June 30.
Texas	Texas Education Freedom Accounts	Be accredited by a body recognised by the Texas Private School Accreditation Commission or the agency, with two years of continuous operation on the campus, in good standing on state taxes. The school swears its tuition and attestations in the Odyssey portal, confirms enrollment before each installment, and consents to audit.
Utah	Utah Fits All Scholarship	Give the program manager, Odyssey, a written tuition disclosure (costs, fees, refund policy) and a services disclosure, both public, and keep a public website with tuition and the refund policy on it. Refunds go to the program manager, never to the family. At 150 students and above, CPA solvency verification and fingerprint background checks apply.

Where Pearspark fits, and where it does not

Pearspark is the record of the school, and it is built for one that adds a grade a year: switch on the logic school's gradebook and the rhetoric school's transcript when you get there, and nothing you switched off is deleted. The lesson planner tags each lesson campus or home and publishes the week to families as one checklist, for a hybrid or four-day schedule. The report card is built from ready-made parts, so the kindergarten checklist and the eighth-grade letter-grade card are two designs on one system, with the virtues section on both. Transcripts add up credits, GPA and honors weighting from grades posted years earlier, with transfer credit attributed to the school that issued it. Each scholarship student gets a per-student ESA invoice with grade level and dates of service, and the program's settlement report imports in one step. The board pack prints monthly. What it does not do: the ledger, payroll, a curriculum, or the self-study.

Watch the pieces

Setting up home days, printing report cards and a transcript, naming the school as an ESA vendor, building the board pack, and rolling the year over to add the next grade. One short video each.

Video thumbnail: Set up Home Days for a hybrid schedule — Set up Home Days for a hybrid scheduleAdmins

Video thumbnail: Print report cards for a whole class — Print report cards for a whole classAdmins

Video thumbnail: Print a student's transcript — Print a student's transcriptAdmins

Video thumbnail: Set your ESA vendor name so families can find you — Set your ESA vendor name so families can find youAdmins

Video thumbnail: Build the board pack — Build the board packAdmins

Video thumbnail: Run the year-end rollover wizard — Run the year-end rollover wizardAdmins

Your state's rules for opening a private school, cited

The scholarship table says what a program asks before it pays. What the state asks before you open at all, how it classifies a private school and what it must file and keep, is on these pages, each requirement linked to its statute or rule. Six of the eleven scholarship states have one.

All state guides, with a note on the states they don't cover.

Common questions

What grades should a classical Christian school open with?

The grammar school: kindergarten through fifth or sixth grade. It needs the fewest teachers, the simplest report card and no transcript, and it gives you a year of practice before each new thing. Add one grade each fall by promoting the oldest class, open the logic school when that class reaches sixth grade and the rhetoric school when it reaches ninth, and graduate the first seniors four years after that.

When do the logic and rhetoric schools open?

When the oldest class gets there: the logic school at sixth grade and the rhetoric school at ninth, in the stages Dorothy Sayers set out in 1947 and the movement still uses. The office work comes a year earlier each time: quarters, weighted categories and a conduct section before sixth grade; the grade scale, the credit rule and the graduation requirements before the first ninth-grade term grade is posted.

Does a classical Christian school have to teach Latin?

To be a full ACCS member, yes: at least two years of Latin or ancient Greek, one year of formal logic and one year of rhetoric, with a five-year transitional membership that waives those for a new school. Outside ACCS nobody requires it, and Latin is still what families expect the word classical to mean. Decide the grade it starts before you print the first subject list.

Do we need accreditation to open?

No. You need it when a scholarship program requires it (Texas, Iowa, Indiana and Arkansas do in different forms, and Ohio requires a charter), and you want it when the first transcript goes to a college. ACCS requires full membership first and says the process typically takes 18 months; SCL requires membership and began accrediting in 2023; the regional and other bodies a state recognises are on that state's own list. Open the file in year one.

Can a school that meets in a church take ESA or scholarship money?

The building is not usually the question; the school's legal form and its accreditation are. A ministry of a church and a separately incorporated school are different entities to the state, the IRS and the scholarship program, so settle which you are with counsel first. Then read your program's row above: Arizona asks almost nothing of the school, Ohio requires a charter, and Texas requires accreditation and two years of operation.

What does the board need to see each month?

Five numbers and one page: enrollment against last year and the plan, by grade; the attendance rate by grade; receivables aging with six months of collections; the admissions funnel; and cash against budget from the bookkeeper, with the head's report under the same headings every month. Pearspark's board pack prints the first four. Keep board members out of the gradebook with a role that sees reports only.

Does a church-run school file a Form 990?

The IRS does not require an annual return from a school below college level affiliated with a church or operated by a religious order. A separately incorporated 501(c)(3) school files the 990, 990-EZ or, at $50,000 or less in gross receipts, the 990-N. Either way the school certifies its racial nondiscrimination policy every year, on Schedule E of the 990 or on Form 5578 by the 15th day of the fifth month after its year ends. We are not your accountants; confirm with yours.

How does Pearspark fit a school that adds a grade a year?

You switch on what the new grade needs when it arrives, and nothing you switched off is deleted: the gradebook with quarters and weights for the logic school, the transcript with credits and GPA for the rhetoric school, the per-student ESA invoice when the first scholarship family enrolls. The lesson planner's home days, the report card built per grade, transcripts with honors weighting, ESA invoices and reconciliation, and the monthly board pack are all in the one price.

Sources

Every figure on this page is read from the source linked below. Where no source could be found for a claim, the claim is not made.

The full comparison behind each row

Each one is sourced feature by feature and last reviewed September 2026.

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