Big changes are coming to a growing Whitefish Christian Academy.

It’s an exciting time for the school, which began holding pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classes in a church basement in 1980.

Now the academy seeks to expand from the current pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade classes, eventually offering classes through the 12th grade.

The school will start by offering ninth grade in fall 2015.

Expansion plans, in addition to enrollment growth, were the impetus for ordering two modular buildings, which will add four classrooms for the 2014-15 school year. 

Enrollment has grown significantly from 90 students in 2011 to 165 in 2013. 

Growth is primarily at the kindergarten and first-grade level, according to Whitefish Christian Academy Headmaster Todd Kotila. The school maintains a class size of 18 students per class in pre-kindergarten and 20 students per class for other grades.

The modular buildings will be installed on the west side of the school, adding approximately 4,000 square feet to the 15,500-square-foot main building. The modular buildings are slated to be occupied in November. From start to finish, the process took about nine months and will cost roughly $250,000.

Kotila said the modular buildings are a temporary addition since the school secured a four-year conditional-use permit from the city of Whitefish. 

A much larger plan is in the works. Kotila said they have outgrown their current location at 820 Ashar Ave.

“We’re already shopping for property,” Kotila said. “The campus is already too small and we don’t have enough parking.”

The academy is looking to secure between 12 to 20 acres of property to build a new pre-kindergarten- through 12th-grade school.

Kotila has been at the school for six years. He said those first few years were spent going from donor to donor and organizing fundraisers to garner enough money to pay off the school’s debt. He hit the ground running and was successful, but he likened it to a roller-coaster ride.

“Those first few years we were screaming in terror,” Kotila said. “Now, we’re screaming because we’re thrilled. Our arms are in the air, we aren’t even looking back. We’re just looking at the next turn and the next turn. 

“Where we’re going is an incredible place,” he added.

Whitefish Christian Academy offers Christian-based education. 

Offering ninth through 12th grade is a natural progression to complete what is known in classical education as a trivium, according to Kotila and Whitefish Christian Academy Board President Joe Coco. 

The trivium consists of grammar (elementary level), logic (middle school level) and the final piece, rhetoric (high school level). 

“It is almost not harvesting your own fruit to not get to the point [of rhetoric],” Kotila said.

Kotila and Coco said the grammar and logic years lay the foundation for students to come full circle with their education and apply all of their language, logic, critical thinking, reasoning and debate skills. 

Coco has served on the board for about nine years. The last three years of continued growth are attributable to a variety of things, from an improving economy to a first-rate classical Christian education. 

Simply put, “success breeds success. When test scores go through the roof, word gets out,” Coco said.

Beyond academics, the school focuses on shaping students to be respectful, responsible and considerate to those around them, Kotila said.

“I’m not just another prep school. I’m not here trying to ship out students who are going to Oxford. I’m about shaping the hearts of children and their affection to love, to what is good and beautiful and true,” Kotila said.

He envisions a future where the academy’s first high school graduating class receives diplomas in May 2019.

“I want my kids [students] walking across the stage of a brand new school to get their diploma,” Kotila said.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or by email at hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.