“We’re starting to outgrow our building,” said Principal Josh Culberson. “We’re pretty close to getting to that point, so we’re looking at possibilities.”

Those possibilities could include adding on to the current facility or finding a new building site.

This year’s enrollment for kindergarten through eighth grade is 89 students.

“We’ve seen a nice uptick in enrollment,” said Culberson, who is in his second year with CCS.

-Messenger photo by Deanna Meyer
Josh Culberson is in his second year as principal at Community Christian School.

In addition, the school brought back its preschool offering, which Culberson said was one of his “top priorities” after not having adequate staff to offer preschool the previous year. Community Christian’s enrollment, including preschool, is 104 students.

“I would say the majority of our new enrollments are younger families,” said Culberson. “As the result of that enrollment, we’ve been able to split off some of our multi-age classrooms.”

For instance, during the 2024-25 school year, third- and fourth-grade students shared a classroom. This year, the two grades are separated. This means the school has single-grade classrooms for kindergarten through fourth grade, while the fifth and sixth grades share a teacher, and seventh and eighth grades are combined.

Eventually, he said the school would like to separate the fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms to create more of a traditional middle school setting, where students rotate classes. Elementary would follow the K-5 model, while sixth through eighth grade would be considered middle school level.

“That really kind of sets them up for success as they make that transition to community high school,” said Culberson, whether a student chooses to transfer to St. Edmond, Fort Dodge Senior High or another local school.

-Messenger photo by Deanna Meyer
Jeannette Larrabee facilitates a discussion with her fourth-grade class on Dec. 12, 2025, at Community Christian School.

Community Christian strives to offer an education founded on biblical principles.

“All aspects of our curriculum are biblically integrated … so we have that ability to integrate that biblical world view into everything that we do,” he said, “still teaching those academic skills that kids need to be successful, not only in the current grade level they’re in as they move through school, but to be successful in life as well.”

In addition, he said school officials continue to look at ways to expand programs. New this year, Spanish is now offered for all kindergarten through eighth-grade students.

“We’re excited about that,” Culberson said. “We’re also looking at how we can add more programs to our school to give our kids more opportunities.”

For extracurricular activities, Community Christian offers volleyball, basketball, cheerleading, band and choir.

“We didn’t have band last year as the previous music teacher retired,” he said. “We were able to bring that back again this year.”

He said the new music teacher has added some dramatic aspects to the school’s concerts, giving the programs a more “musical feel.”

Community Christian has also implemented an intervention block at the end of the day called “Crusader Time.”

“One thing I think we do a nice job of, if we have kids that are excelling in a particular subject area, we will advance them,” said Culberson. “Also those ones that need the extra support, we make that available.”

The growth at Community Christian has sparked a capital campaign to support the school’s future expansion goals.

While Iowa’s Education Savings Accounts have enabled more families to attend schools like Community Christian, Culberson said the private accredited school has seen a simultaneous drop in donations.

“ESA has been nice because it’s opened the door for more families that maybe have wanted to have the opportunity to provide their children more of a Christ-centered education, but maybe didn’t have the financial means to do so,” he said. “Unfortunately, ESA does not cover what it costs to educate (a student). It falls short of that by quite a bit, so we have to supplement that.”

In his second year with Community Christian, Culberson has spent 26 years in education. He previously worked for 24 years in public schools, including 17 years as an elementary teacher and seven as an elementary principal. He has also served as an athletic director.

A Stratford native, he graduated from Iowa Central Community College, received his bachelor’s degree from Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, and his master’s from Viterbo University in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. He is currently working toward getting his doctorate through Drake University in Des Moines.

“God brought me here, and I continue to work on my education,” Culberson said. “I’m eager to learn and grow.”

He has brought his “minions” along with him — literally — as his office features minions in all shapes and sizes, based on the yellow characters in blue overalls from the “Despicable Me” movies.

As an educator, Culberson said he would set up his classroom with a different theme each year. One year he chose “minions” as his theme, and somehow it stuck. Over time, he either collected or was given more minions. Today his collection is on display in his school office, where “his minions” watch him work.

As an aspiring ventriloquist, he has also brought some light-hearted fun to Community Christian. He and his dog puppet, Toby, often visit various classrooms throughout the day and co-host video morning announcements.

“The kids love it,” Culberson said.

In the meantime, he remains focused on the school’s ultimate goal.

“We want to continue to grow and continue to attract families and bring more families in,” Culberson said, “so they can experience the quality Christ-centered education that we’re able to provide to our students.”