New Covenant Academy expands, adds a second campus
NEW COVENANT ACADEMY’S second location is one block east of Vermont Avenue, adjoining Third Street.
New Covenant Academy is expanding with a second campus. The new location will be home to kindergarten through seventh-grade students. The school has entered into a long-term lease with Los Angeles First Church of the Nazarene, located just east of the Third and Vermont Vons Grocery, at 221 S. Juanita Ave., three blocks north of the school’s current 3119 W. Sixth St. campus. This expansion will enable New Covenant, a Christian college preparatory school, to add many more students and to bring its eighth graders into the high school experience. “Eighth graders are so ready to move onto high school these days,” said Jason Song, principal and co-founder of New Covenant Academy.
The advent of social media has brought a greater knowledge of the world to today’s youth, says Song, and he believes the grade eight-through-12 grouping, which is what many east coast boarding schools follow, is more appropriate for today’s students. Because the college application process is also changing — most private universities are now offering early application to seniors — this split will allow eighth graders to be embraced into the upper school environment and begin preparing for college.
New Covenant Academy was founded by Song and his wife, Kara, 25 years ago. The school began with 11 students in the sixth and seventh grades and has grown to serve 175 kindergarten through 12th grade students. There is a plan in place to launch a new preschool program in the next year, as well.
New campus design
The Juanita Avenue campus has been designed and planned for the next stages according to what the Songs think a modern school should look like. Walls can be removed and space can be changed to accommodate more students. “The new kindergarten, first- and second-grade classrooms are each approximately 1,000 square feet.”
Good teachers
But the school’s growth pattern has always been on the slow side, and this school year’s student body is not much larger than it was in the 2023-2024 school year. “We are known for high performance. We have highly effective teachers and [no more than] 15 kids per class,” said Song. The school believes in developing staff and having the strongest teachers possible. “It doesn’t matter if you have great technology or curriculum. It matters that you have good teachers,” said Song.
The small class sizes are clearly paying off. Song informed us that, though New Covenant’s tuition is half that of other private schools in the area, the school’s national assessment scores for language arts are in the top 11 percent in the country, and its math scores are in the top 10 percent.
The new campus has a chapel / auditorium that seats 250 people, a gym and an outdoor futsal court (a large space suitable for playing small-scale soccer). Song said he’s most excited about the fact that this new location offers growth opportunities and extra space for students to enjoy the campus.
A COLORFUL CLASSROOM at New Covenant Academy’s new location is ready for students.
“We’ve designed it in a way that fits our needs,” Song
said. As stakeholders of the institution, parents have known what the school has been planning. Many have come to tour the new location and have commented on how new everything is. They are loving the spaciousness, he said.
Song is proud that his wife and he — along with New Covenant’s current leaders — have been setting the school up for the next school leaders. “I probably have about five years left leading the school,” he said. The couple has a succession plan in place. He’s currently a member of the school’s board and, when he steps down as principal, Song sees himself staying on the board and focusing on fundraising for the future.
The principal and Kara Song, who serves as admissions director, have worn a lot of hats at New Covenant over the years. They’ve cleaned toilets, driven school buses and have been leaders from the beginning. They are proud that, in Song’s words, “The little school that started 25 years ago is not only still around, but is growing.”
Category: News