From Empty Classrooms to Thriving Schools: Ohio’s Christian Education Movement

Nathan Sanders: Well, hello, everyone. Welcome back to Sunday School Choice, Where Faith Meets Education Freedom. My name is Nathan Sanders, the host of this podcast, and it’s good to be back.

I’m so blessed to be joined by my friend Troy McIntosh today. He is with the Ohio Christian Education Network. They do lots of wonderful work there in the state of Ohio.

They’re affiliated with the Center for Christian Virtue, who also does wonderful work. Troy, welcome to the podcast.

Troy McIntosh: Great to be here, Nathan. Thank you.

Nathan Sanders: Absolutely. Well, Troy, I will go right into it. Tell us a little bit about who you are, the work that you do in Ohio, and we’d love to hear about all the wonderful things you guys are up to.

Troy McIntosh: Sure. So the Ohio Christian Education Network is a coalition of 204 Catholic and evangelical schools in Ohio. Our network does a number of things.

We do public policy advocacy on their behalf. So I’m a lobbyist. We have a staff of lobbyists here.

We’re nestled, as you mentioned, within a large organization called Center for Christian Virtue that is Ohio’s largest Christian public policy group in Ohio. So we do policy work on behalf of Christian schools to give them a place at the table when important education decisions are being made in the General Assembly. We also run a scholarship-granting organization, taking advantage of state tax credit in Ohio.

And the third thing that I think is the topic of conversation today is we provide free consulting services to churches that want to start Christian schools, either in their facilities or somewhere in their community.

Nathan Sanders: Yeah, absolutely. And as you know, Troy, us at EdChoice, we’re huge fans of the scholarships and the vouchers and tax credits that you guys have in the state. We think that makes a tremendous—it’s a tremendous positive in students’ lives being able to access a school that fits them.

And so we’re big fans of that. We’re big fans of you guys and the work that you guys are doing. So let’s just jump right into it.

I just want to start with a bigger picture. So what inspired you yourself and also the work that you do in Ohio, the work that you do with the Center for Christian Virtue? What inspired you and the organization to start these initiatives?

Troy McIntosh: Yeah. So back in 2018, I was a head of school at a Christian school, one of the largest Christian schools in Ohio. And we started to see all these policy issues pressing in on us.

And we started to talk among ourselves, among other schools, about the need to have somebody who would be able to advocate and lobby for us. At the same time, Aaron Baer, who’s the president of Center for Christian Virtue, began to realize that so many of the issues that they were dealing with were downstream issues from education. And so he began to see the importance and value of Christian education forming Citizens of Ohio that would help avoid a lot of the problems like abortion or legalized marijuana or the gambling expansion that’s trying to take place here in Ohio now.

And so he saw within his organization the need to begin supporting Christian schools. So those two things really dovetailed together. And in 2018, the Ohio Christian Education Network was formed within CCV, and my school became one of the founding members of that.

And it’s grown to over 200 schools in the last seven years. And so really, it’s just trying to help provide a climate, a landscape legally, legislatively, in terms of education freedom that allows Christian education to flourish in Ohio and allows its reach to reach the maximum number of students that we can.

Nathan Sanders: Yeah, well, that’s incredible work. So you guys offer sort of a consultation with folks interested in starting schools. And so what, briefly, just like what does that look like from that first conversation of, hey, I’m interested in doing this to let’s open the doors to your school?

Troy McIntosh: Yeah. So one of the things that we’re blessed in Ohio is, as you mentioned, we have pretty robust school choice programs in Ohio. So we have a voucher program that every student’s eligible for.

And then we have this tax credit scholarship program that students can stack on top of the voucher. So in a lot of ways, we’ve been able to take the financial barriers to attending a Christian school out of the picture. The remaining barrier is largely a geographic or accessibility one.

We have to make sure that every school has a real option in their area. And we know even now, there are parts of the state that, due to low population density, there’s no Christian school in the immediate vicinity for a student to attend. Or in the case of an urban area, they’re just locked in and it’s difficult to get to the other side of town to attend a school.

So we are now trying to solve that second piece, which is making sure that every student has a real high quality Christian education option available to them. And that means we’re going to have to start and open more schools. So we’re going to need to help expand the ones that exist and open new schools in areas that are currently underserved.

So what we did was we started this program where we will partner mostly with local churches, but not always. Sometimes they can just be a group of parents that want to help start a new school in their community. We will provide free consulting services that walk them through the entire process of from idea generation to opening on the first day of school.

It’s called our School Planting Program. David Arrell is our assistant director who is in charge of that program. Both Dave and I have been Christian school administrators for far longer than we probably want to admit.

So we’re able to pull on that experience because a lot of times the groups that we’re working with, they have educators perhaps in the group. Some of them are just parents or pastors who are interested. And so we bring hope to bring our expertise to them.

So it really looks like they contact us and say, hey, we live in this particular town. We don’t have a Christian school within 30 minutes anywhere, but we have space in our church. And so we want to open a Christian school.

And so we start initial consult meetings with them, mainly David doing this. And he’ll sit down, he’ll talk with them about the idea of what does it mean to have a Christian school? And really from the very beginning, forming in the planning team, the idea of how is a Christian school distinct from just another public school option?

Which is a huge component to having a quality Christian school. And so we have a number of tools that we provide schools. You mentioned we have a manual that we provide them.

We have kind of a workflow spreadsheet that has almost every step you can think of, every detail in starting a school listed out with project timelines and responsibilities. And it’s just a workflow machine that we work with them on. One of the big pieces of what we do is help them get their charter from the state of Ohio.

Now in Ohio, I want to be clear, it’s very friendly to school choice, but in order for a student to qualify for an EdChoice scholarship, they have to be enrolled in what Ohio calls a chartered non-public school. It’s different from what the rest of the country thinks of when they think of charter schools. The rest of the country, charter schools are publicly funded and they’re considered public schools.

Any student can attend and it can’t be religious. As a matter of fact, the Supreme Court just this week struck down that possibility. But in Ohio, they charter non-public schools.

And if a school receives that charter, then they can receive a student on that EdChoice scholarship. And so it’s about a 12 month process that we walk them through to complete their plan of compliance. A lot of ways think of it as an accreditation process that we walk them through.

So it goes through things like health and safety compliance, putting a curriculum together, developing school board manuals, parent student manuals, putting a calendar together, hiring your staff, making sure they have appropriate credentials. So it’s really about a 12 month process. And we walk them through that entire thing.

And so that, you know, when summer rolls around and they’re getting ready to open in the fall, they have access to all the benefits that come with being chartered by the state.

Nathan Sanders: Yeah. And I think that’s so important, that work that oftentimes kind of just gets looked over the very small, you know, meticulous details of step-by-step. Because the last couple of years working at EdChoice, I’ve talked with a ton of pastors and church leaders and just folks who are just generally interested in this process.

And the first thing they’ll ask is, Hey, I’m all on board with school choice. I’m all on board with wanting to start my own school one day, but like, I don’t know where to start. I don’t know where to go.

I need some type of process. And that’s where I think, as you mentioned in your, in your statement before, I think that’s why school choice programs are so important because oftentimes they may have the will to do it, but they may not have some of the resources and bandwidth to do it. And I think school choice programs stepping in can provide a lot of that financial assistance, but also having that step-by-step guide of practical, you know, month-by-month checklists.

I think that it’s 80% of the worry and stress in starting a school can be satisfied with that. So it’s so important, and I commend you guys for having that resource and free consultation with folks.

Troy McIntosh: So we’ve launched two schools so far. Both are here in Columbus, one west side Christian school on the west side in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city, a high crime rate, a high single family constitution. The local area, the year we launched the three local public elementary schools, none of them had a third grade reading passage rate in Ohio higher than 5%.

They were just incredibly destructive schools. And so we launched them. This is their third year of operation now.

They’re up to about 80 students, probably pushing 100 next year. And our test scores are incredible. I mean, it’s an incredible success story on the west side.

On the east side, we’ve opened Crown Preparatory Academy. They’re in their second year. They’ve gone from 12 students in year one to about 36 in year two, and probably around 60 next year with some of the same stories.

These are almost all low-income students that we really feel like have been given new life, a new hope, and so many success stories coming out of it in terms of students’ lives being changed, parents in tears at the end of school because this is the first time their kids ever actually enjoyed coming to school. So just incredible some of the way we’re seeing lives being changed through this. We hope to launch eight this fall, and we’ve got a total of about 44 in the pipeline for subsequent years.

Nathan Sanders: That’s incredible. Amen to that. I love to hear that.

So a good segue to my next question is, you talked a little bit about what’s going on in the classroom academically, which is incredible work. I want to talk a little bit about, in the manual specifically, it talks a little bit about adding a Bible class isn’t necessarily the goal, right? The goal is creating that distinct Christian culture in the school.

So what does that look like in practice, and why is that so important to the work you guys are doing?

Troy McIntosh: Yeah, that’s a great question because it gets to the heart of what Christian education is all about, right? And so the whole point of a Christian education is to lead a student to a deeper and greater love for God Himself. Yeah.

And that encompasses really every area of academic studies. When we look at something, like one of the verses that I always love to talk about is Ephesians 1, 22 and 23, when Paul describes us, he says, we are His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way. And so that idea that Christ’s presence inhabits every aspect of the universe, His fullness inhabits it, that means that every area of the universe is open to our study, because by learning math, by learning physics, by learning history or literature or art or music, all of those things are filled with God’s presence.

And so that allows the learner to be shaped more into Christ’s image through that learning process. And that’s really what Christian schools are all about. We want fully developed disciples who can see every aspect of their lives as falling under the sovereignty of Christ.

That’s the distinctive that Christian education brings. I know I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it in my life, and I think I’ve seen it in my kids’ lives and the lives of so many of the students that I’ve been able to observe over the years.

Nathan Sanders: Yeah, that’s incredible. So to that, I mean, what role does discipleship play in the schools when it comes to teaching and the staff that you guys have there? What does that look like?

Troy McIntosh: Yeah, so one of the things that I would always talk about with our faculty is your act of teaching is your primary method of discipleship. Right? So if you’re a math teacher, your primary role of discipleship with your students is actually through your math curriculum.

Now, we obviously, we had other discipleship programs. We would have Bible studies and chapel services and so forth, and those were important. But I wanted to make sure that our faculty understood that their teaching is not separate from discipleship.

Their teaching is actually the primary method of their discipleship, and that was true regardless of what subject area they taught. It wasn’t just the Bible teachers who had that as a truth. So again, when I taught, I was an elementary teacher, and one of the things I would always tell my students is whenever you learn something new that you didn’t know before, long division, how the water cycle works, whenever you learn something you didn’t know before, you actually reflect Christ’s character more because all of those things were things that He already knew.

So you begin to shape your mind in the same form that His mind is shaped, right? And so that’s, I think, the understanding that, and this is something that churches often miss. They tend to see academic study as something that’s separate from discipleship, and a kid can go to get a secular education, and as long as they have a good Sunday school or youth program, then they’ll be fine.

Well, a lot of people do turn out fine. I don’t want to diminish that, but that’s not what education is to be about. Education has to be fully integrated with a student’s discipleship for either of them to be fully developed.

Nathan Sanders: Yeah. So one of my first school tours I’ve ever did as a professional, I was actually not even with EdChoice yet. It was my previous organization, and it was a Christian school.

I believe it was just a non-denominational Christian school in Opelousas, Louisiana. And we’re doing this tour, and this school was on the Louisiana scholarship program, the voucher program that the state has. And I was walking through the halls, and it was a lower grade, maybe first or second grade classrooms.

And outside of the classrooms, there’s just papers on the wall that the students had created. It’s like an art project, but the prompt was, why do you like your school or something like that? And over half of them were, I like going to chapel.

I like singing praise and worship. I like learning about God. These simple, but extraordinary explanations of, oh, this school is successful, and these kids are doing well because they’ve integrated academic learning with a church-based perspective on everything.

And that’s why these kids love coming to school. Yeah.

Troy McIntosh: And here’s the great thing for churches to know, and pastors especially, is when a student begins to make those connections between their academic life and their spiritual life, things start to happen that otherwise don’t. When Westside Christians opened three years ago, again, this was the church that was hosting it was fantastic. But what the church was realizing before the school opened is most of their congregants weren’t coming from the neighborhood.

You know, the neighborhood and kind of demographics had changed over the years. People had moved to the suburbs, and so members were coming from the suburbs, even though the church was in the city, and the neighborhood families weren’t coming. But when the school opened, in a matter of three months, the church’s AWANA program and youth departments tripled in size.

Wow. And I asked the pastor, what do you attribute that to? He said, 100% to the school, because for the first time, kids were coming and having a good experience in the school.

The parents knew that they were being cared for, and they began to see connections to the church. These were largely unchurched kids, but they began to see connections between what they were learning at school and faith and church. And so it drew them naturally into that, and it completely changed how the church was operating and the work that it was doing.

Nathan Sanders: Wow. Yeah, that’s a huge blessing. I try to, you know, in my humble experience, I try to, when I’m talking to pastors or even folks who are interested in starting the schools, I say, this is about the student ministry, academic education, but it’s also about the broader picture of, you know, these kids have families, they have siblings, and ultimately there’s going to be some intersection of school and church, because it’s all one and the same. And so, yeah, I think that’s a huge blessing that lots of folks maybe don’t realize yet, which is awesome. Well, Troy, we’re coming up pretty close to time.

I do want to ask you one last question as a final two-part question, which is, one, so for pastors and church leaders listening to this who are on the fence about everything we’ve been talking about, about starting the school, what message would you have to them who feel called but unsure? And I think a second part to that, if someone’s listening and they are stirred by this mission, stirred by this call, what are the first steps? How do they get started with you guys?

Troy McIntosh: Yeah, so I’m sure nearly every pastor across Ohio and across the country wants the students who, the kids who are in their church or in their community to understand the gospel and to be growing in that, right? That’s universally true. I think a lot of them miss, what they miss is what role schools could be playing, right?

So they have, at best, let’s say three hours a week. They might have an hour and a half on a Sunday morning with these kids and maybe an hour and a half for a youth program on Sunday night or during the week. And yet they have this building that has classrooms in it often that sits empty, maybe five, six days a week.

The idea of opening a school and placing it in their facility that already exists and gain access to students for 30 to 35 more hours a week, being able to disciple them through an academic program and in so many other ways is, in my opinion, the best return on investment they can make. We tell churches for $100,000 you can get started. That’s part of how we help them do that.

So I just encourage pastors to begin considering with your board of elders, your deacons, your leadership team, your congregation. Is this something that would benefit the students in our church and in our community? And I think the answer would almost certainly be yes.

And if they come to that conclusion, then obviously we’re based in Ohio, so we work primarily with Ohio churches. If you’re based in Ohio and reach out to us, but even if you’re not based in Ohio and reach out to us, we can at least try to connect you with some people who can help. You can contact us at, just email us.

I can give you David’s email address. It’s just David, A-R-R-E-L-L at ccv.org. Email us and we’ll be happy to make connections and start to talk with you about how you can start a Christian school.

It’s definitely doable. It’s work. There’s no doubt about it, but the payoff is incredible.

And while we’re in Ohio, one of the great things is two weeks ago, we just announced that we were launching similar Christian education networks in other states. So our plan, we formed the United States Christian Education Network, and our ultimate goal is to take what we’ve done here in Ohio and copy that in all 50 states. So we hope to have about six to eight states networks launched this fall doing the same work that I’ve talked about here already.

Nathan Sanders: Well, that’s incredible. And likewise, to those listening, if you’re interested in reaching out to Troy or CTV, you can reach out to us and we’re happy to connect you with Troy and folks in the CCV network. Troy, thank you so much for all the work that you guys are doing.

It sounds like a huge blessing. And I’m just happy that we get to have this conversation and continue these conversations throughout the months and years. And so thank you for joining us today.

We would love to have you back anytime. And is there anything else, closing statement that you want to leave with those listening?

Troy McIntosh: Well, same to you. I mean, we appreciate the work that EdChoice does in the space for educational freedom, because I know Ohio has benefited greatly from it, and I’m sure other states are doing the same. So keep up the good work.

Nathan Sanders: Well, thank you, Troy. Likewise, keep up the great work. All right.

For those listening, this has been another episode of Sunday School Choice with our friend Troy McIntosh. I think it’s been a pretty great episode. So please listen, share it with your friends, share it with your Christian network, your school network, and then we hope that it’s just a blessing to you guys and you learned something from it.

So until next time, thanks for joining us.