We are starting the re-enrollment and registration process for the 2026-27 school term, and we already have a growing number of families re-enrolling to hold down their child's spot for the next school year. We anticipate complete capacity in as many as five different grade levels, and that the new families who enroll in the month of March may be the only ones who get an opening, since about 95% of our currently enrolled students return for the following year.
For a small, Pre-K to 8th grade Christian school in the urban setting of northwest Chicago, MCA offers a lot of advantages to its students and their parents. Among private, religious-based schools in this part of the city, our tuition and fees are among the very lowest for a school that offers full accreditation. Accreditation is a mark of excellence, in both the spiritual atmosphere and the academic curriculum offered at MCA, given by peers who have measured us by a rigorous set of standards, and determined that we are in compliance. We are fully accredited, and Illinois Recognized, which means that every aspect of our school's program meets or exceeds the expected standards.
The average tuition and fees for a year at a private, religious-based school in Chicago is now $12,000 per year. And as some of our graduating eighth grade families are discovering, Christian high school can run as much as $18,000.
There are two groups of people who make this possible for our parents and students. The members of Midwest Bible Church, who consider MCA one of their church ministries, owns our school facilities, which are debt-free, and they do not charge us a lease or rent for their use. This saves each student approximately $1,800 per year in tuition costs. Our school faculty and staff, who also consider this ministry service, are willing to work at salaries which are much less than their counterparts in public education. Every teacher here has the required credentials and certifiction to teach where they are, and this discount that they extend to our students is worth more than $2,000 per year in tuition and fees, depending, of course, on the salaries with which we compare our own. I can point to a couple of Christian schools nearby where the tuition is almost double ours, who pay their teachers about 105 more than we do. So this is a big savings to our families from those who are teaching their children in the classroom.
Our Iowa Test scores provide data to support the claim that our academic program is excellent, and exceeds expectations. Our students consistently score from 12% to 16% higher than their peers, nationally, on this standardized achievement test recognized as one of the top annual assessments of academic progress. Students who have been enrolled at MCA for most of their elementary years show proficiency levels in core subjects like math and English language skills that far exceed their public and charter school peers.
But solid academics aren't the only reason parents want their children at MCA. There is a spiritual dimension to the education we provide, which actually includes biblical studies with a focus on more than just entertaining Bible stories. Across the United States, we are seeing up to 80% of the youth and children raised in Evangelical churches abandon their convictions and leave the church by the time they graduate from college. We are committed to teaching a Bible curriculum which includes apologetics, the ability to defend their faith, and the ability to answer the skeptical questions which often defeat those who aren't spiritually or Biblically equipped to answer them.
One of our ministries is to support and undergird the ministry of the local church by providing a full scope of Christian discipleship to our children, to lead them to understand their ministy as a member of a local church, and to be able to stand up to challenges to their faith with Biblical scholarship.
Interpreting and applying the principles of scripture goes a long way toward developing a solid faith commitment through the church, the body of Christ. We are constantly examining our Bible teaching so that our students get more than just a few object lessons from some old stories and some comfort from understanding how God worked in the past. We want our students to understand and be able to explain why the Bible is the authoritative and written word of a living God who wants to redeem the world with the Christ he sent to save it. And all of our students can hear that taught every day of the school year.
So as you look at your calendar, make plans to submit your re-enrollment and be on board for the 2026-27 school term at Midwestern Christian Academy.
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