We are halfway through the school year, and are excited to continue growing and learning together in the spring semester. Read how we are providing a biblically faithful and highly effective education from Associate Head of School–Education, Dr. Brandon Barkley.

I am deeply honored to serve the Academy as Associate Head of School for Education serving our division heads, leadership team, key academicians, and instructional departments Preschool-12. It is my joy to see students learn and teachers thrive. If I have not already had the privilege to know you and your family, I am excited to meet you! 

While the cultural landscape of education is rapidly changing, at CPA the gospel anchors us, comforts us, protects us, and directs us. As I reflect over the past school year, I am filled with gratitude and thankfulness for what the Lord is doing across our campus. We continue to make significant academic gains within each division. Looking back at the 2024-25 academic year, we celebrate milestones of academic engagement and growth Preschool-12. 

While we believe standardized testing is a limited reflection of true learning, we do value the data it provides as invaluable feedback toward our performance, as well as guidance for our instructional and assessment strategies. We are proud to report a 2% increase in 2025 ERB achievement data for grades 2-8 performing at or above the rigorous Independent School Norm. Moreover, the number of our lower and middle school students in grades 2-8 scoring at or above the Independent School Norm is up 12% over the past five years. This is tremendous growth and a testament to the hard work and dedication of our lower and middle school faculty and staff. 

For our 7th and 8th grade Algebra I students, we are excited to report that our students performed on average 14 percentage points higher on the Algebra I mean percent mastery than the Independent School Norm. This data confirms that our students are outperforming their peers across the country and demonstrates the significant growth and improvement our lower and middle school students and teachers have made in preparing our students for success on the rigorous ERB Algebra assessment, which will only continue to pay dividends as our students continue in their upper school mathematics pathway as well as on the ACT. 

We are also celebrating remarkable growth and achievement in the Upper School – clear evidence of our students’ commitment, our faculty’s dedication, and the strength of our academic programming. 

In Advanced Placement (AP) courses, we've seen steady growth in both participation and performance. Since 2022, AP enrollment has increased by 28%, with 218 students now participating, including those in two new AP offerings: 9th Grade AP Human Geography and 12th Grade AP Macroeconomics. Over the past three years, 86% of our AP students have earned a passing score of 3 or higher, underscoring both rigor and student readiness in college-level work.

Our ACT scores tell a similar story. The Class of 2025 demonstrated our highest growth to date—raising their average composite score from 23 (on the March Junior ACT) to 26 by year’s end. This 3-point gain exceeds our previous three-year average growth of 2 points and contributes to our current three-year average ACT score of 26.2, which remains well above national and local benchmarks. 

As we look to the future as an Academy, it is our vision to be a national model for biblically faithful and highly effective education to prepare the next generation of young men and women to fully invest in Christ’s mission of restoration. As I step into this new role, I am humbled to serve and lead alongside our division heads and teaching faculty as we strive to continue bringing this vision of a biblically faithful and highly effective education to life for each and every CPA student. 

Within our faculty professional development this past February, our team introduced a framework for delivering a biblically faithful and highly effective education (see framework below). As part of the Academy’s strategic plan over the next 5 years, we will work in collaboration with our spiritual life team to fully implement this model in each and every division and classroom across our campus. 

As we look ahead to the 2025-26 school year, several strategic initiatives within this framework that our academic leadership team will be focused on are instruction, curriculum, and support, which will all lead to a more biblically faithful and highly effective education for our students. 

Instruction – Effective Teaching & Learning
We know that our teachers make all the difference – as I have said many times, we are only as good as the teachers we have in our classrooms. This is also clear within educational research – the most important and influential factor affecting student learning is the teacher. Therefore, we have clearly defined the research-based indicators of high-quality, bell-to-bell instruction in our classroom observation indicators, and will continue to support our teachers to deliver effective instruction in their classrooms. We are blessed to have amazing teachers at CPA, and our academic leadership team and instructional coaches are committed to continuing to onboard, support, and develop top-tier teachers to deliver biblically faithful, highly effective instruction to all CPA students.

Curriculum – A Guaranteed & Viable Curriculum
In order to fully implement this framework, we must first answer the question, what do we want students to know and be able to do within each lesson and unit of instruction across campus? Therefore, we will continue to ensure our curriculum for every grade level and course is rooted in a Biblical, Christ-centered worldview and aligned with the most innovative and rigorous standards of learning. Our departmental teams will continue to develop and improve our curriculum scope and sequence guides outlining our essential learning standards, as well as our aligned learning targets and goals for each grade level and course. Our fully developed curriculum guides, anchored in a Biblical, Christ-centered worldview, will help ensure a biblically faithful and highly effective education for all CPA students.

Support – Intentional Monitoring & Targeted Support for All Students
As we seek to intentionally monitor the learning and progress of each student within our common, formative assessment model, we will focus on providing targeted, timely, and data-driven support and enrichment to maximize student learning unit by unit. Moving into next year, our academic leadership team is committed to refining these practices to provide each student intentional feedback and support through weekly classroom instruction, Lion Time, and Office Hours. A more robust system of intentional monitoring of student learning and providing targeted support and enrichment will help us grow in our ability to provide a biblically faithful and highly effective education for all CPA students.     

To state plainly, we want to continue to hire top-tier teachers who are committed to growth and improvement in the art and science of teaching, who have a passion for integrating course material with a Biblical, Christ centered worldview, and whose heart is for the discipleship and spiritual formation of our students. We trust the Lord to continue to be at work across our campus as we submit our plans to Him and seek to follow Him faithfully. We look forward to partnering with you in our mission to deliver a biblically faithful and highly effective education.