2007 School Report Card                          
DANVILLE CHRISTIAN ACADEMY
401 Waveland Avenue
Danville, KY 40422
Phone:  859-238-9736
Fax:  895-238-0085
dcacad@bellsouth.net

Dear Parents/Guardians:

This report card will provide you with information about academic performance, teacher qualifications, student services, and other information about our school.  If you have questions about any of the information presented in this report, please feel free to contact our main office at 859-238-9736.

Spiritual Life:

Every student receives daily Bible instruction in the classroom as well as chapel once per week.  Chapel consists of student lead performances and special guest speakers from the community regarding Christian themes and subjects.  Students study and memorize specific Bible passages as a part of the curriculum and prayer is a regular activity throughout the day in each classroom.

Students, parents, and teachers have the opportunity to participate in service projects and mission trips throughout the year.  Last year, DCA participated in the following:

• 6th-8th grade mission trip to the Wayside Christian Homeless Shelter in Louisville, KY
• Operation Christmas Child
• Thanksgiving and Christmas meal preparation for the Danville City Police and Fire Departments
• Soda Can Tab Collection for Ronald McDonald House
• Diaper Drive for Pregnancy Resource Center in Danville, KY
• Household and Personal Hygiene item collection for Galilean Home in Casey County
• Food Preparation for Salvation Army
• Baby Bottle Fundraiser for Pregnancy Resource Center
• Book collection for jail ministry
• Food Preparation for Danville Domestic Abuse Center
• Donations for house fire victims
• Friends of the Good Samaritans (Financial support of school in India)
• Student Choir Performance at McDowell House in Danville, KY.

How Our Students Perform

Danville Christian Academy uses the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) to assess student progress.  The Stanford Achievement Test Series, Tenth Edition (SAT 10), produced by Harcourt Assessment, is the latest edition in this series of nationally normed achievement tests.  SAT 10 helps educators obtain reliable data to evaluate progress towards meeting national content standards, including those set by the National Council of Teachers of English and the National Council of Teachers of Math.  SAT 10 is composed of the following subtests: Reading, Mathematics, Language, Spelling, Listening, Science, and Social Science.

Stanford Achievement Test scores are reported in several ways. For consistency, the measure called percentile ranks is often chosen as the reporting method. Measures of relative standing are single indicators of the relative position of a score in relation to others. Percentile rank simply shows what percentage of scores fall at or below a specific score. For example, if a 1st grade reading score on the SAT is 68, it means that the class score is better than 68% of the other groups that were tested.  It is important to note that the nationally normed percentile rank is 50.

2006-07 SAT Results (Percentile Rank)

*The first number in each area is the National Percentile or how well our students scored compared to all other students in the U.S. that took the same test.  The second number in each area is the ACSI (Association of Christian Schools International) Percentile or how well our students scored compared only to students in ASCI schools.

OLSAT

Students in grades 3, 5, and 7, are also given the OLSAT (Otis-Lennon School Ability Test).  Administered in conjunction with the Stanford Achievement Test, the OLSAT assesses reasoning and problem solving, using verbal (word), quantitative (number), and nonverbal (picture-figure-spatial relationship) symbols.  The developers of this evaluation tool base their testing on the premise that to learn new things, students must be able to perceive accurately, to recognize and recall what has been perceived, to think logically, to understand relationships, to abstract from a set of particulars, and to apply generalizations to new and different contexts. 

2006-07 OLSAT Results (Percentile Rank)

Teacher Qualifications

All teachers at Danville Christian Academy hold a minimum of a Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university.  The following chart shows the level of teacher certification and classroom experience of our teachers:

Our Learning Environment

School Safety

To provide a safe and orderly environment, our school has adopted a policy of acceptable behavior and conduct for all students at Danville Christian Academy including disciplinary policies and procedures.  Policies and procedures have also been adopted and implemented regarding student arrival – dismissal as well as the installing a buzzer system for visitors at the Calvary campus.  Entrance doors to the building remain locked during the school day.  Teachers and students practice emergency procedures through drill on a regular basis.  These include bus safety, fire, tornado, earthquake, and lockdown.

How We Use Technology
Our goal is for technology to be an integral part of our school curriculum.  We currently have two computer labs that contain a total of 30 computers.  All of these computers have been equipped with internet access.  Our lab curriculum offers instruction and guidance in keyboarding, word processing, spreadsheets, PowerPoint, and internet basics.  Currently, our middle school and high school campus has 16 laptops that are used for Computer Applications and Word Processing.  The school also owns two digital cameras and one video camera that is used for instructional and administrative purposes.

Facilities

Danville Christian Academy is currently composed of three campuses.  Calvary Baptist Church is houses K4-2nd grade.  Classroom size averages about 475 - 500 square feet.  K4, K5, and 1st grade classrooms are located in the basement of the church and are either at cap size or cannot reach cap size due to room size constraints.  The second grade is located on the third floor of the building.  Room sizes are slightly larger at 500 – 525 square feet.  We currently use all available classroom space (7 classrooms and 2 offices) and all classrooms at Calvary are shared with the church’s Sunday School Program.  There are approximately 83 students at this site.

Gethsemane Baptist Church houses our 3rd-6th grade program.  This accounts for approximately 107  students.  These grades occupy 8 classrooms out of 9 that are available to DCA.  The average classroom ranges from 550-600 square feet with the largest being 625 square feet.  Both 3rd, 4th, and 6th grades are capped due to class size restraints.

Lexington Avenue Baptist Church was opened for high school classes in the fall of 2007  and houses our 7th-11th grade students.  There are approximately 60 students at this campus and the average room is about 475 – 500 square feet.  The largest room is 550 square feet.  DCA currently uses 5 classrooms, the fellowship hall, and a chapel at this campus.      

Curriculum

Upon opening the school in 1996, the Danville Christian Academy Board of Directors adopted the ABeka Curriculum published by Pensacola Christian College for all subjects and grades.  During the past 11 years, however, changes have been to a variety of subject areas and grades.  Most of the lower elementary (K4-2nd) strictly use the ABeka Curriculum with upper elementary (3rd-6th) using a combination of ABeka, ACSI (Association of Christian Schools International), and independent authors of specific novels.

The Education Committee at DCA was formed in 2004 for the purpose of making curriculum recommendations to the Board of Directors.  Currently, the committee has just adopted new novels for the middle grades (5th-8th) as well as adopted a college preparatory curriculum for the secondary program (9th-10th).  The committee is now assisting the Headmaster with an analysis of the overall reading program at the school as well as constructing curriculum maps for reading/writing. 

Finance

Danville Christian Academy operates on a $751,994.07 budget for the 2007-08 school year.  This current budget has increased by 11% from last year’s budget of $677,632. 

This year’s operating revenue breaks down as follows:
            85.6%  Tuition
            6.5%    Instructional Supply Fees
            3.3%    Scholarship Funds (Tuition Assistance)
            2.4%    PTF Support
            2.2%    School Fundraisers and Miscellaneous Income

This year’s expenditures break down as follows:
            74.9%  Personnel Costs
            9.4%    Instructional Supplies, Materials, and Support
            4.3%    Administrative
            3.9%    Maintenance and Utilities
            3.2%    Contingency
            2.7%    Other Costs (Transportation, Fees, Taxes)
            1.6%    Special Programs/Committees
           

Enrollment

Since the opening of Danville Christian Academy in August of 1996, student enrollment has been on the increase.  School began in August 2007 with 228 students.  The elementary program contributed 212 of these students while the newly established high school (9th/10th grades) accounts for 16 students.  This is a 7.6% increase in enrollment over the previous year’s enrollment of 197.  (This accounts only for the elementary program and does not include high school enrollment.)  The graph below provides a picture of the steady growth of Danville Christian Academy over the past 11 years.

Cocurricular

Below is a listing of cocurricular activities available at Danville Christian Academy:

• Boys and Girls Cross Country
• Boys and Girls Basketball
• Girls Softball
• 4th and 5th grade Academic Team
• Speech Team
• 4-H
• Young Authors Club
• Yearbook Staff
• Math Olympics
• Drama Club
• Art Club

Summary

The pursuit of helping students achieve their full academic and spiritual potential is one that has no final destination.  It is a continuous process that looks more like a marathon than a sprint.  School improvement is a high priority for DCA.  Our objective with this report is to provide you with an overall view of our school and its performance as well as provide us with a tool to help guide the decision-making process in regards to overall school improvement.  It will be used by the DCA Board of Directors and their working committees to help determine were we need to go to better fulfill our mission as a Christian school.  If you would like more information about how this report was created or about how you can serve on one of the board committees, please feel free to contact me at 859-238-9736.

Jason Gaffney, DCA Board Chairman

Danville Christian Academy