Services

What Christian School Consulting Costs: Three Published Levels

True North runs on three engagement levels, from $2,500 to $12,500 a month, and the numbers are published right here because that is how I would want to be treated. The levels are not small, medium, and large versions of the same thing. They are three different depths of the same fifty years: counsel, partnership, or leadership. Read them, see which one your school's season calls for, and the first conversation is free either way.

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Quick Facts

Strategic Advisory: $2,500 a month.: Focused coaching, counsel, and targeted leadership support.
School Development Partnership: $4,000 a month.: The full rebuild-and-develop engagement, similar to my work with Turlock Christian School.
Hybrid Head of School Leadership: $12,500 a month.: Active executive leadership with regular onsite presence, similar to my work with Rock Academy.
Turnarounds:: live inside the Partnership level, similar to my Turlock Christian work.
The first call:: free, and honest about which level fits, including when the answer is the smallest one.

Strategic Advisory: $2,500 a Month

Focused coaching, counsel, and targeted leadership support. This is the level for a head who wants someone in their corner, the head of school coaching relationship: someone who has sat in the chair for eleven years, on a steady rhythm, working your real decisions with you. It is also right for a board chair or a leadership team that wants seasoned counsel on tap without a full engagement.

What it is not: a program, a curriculum, or a binder. Advisory is a standing relationship with somebody who will tell you the truth, aimed at the specific leadership problems your school actually has this season.

School Development Partnership: $4,000 a Month

The full development engagement, similar to my work with Turlock Christian School: school development, board governance, head of school development, strategic planning, and implementation support. Not advice about the work; the work, done with you, until it holds.

This is the level for a school that needs building or rebuilding: a board trained on its three roles, a head developed on purpose, a strategic plan the school actually uses, and somebody staying in the room while it all gets implemented. In my Turlock Christian work, a similar engagement meant a rebuilt board, a successful head search, and the school's first strategic plan. Your school's version starts with the three numbers and goes where they point.

Hybrid Head of School Leadership: $12,500 a Month

Active executive leadership. At this level I am not advising your school's leadership; I am part of it, with regular onsite presence, organizational oversight, financial and enrollment strategy, staff leadership, and leadership development. Outside Christian education this arrangement is often called a fractional head of school. I call it hybrid, because the fractional label undersells the second half of the job: developing your school's own next leaders while I carry the first half.

It is the model behind my work with Rock Academy, and it works for a plain reason: the school gets fifty years of leadership immediately, while its own people grow underneath it. The goal of hybrid leadership is to make itself unnecessary, on purpose, by building the people who take it from there.

Three levels, three different depths. If you can already see your school in one of them, or in none, the fastest way to know is to say so out loud.

Find Out Which Level Fits

Brick school building behind a sports field

Why Publish Prices?

Because you are a school, and schools get quoted to death. Every consultant in this space says "it depends" and books a call to tell you a number they already knew. I would rather you know the numbers before we ever talk, so the first call can be about your school instead of a negotiation.

Published pricing also does the sorting for both of us. If the budget is not there, you should know today, and you should still run the School Health Check; it is free and it will tell you where you stand. If the budget is there, you walk in knowing the shape of the thing, and we spend the whole call on your three numbers instead.

Which Level Does Your School Need?

Read your season honestly. A fundamentally healthy school with a head who wants counsel and accountability: Strategic Advisory. A school that needs real building or rebuilding, in governance, leadership, planning, or all three: the Partnership, and if your numbers look like Turlock's before picture, this is your level. A school facing a leadership gap at the top, needing an experienced hand in the building while its own leaders grow: Hybrid Leadership.

If you are not sure, that is what the first call is for, and the honest answer is sometimes the smaller number. Run the School Health Check, pull your three numbers, and bring them.

All engagements

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a Christian school consultant cost?

At True North, $2,500 to $12,500 a month across three published levels: Strategic Advisory at $2,500, School Development Partnership at $4,000, and Hybrid Head of School Leadership at $12,500. The level matches the depth of engagement, from standing counsel to active executive leadership.

What is a School Development Partnership?

The full build-or-rebuild engagement: school development, board governance, head of school development, strategic planning, and implementation support, worked alongside your leadership until it holds. It is similar to my Turlock Christian work: rebuilt board, successful head search, first strategic plan, year finished in the black.

What is hybrid head of school leadership?

An experienced leader serving as active executive leadership inside the school: regular onsite presence, organizational oversight, financial and enrollment strategy, staff leadership, and leadership development, while the school's own next leaders are built underneath it. It is often called a fractional head of school; the hybrid version adds the goal of developing your leaders until it is no longer needed. It is the model behind my work with Rock Academy.

Does the Partnership level cover turnarounds?

Yes. Turnarounds live inside the Partnership level, similar to my Turlock Christian work: crisis math, board rebuild, head search, and strategic plan together. Acute situations shape the working rhythm, and that gets set honestly in the first conversation. See how turnarounds work.

Is the first call free?

Yes. It is a conversation, not a pitch: your three numbers, the one problem you most want gone, and which level fits, including when the honest answer is the smallest one or none at all. Engagement terms are settled plainly, in writing, before any commitment. Request a Conversation and bring your numbers.

Next step

Know the Numbers. Bring Yours.

Three levels, three prices, all on the table, which means the first call gets to be about your school. Run the Health Check, pull your three numbers, and let's find out what season you are actually in.

A first call with me covers three things: your three numbers and what they say, which engagement level actually fits, and whether True North is the right fit at all.

Ask Paul Your Hardest Question Get the School Health Check See how the work runs

By Paul Harrell. Fifty years in education, twenty in Christian schools.