Hi. My name is Jerry Nixon, and I serve on your FRCS Board of Directors. Last month, your faculty leaders, along with David Cooper, went away for their annual review of Early Childhood Education, Elementary School, Junior High School, and Senior High School – that’s everything. These are dedicated, mission-minded believers committed to what is best for your school, your teachers, and your students. The resulting goals will help fine-tune Front Range into a school that is better than yesterday and ready for tomorrow.

Also last month, the Board (this is my part of the story) circled a very large conference room table with a mess of coffee carafes for our own retreat. That day’s goals were far different from those of the faculty. As we are a governing board—as opposed to a working board—we are responsible for policy and oversight, not divisional goals and measures.

Of course, we managed our agenda to those ends, but the chunk of time we committed to connecting personally was poignant. You see, this is a Board of parents—God-fearing men and women filled with gratitude for the faith-filled education their own children have and are receiving at this school. My third daughter, Jeri Anna, graduated just last year.

What makes your Board “tick” matters, because each of us is a real person. We collectively bring a diverse family of views—unique in our backgrounds, while uniform in our love for Christ’s church and service through this school. More than once, we found ourselves with tears in our eyes, praying on the spot, and surprised by the similarity of our stories.

Eventually, we turned to business. I want to be careful saying that because a mission-oriented school like Front Range is far more than a business. But we aren’t less than that. So even talking through organizational things, we leave room for the Spirit to lead while encouraging operational excellence at every level.

This is just my second year serving, and if there is anything worth sharing, it’s this—it’s not a secret dumpster fire. I’ve been on other boards, and, well, you never know. Instead, what you have here is a functional, fiscal, and faithful family knit together by a crystal-clear vision to raise up Christian scholars. We also have a thoughtful and tireless gardener in our Head of School, a man who individually loves his staff while ensuring a challenging, safe, and rewarding workplace.

What I want to share with you right now is a glimpse into how incredibly challenging it can be to balance just a few competing interests. Every board member wants good things. Each of us advocates for different aspects of this school in a way that plainly shows God’s hand in our placement on this Board. Let me illustrate just how difficult and elusive balance can be.

But before I get into that, let us remember that God is Jehovah Jireh—“our Lord Provides”. He has proven Himself over and over to this school. Faithful families on their knees, faculty with the name of your student in their hearts, and a staff that lifts up and lays down impossible situations at the throne—these all make a difference. In this way, we are so much more than a business. And now let us look at some of the challenges we face.

Let’s start with just six important issues, and what we want to do with each:

The first issue is our mortgage.
We want to pay it off. Without the burden of our monthly payment, we could do amazing things. We are slave to our bank who holds over us several contractual obligations and a looming rate change.

The second issue is our campus.
We want to update everything. Our beautiful buildings are replete with opportunities for improvement. Our curb appeal is just the beginning; quality in classroom materials and resources is paramount.

The third issue is our size.
We want to serve as many students as possible. We raise up Christian Scholars in a world desperately needing them. With every empty desk, we see a missed opportunity to change our culture for Christ’s sake.

The fourth issue is wages.
We want to pay our faculty every penny they are worth. That means every kind of benefit we can imagine in response to the excellence they bring to the classroom and change to the lives of our students.

The fifth issue is tuition.
We want to drop tuition like a rock. We want to make Christian education available to every family—no matter their socioeconomic situation. We want to lift the burden of a private education in every way we can.

The sixth issue is culture.
We want, basically, what we have. We want our teachers to know our students and our students to experience the safe, family environment that has become the hallmark of our school.

Now let’s look at the challenge of solving these important issues together:

1. To pay off our mortgage, we’d need to raise tuition. Consequently, reducing tuition (issue five) is off the table as is diverting funds to our facility or faculty (issues two and four). It takes several years to raise millions of dollars, so the impact on our culture (issue six) will be real.
2. To update our campus, we’d need to create a multi-year capital improvement plan. Consequently, we can no longer pay down our mortgage (issue one), and lowering tuition (issue five) cannot happen. Faculty wages (issue four) don’t need to go down, but they certainly can’t go up.
3. To serve as many students as possible, what would happen if we increased our enrollment by 50% next year? Our facility (issue two) will be worn like never before, and our faculty worked like never before (negatively impacting issue four). And, honestly, our close, tight-knit culture (issue six) is probably up for grabs.
4. In order to bring our salaries on par with Jefferson County schools, we’d need to raise wages by 50%. This requires a dramatic tuition increase (issue five) and abandoning plans to pay down our mortgage (issue one). Also, facility improvements would have to paused (issue two).
5. Ideally, we’d love to cut tuition by 30%—we are already one of the lowest-priced private Christian schools in the area, and this cut would make us the lowest. In order to accomplish that, we’d need to cut faculty wages (issue four), get a second mortgage (issue one), and stop buying two-ply toilet paper (there is no specific issue associated with this one, but I guarantee there would be complaints).
6. To protect the culture of FRCS, we keep tuition the same to reach our current, healthy mix of families (issue five). We keep enrollment where it is (issue three), to help maintain our facility (issue two). And keep our mortgage (issue one) and wages (issue four) where we can afford them.

And now you see our dilemma. Like a balloon animal, we squeeze the leg only for the head to blow up or squeeze the head only for the tail to blow up. As a result, a kind of equilibrium helps us lean into issues without creating a negative imbalance. And, frankly, those issues are just the tip of the iceberg. Don’t even get me started on academics, athletics, special education, playground equipment, or more comfortable bleachers.

It’s difficult and worth saying that without the Holy Spirit holding this school together, it would all fall apart. The fact that we are here, serving such a large community, with such talented teachers, and such supportive families and impactful students is confidence to know that God really does have His hand on this school.

Your Board of Directors oversees the operations of Front Range as stewards and servants eager for the next chapter of this school while desperately protective of our core DNA that makes us so special and effective. David Cooper leads your principals and directors with the acumen and excellence you would demand from any leader. Your faculty loves your students like they love teaching. And your students are becoming Christian Scholars with a love for learning that will create a culture to impact our world for Christ.

There are exciting things coming soon, just know – it’s not as easy as it looks.