Tacoma private school announces abrupt closure days before start of school
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- Sound Christian Academy closed abruptly Aug. 29 due to financial deal that fell through.
- Families and staff learned of closure shortly after back-to-school night.
- School board promises tuition refunds and plans to sell property to repay debt.
A private Tacoma school that’s struggled to stay afloat in recent months due to financial troubles announced its doors were closing Aug. 29, leaving families scrambling to find alternative options days before school was supposed to begin.
Sound Christian Academy, formerly known as Tacoma Baptist Schools, announced in March that the school was on the precipice of a full shutdown due to an inability to cover its expenses. Through a community fundraising campaign, the school raised over $213,000 to keep doors open through March, The News Tribune reported. The interim head of school told a reporter that most of the donations were going to pay teachers and staff, with some of the remaining funds going toward essential bills like utilities.
Later communications to families suggested the school was going to pull through. The formerly Pre-K to 12th grade school decided to restrict enrollment to Pre-K through 8th graders, The News Tribune reported, and the school held a “back to school night” Aug. 28. The first day of school was supposed to be Wednesday, Sept. 3, parents Isaac and Taylar Miller told The News Tribune.
The most recent announcement, shared with families in an email Aug. 29, had a sense of finality. Taylar Miller, whose fourth grader was enrolled in Sound Christian Academy for this upcoming school year, forwarded the email from the school board to The News Tribune.
“It is with heavy hearts that we write this note to let you know that SCA is not able to proceed, as planned, with the opening of the 2025 school year,” the email reads. “This comes as a heavy blow to all of us – the Board, the staff, and for you the families who have committed to remain at SCA despite the turmoil we have already endured over the last year.”
Former interim head of school Matthew Richey confirmed in a text message Saturday that he is no longer working for Sound Christian Academy and directed requests for information to the school board chair. Emails to the school board chair and the dean of elementary education on Wednesday and Friday were not returned. A reporter also called the school’s office Thursday and left a voicemail that was not returned.
In May, the school arranged with an “outside group” to refinance their property and pay back money owed to creditors, the Aug. 29 email from the board reads. The school received $500,000 as an earnest money payment, which is an initial payment to demonstrate a party’s good-faith intentions in completing a deal, and a letter of intent from the group to support the upcoming school year’s financing.
The school shared “all pertinent details ... outlining the exact needs and situation of the school” with the group, and the deal was initially scheduled to close at the end of June. When that didn’t happen, the school continued to anticipate the deal’s completion in time for school to reopen in the fall based on assurances from the group, the board wrote.
In August, it became apparent that the deal wasn’t coming together, despite the board’s efforts to set deadlines “in an attempt to assuage the growing internal alarm over the opening of the 2025-2026 school year,” the email reads. “The needed funds were not received.”
It’s not clear who that outside group is, or whether the group is associated with the “very generous supporter” who reportedly stepped in earlier this year to save the school from closing.
On March 31, school leaders told families in an email that they were initially going to close the school in early May, but that they had received additional funding allowing them to finish the school year through June 13 before closing for good. On May 2, the school said that an individual had stepped in to help, allowing doors to remain open the next school year after all. The interim head of school did not directly respond to a reporter’s questions then about the amount of the financial support the school had received or the sustainability of the school’s funding moving forward.
Two people filed lawsuits against the school earlier this year, The News Tribune reported. Elizabeth Henning, a longtime supporter of the school with her husband Dwane Henning, alleged that the school owes her $500,000 for three loans she made in 2023. Ron Nelson, a former school board member who served as treasurer, alleged that he personally bore the consequences of the school’s unpaid taxes when the Internal Revenue Service forced him to pay debts the school owed.
Randy Spaulding, executive director of the Washington State Board of Education, wrote in an email Friday that the board was reaching out to Sound Christian Academy for official confirmation that the school is closed. The Washington State Board of Education approves private schools in the state annually, under state law. Approved schools “must maintain a program that ensures a sufficient basic education for students to meet usual state graduation requirements and meet reasonable standards for health and safety of private school students,” the State Board of Education website says.
Sound Christian Academy applied to renew their approval status March 5, Spaulding wrote. The Board of Education granted that approval June 26.
“While we were aware of some financial concerns reported in the press last year, our approval is limited to considerations of facility safety, teacher qualifications, instructional time, and subject area requirements,” he wrote, citing standards outlined in state law.
It’s unclear how many students were enrolled in the school for the fall. Enrollment data reported by private schools to the State Board of Education shows that Sound Christian Academy reported 284 students enrolled last school year.
Families left in uncertainty
Taylar and Isaac Miller said in a phone call with The News Tribune Saturday that they struggled over whether to re-enroll their fourth-grader at Sound Christian Academy, where he’s attended for the past four years.
“I think for us, with how it went down at the end of last year, we just felt like a lot of trust was kind of broken from the school, and so we had kind of a hard time committing to Sound even until a couple weeks ago,” Isaac Miller said.
The family toured some schools but ultimately decided to re-enroll their son in Sound Christian.
“ ... he obviously went to ‘back to school night’ and got to see his friends, and so to find out that he won’t be continuing with the classmates he’s had for the past four years was really hard for him,” Taylar Miller said.
She and her husband are also processing the loss of a place close to their hearts. The two are both alumni of what was then known as Tacoma Baptist Schools, and met through the school’s drama program. Their Bible teacher officiated their wedding, she said.
“We’re still kind of dealing with the loss of it, and ... we’re talking to a lot of the other alumni who are feeling a little frustrated, hoping that they’ll be able to walk the halls again, jerseys that they have memorialized on the walls, things like that,” she said.
She plans to homeschool their son for at least the first half of the school year, putting her plans to move her small business into a new space on hold. Some of their friends were able to get their kids into other schools, but most private schools in the area aren’t accepting students now, she said.
Isaac Miller said that if they’d heard the announcement of the closure just two weeks earlier, it might have been easier. There was “zero communication from the school or board letting us know that the deal may be falling apart” since they received the school’s May 2 email about remaining open in 2025-2026, he wrote in a follow-up email.
“Even to do the ‘back to school night’ with feeling like there’s a really good chance the school is going to close down, it just, it doesn’t sit well with any of us,” he said.
In their email Aug. 29, the school board said they were blindsided by the outcome as well.
“Even during the ‘back to school night’ hosted at SCA on August 28 the board and school principal were working behind the scenes to secure the needed financing, but these last ditch efforts did not result in the outcome we were hoping for,” the board wrote. “Shortly after ‘back to school night’ the staff was informed that the school would be closing.”
Board members and staff had children enrolled at the school too, fully expecting the school to reopen in the fall, and also “will have to scramble to make other arrangements for the school year,” the email continued.
“We are so very sorry that you, the families who have put your trust in SCA, will now have to scramble to make other arrangements. We are devastated that the gifted staff we have assembled will have to do the same.”
The board promised to repay families for prepaid tuition “as soon as possible,” “address outstanding payroll,” sell the school’s property to pay off any remaining debt and “do whatever (they) can to help families and staff transition to whatever is next, including contacting other local Christian schools to see how they can come alongside our families.”
“We will work diligently to answer any questions as we continue to make our way forward in this difficult situation,” the email reads.
This story was originally published September 7, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
