Ken Smitherman, President of ACSI (retired 2009)
As a service organization for Christian schools, we at ACSI continually remind ourselves of our mission: enabling Christian educators and schools worldwide. We give a great deal of consideration to how we can best enable through appropriate serving. Each year as we review our own membership statistics, we address one aspect of this issue: demographics and related needs.
Worldwide, for the 1997–98 school years, ACSI has enrolled 3,986 schools from preschool through higher education, with a total of 844,526 students in 87 countries. These schools include 144 Christian colleges and universities with nearly 120,000 students. The balance of our membership, preschool through high school, includes 3,842 U.S. schools, 151 Canadian schools, and 254 international schools.
* For up-to-date statistics, contact ACSI.
Some of our statistics reveal:
- 70% of ACSI member schools have fewer than 200 students enrolled. Schools in this category average 81 students.
- 30% of students in ACSI member schools are enrolled in schools of fewer than 200 students.
- 3.3% of ACSI member schools have 700 or more students. Schools in this category enroll an average of 1,240 students.
- 22% of students in ACSI member schools are enrolled in schools of 700 students or more.
- 83% of ACSI member schools were started since 1971, and these enroll 71% of the total students in ACSI schools.
- 44% of ACSI member schools were founded from 1971 to 1985.
- 307 schools established since 1996 are now ACSI members.
Two very great challenges face ACSI as we identify appropriate services based on these statistics alone:
- A significant number of services need to address the needs that are unique to both developing schools and small schools.
- Opportunities to serve large schools are significantly different from opportunities to serve small schools, and large schools represent a significant portion (22%) of the students enrolled in ACSI schools.
Several initiatives that are currently being pursued include:
- Developing a program to strengthen Christian school administrative leadership
- Strengthening our relationship with Christian higher education
- Identifying/addressing the unique needs of urban and minority enrollment schools
- Articulating a clear framework for a philosophy of Christian schooling
- Developing curricular materials that support a mission-driven, school-designed curriculum to replace “shake & bake” programmed materials
I would encourage your input as we consider these specific and crucial concerns. Your insights for helping ACSI to achieve its enabling mission are invited.
Vol 1 Iss 4 President's Desk: Membership Statistics