What Sacramento-Area Parents Are Saying About Leaving Traditional School Behind
FOR SACRAMENTO-AREA FAMILIES WHO SUSPECT THERE IS SOMETHING BETTER AND WANT TO KNOW IF IT IS REAL.
Every family considering a different kind of school arrives at the same wall. The website sounds wonderful. The school gives a lovely tour. The philosophy makes sense on paper. And still, a sensible voice in the back of your head asks the only question that matters: does any of this actually work for real children?
It remains a fair question, and marketing copy cannot answer it. Only families leaving traditional school behind can give you the truth.
The Academy at District Church operates a K-12 Christian academy in El Dorado Hills serving families across the greater Sacramento region. We offer no sales pitch below. Instead, we share what parents and students say in their own words, which we publish openly on the school's testimonials page, alongside the regional data that explains why so many families reconsider traditional education in the first place.
First, the Context: This Is Not a Fringe Decision Anymore
If you feel like the odd one out for questioning your child's school, the numbers say otherwise.
California public school enrollment has now declined for multiple consecutive years. The state counted 5,806,221 students in the most recent full year reported by the California Department of Education, a drop of 31,469 from the prior year, and roughly 420,000 fewer students than a decade earlier, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Demographics rather than dissatisfaction drive some of that decline. Birth rates continue to fall, and families relocate out of state, and any honest account must acknowledge this. But demographics do not explain everything. While traditional public enrollment shrinks, alternatives in this region grow sharply.
In El Dorado County specifically, public charter enrollment grew from 1,943 students in 2014-15 to more than 10,000 by 2024-25, according to an analysis of state data by the California Policy Center. Statewide, parents choosing to homeschool their children increased the share of California K-12 students learning at home from about 0.6 percent in 2019-20 to 4.42 percent in 2023-24, per research from the Johns Hopkins School of Education's Institute for Education Policy cited in the same analysis.
Sacramento County saw one of the largest enrollment losses in the state in a recent year, losing roughly 9,744 students. Meanwhile, nearby Folsom Cordova Unified grew. Families do not abandon education. They move toward whatever they believe works, and they do it in large numbers.
What Parents Say Changes First: Ownership
Ask a parent at a traditional school what they want to change, and they will often mention grades or workload. Ask an Academy parent what actually changed, and they tend to describe something different, and harder to measure.
One Academy parent put it this way:
"She's evaluating her freedoms and making choices based on previous ones and accepting ownership for things she otherwise wasn't before."
Read that carefully, because it describes a child's internal machinery changing. Not a test score. Not a reading level. A student begins connecting her decisions to their consequences and accepts that the results belong to her.
The Academy built its model to produce this specific outcome. The Academy Way moves a student deliberately from "I know that I'm loved and capable" in the elementary years, to "I know I'm the driver of my own life" in middle school, to "I know my purpose and next steps" in high school. Ownership does not act as a side effect. It serves as the main point.
What Students Say: They Notice Their Own Growth
The Academy's published testimonials strike readers most because students write so many of them, and the students speak with incredible specificity about their own development.
"I believe I have grown more as a student because I have been using my time more efficiently. I also think that I have become a better person because I have been surrounding myself with better people."
"I have grown as a person this sprint by learning how to go out of my comfort zone, whether it's speaking or running a business."
"I am so thankful that I have the opportunity to go to The Academy. It has taught me so much already, and I am not even two sprints in. The Academy is a whole new world of learning. I feel so grateful that I get to go, THANK YOU!"
Notice the vocabulary. These students reflect on their own habits, their own growth, and the company they keep. A student who articulates how they change practices self-assessment—a skill traditional schooling rarely asks for and rarely teaches directly.
Notice also the word "sprint." Academy students work in sprints rather than semesters, and the fact that students naturally use the term to measure their own progress shows that they claim the structure as their own.
What Parents Say About Thinking, Not Just Knowing
Several parents describe the same shift: their child moves from reproducing answers to generating ideas.
"She is challenged and required to think, but outside the box. In a traditional classroom, you are required to 'know' how to do bookwork and the like. DCA allows my child to tap into her creativity and think outside the box, which I so appreciate."
"Our student was reflecting on morals recently after engaging in a Socratic discussion at school. It was interesting hearing her thoughts on morals and where they come from and how it impacts her life."
That second quote deserves a pause. A child came home from school and voluntarily discussed the origin of moral values with her parents. Whatever your view of education philosophy, that does not represent a normal Tuesday. It directly results from guides making Socratic discussion a routine part of the day rather than an enrichment activity.
This practice makes the Christ-centered element concrete rather than decorative. The Academy treats the relationship between a student and their Creator as the foundation of the experience. Guides address questions about meaning and morality openly and expect students to reason and defend positions rather than receive conclusions. You can read more of these stories when you See What Families Are Saying.
What Parents Say About Their Child's Happiness
For most families weighing this decision, the deciding factor rarely involves academics. Parents want to know if their child feels alright.
"He is excited to go to school! He has formed a wonderful bond with the lead guide and respects him so much. He is a much happier young man since The Academy opened."
"I had a feeling she would like her experience at DCA, but I was surprised at how much she loved it! It seemed to really resonate with her heart, and I could see the joy in her eyes when I picked her up."
"As a parent, their happiness and passion for life, faith, kindness, and learning is paramount. And I feel like they are checking all those boxes in spades."
And from a student, delivering the brevity only a child manages:
"This is the coolest school in the world."
If you spent a year watching your child's enthusiasm drain away, "excited to go to school" does not represent a small claim. It represents the entire goal.
What Changes in How Students Treat Each Other
One testimonial describes something that rarely appears in school marketing at all, and it comes from a student:
"I grew as a peer by having the choice to help others if they need it. At [my previous school], you ask the teacher and leave others alone even if they struggle, but I've ended up helping others rather than just sitting back and watching them struggle."
That student identified a structural feature of traditional classrooms without naming it. When one adult holds all the answers, helping a classmate feels inefficient at best and looks like cheating at worst. Children learn to route every question through the teacher and to leave their struggling neighbor alone.
Blended-age learning studios invert that dynamic. Older students help younger ones, peers hold each other accountable through the student constitution, and helping becomes a normal part of the day rather than a violation of procedure. For families choosing a school partly on character formation, this acts as one of the most consequential differences, yet you rarely see it on a tour.
The Families This Does Not Work For
An author writing an article based on testimonials owes you the other side, so we state it plainly: The Academy does not fit every family, and the administration speaks unusually directly about it.
The school publishes a list detailing who The Academy Is For. The section describing families who probably will not thrive includes those who feel their current school works fine, who want a traditional school experience, who prioritize scores and rankings, who expect the school to have everything figured out already, or whose children require constant direction. Families who dislike change and ambiguity tend to struggle here.
That candor holds more value than any testimonial. A school willing to publish who it fails operates honestly about what it is. If you recognize your family in that list, you should not conclude that you did something wrong. You should conclude that you saved yourself a difficult year.
How to Test Any of This for Yourself
Testimonials should start your investigation, not end it. If you seriously weigh a move away from traditional school anywhere in the Sacramento region, do these four things with any school you consider:
Talk to current families directly, including at least one who attended for more than a year.
Bring your student to visit and let them form their own opinion before you share yours.
Ask what kind of student fails to thrive there, and listen for a real answer.
Read the parent handbook and a sample enrollment contract before you commit any money.
Then weigh the practical realities honestly. The Academy publishes tuition openly at $16,200 per year for kindergarten through eighth grade and $18,900 for high school, and it reserves places with a refundable deposit. Families traveling from central Sacramento or Folsom should also drive the commute at the actual hour they would drive it, because enthusiasm in March does not survive a route that fails in November.
The Pattern Worth Noticing
Read all of these quotes together, and a pattern emerges. Almost none of them mention test scores, college admissions, or academic rankings. They describe ownership, thinking, kindness, courage, and joy.
That either perfectly matches what you want from your child's education, or it misses the point entirely for your family. Only you can decide. But if you quietly wonder whether the version of school your family lives through represents the only version available, families across the Sacramento area have already answered that question, and they answered it out loud.
The next step does not require a decision. It requires an hour. Watch the Info Session, then talk to your spouse and your student about what you heard.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Reasons vary, but families commonly cite lost curiosity, schools failing to know children individually, and parents wanting faith and character at the center rather than the margin. Regionally, California public enrollment has declined for several consecutive years while charter, microschool, and homeschool options continue to grow.
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Yes. The California Department of Education reported 5,806,221 public students in the most recent full year cited by PPIC, down 31,469 year over year and roughly 420,000 below a decade earlier. Falling birth rates and out-migration account for part of that decline.
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Published parent testimonials emphasize ownership, creative thinking, and happiness. One parent describes their daughter "accepting ownership for things she otherwise wasn't before," and another reports their son is "a much happier young man since The Academy opened."
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The school's published student testimonials skew highly positive and notably self-reflective. Quotes include "This is the coolest school in the world," and students describe growth in time management, public speaking, and stepping outside their comfort zones during sprints.
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Sprints function as the school's learning cycles, replacing traditional semesters. Students reference them naturally when describing their progress, suggesting the structure serves as a framework students actively use to track their growth.
