‘Amazing Christian education’: Cole Valley plans Idaho’s largest pre-K-12 private school
With enrollment growing, Cole Valley Christian Schools look to consolidate classrooms into one pre-K through 12th grade campus in Meridian.
The 260,000-square-foot, $110 million private school is planned at McMillan and Owyhee Storm roads in the northwest corner of the city. It will be the largest of its kind in the state.
“Our heart, and our goal, is to be a more significant impact for Christ in the Valley,” Allen Howlett, the superintendent, told the Idaho Statesman.
Howlett said in an phone interview that in his four years with the school, he’s seen enrollment grow from around 700 students to just under 1,400. This is a far cry from where Cole Valley started with 13 students when it opened in 1972.
To keep up with the demand, the schools have added modular buildings to the campuses in Boise and Meridian. With this temporary measure, Cole Valley is able to house about half its students, those in preschool through fifth grade, at 8775 Ustick Road in Boise, and the half in grades six through 12 at 200 E. Carlton Ave. in Meridian.
Howlett said the schools have “hit full capacity, with modulars all over the place.”
So he’s looking forward to the new consolidated campus, which will be able to bring enrollment to 1,800. Howlett guesses the new school will be double or triple the size of the combined existing buildings.
“We want to provide an opportunity for every single kid, every single family in the Valley that wants to have their students receive amazing Christian education ... to have a place to do that,” Howlett said.
Wayde Hamby, the schools’ director of development, told the Statesman that the new campus would have the same faculty-to-student ratio that Cole Valley has now, so that each student could be “known and loved.”
A campus with 48 acres for athletic facilities, outdoor space
Cole Valley purchased the 72 acres of farmland for the site in June 2021, the Statesman previously reported. Plans filed with the city show the building plus 48 acres for athletic facilities, parking, access roads and open play space. There is also space for potential additions of up to 12 add-on classrooms, which would increase capacity by an additional 300 students.
Athletic facilities would include venues for football, baseball, softball, and track and field, and would be built in the first phase of construction, along with the middle and high school portion of the campus, Hamby said.
“We want to build the athletic complex so that our students aren’t playing all over the Valley, that they have their own fields to play on,” he said. “We rent facilities everywhere for our athletes.”
Hamby said the new facilities would allow Cole Valley to host tournaments and would create other opportunities for the community to benefit as well.
The second phase would include the pre-K and elementary section.
Phasing and fundraising
Boise-based LKV Architects and ESI Construction filed a building permit with the city, reported by BuildZoom.
Howlett estimates the first phase will cost $85 million and the second $25 million — not including the initial cost of the land, for which Cole Valley paid cash.
To pull off the expansion, Howlett said the schools are in a “quiet” stage of funding and seeking money from donors internally. “Once we hit a certain goal, we will then go to a public phase,” he said.
Regarding donations, Howlett said, “It’s the opportunity to really impact generations, (to) impact the Valley long term, raising up great, hopefully, Christian leaders that are going to be a part of our community.”
He said the timeline for the school’s opening largely depends on fundraising.
“We have full development plans,” Howlett said. “We are ready to go. All we have to do is raise the right amount of money to be able to break ground.”
The school does not receive any public funds. A year of tuition ranges from $7,330 to $10,340, according to Cole Valley’s admissions office.
Private-school enrollment on the rise in Idaho?
A February report from the Idaho State Board of Education suggests that private-school enrollment in the state is greater today than in the past, though exact enrollment data is hard to come by. Drawing from the National Center for Education Statistics, the report says Idaho private school enrollment jumped by over 3,000 students from the 2019-20 to 2021-22 school years.
This was an increase in both total enrollment and enrollment relative to the population. In 2019-20, only 2.7% of students in first through 12th grade in the state attended private school; in June this year, private school attendees made up 5.1% of students.
Cole Valley Christian is one of the largest private schools in the state and, with its new campus, will be the largest offering pre-K through 12th grade on one site, according to Private School Review.
Howlett said via email he hopes Cole Valley’s existing campuses could become a “long-term home for a private or charter school or other educational institution.”
‘The Lord’s timeline’: Preparing for construction
Howlett anticipates the earliest Cole Valley could break ground would be the spring or summer of 2025. From there, the construction would take roughly 22 months.
That could put the new campus open as early as the start of the 2026 school year.
Still, there’s a lot to be done between now and then.
“I’d love for it to be tomorrow,” Hamdy told the Statesman with a laugh. “But, you know, ... We’re on the Lord’s timeline. ”
