Beacon Hollow Academy
Marlowe, CT·Independent PK-12·NAIS member·141 employees on the 990
Fictional sample. Beacon Hollow Academy is not a real school and every figure below is fabricated to illustrate the report.
Beacon Hollow Academy runs on margin: tuition is 88% of revenue and the reserve cushion is thin. Reserves cover 10 months of operations. Operating margin is 4.7%, positive but with a small cushion. A single bad admissions year matters here; the board conversation worth having is about contingency planning and revenue diversification.
Revenue and expenses at Beacon Hollow Academy have moved roughly in lockstep, 3.6% revenue growth against 2.9% expense growth per year over three years. Latest operating margin sits at 4.7%. On current trajectory the operating picture looks steady; worth checking with the board whether that steadiness is by design or by inertia.
Linear extrapolation only. Schools regularly course-correct via tuition increases, capital campaigns, or expense controls. This is the if-nothing-changes outlook, not a prediction.
FINANCIAL HEALTH
COMPOSITE FINANCIAL INDEX · NACUBO
The Composite Financial Index is a single 0–10 score from NACUBO Strategic Financial Analysis that synthesizes four nonprofit-finance ratios into one number. College and independent-school CFOs use it as a single read on whether an institution is financially strong, holding steady, or running thin.
- Primary Reserve Ratio (35% weight) — net assets / total expenses. How many months of expenses are in reserve?
- Net Operating Revenues Ratio (35%) — surplus / revenue. Is the school running a surplus?
- Return on Net Assets (20%) — change in net assets / prior net assets. Are the reserves growing?
- Viability Ratio (10%) — net assets / total liabilities. Could the school cover its debts?
- 5+ — strong financial position; resources available to invest in the mission.
- 3 to 5 — adequate; monitor for trend changes.
- 1 to 3 — watch; re-engineering may be needed.
- 0 to 1 — distressed; immediate intervention needed.
- Below 0 — severely distressed.
A candidate looking at a school's CFI gets a single read on whether the institution is investing in mission, holding steady, or running thin. It's the difference between “this school has a $30M endowment” — impressive-sounding on its own — and “this school's reserves are eroding 8% per year” for that same school under stress.
HiveCheck uses net assets at year-end in place of expendable net assets (Schedule D Part V), and total liabilities in place of long-term debt. Both are conservative proxies dictated by what is parsable from the public Form 990. A real CFI computed from audited financials may read slightly different — typically modestly higher reserve coverage and modestly lower viability than what we show.
Adequate — monitor — 4.4 on a 0-to-10 scale where 5 already counts as strong. 4.4 sits above the midline but below the 5-point strong bar — the framework calls this "adequate; monitor for trend changes". Think of it as a financial-health checkup with four vital signs: whether the school spends less than it brings in, whether it keeps enough months of reserves on hand, whether those reserves are growing, and whether it can cover what it owes. Adequate financial position; monitor for trend changes and direct resources to mission priorities.
Financials through FY2024 · 8 yrs on file
FY2024 is the newest public filing on record — not a data gap. IRS Form 990s publish on a one-to-two-year lag, so a school’s most recent audited year usually isn’t available yet. This report always uses the latest filing the IRS has released.
Beacon Hollow Academy reported $22.0M in revenue against $21.0M in expenses in fiscal year 2024, an operating margin of 4.7%.
Verify any number in this report against the source IRS Form 990 look up on irs.gov ↗.
HOW TO READ REVENUE, NET ASSETS, AND OPERATING MARGIN
Revenue is the total income reported on Form 990 for the fiscal year — tuition, fees, contributions, investment income, and other revenue lines combined. Net assets is revenue minus expenses across the school’s full history, measured at year-end (Form 990 Part X, line 32B). It is the closest v1 proxy for “institutional reserves” — see the methodology note on the Composite Financial Index below for why we use total net assets rather than expendable net assets isolated.
Operating margin is (revenue − expenses) / revenue. For nonprofit K-12 independent schools, sustained operating margins of 3–8% are the healthy range — enough surplus to reinvest in plant, financial aid, and reserves without sustained drawdown. Persistent negative margin signals reserve drawdown and warrants scrutiny of multi-year trend.
RESERVE CUSHION
Reserve cushion answers a single question: if every tuition check and donation stopped tomorrow, how long could the school’s savings keep the bills paid? We compute it as net assets at year-end ÷ monthly operating expense, drawn from IRS Form 990 Part X.
- Below 3 months — precarious; one bad admissions cycle can force cuts.
- 3 to 6 months — minimum healthy floor.
- 6 to 12 months — adequate cushion.
- 12 to 24 months — healthy reserve position.
- 24+ months — deep institutional balance.
We use total net assets as a proxy for expendable reserves. A school’s audited financials separate expendable from restricted net assets; the 990 does not break this out. This proxy slightly overstates true operating runway for endowment-heavy schools where much of the net asset base is donor-restricted.
If every tuition check and donation stopped tomorrow, the school’s savings could cover its bills for about 10 months before running out — a modest cushion. Many schools are in this same range. (Savings here is total net assets; it’s a high-side proxy, since some of that is tied up in buildings and restricted gifts.)
VIABILITY
Viability is net assets ÷ total liabilities — the cushion an institution holds against everything it owes. It answers: if all debts came due, how many times over could the school cover them from accumulated net assets?
- Below 1.0x — liabilities exceed net assets; balance-sheet stress.
- 1.0x to 1.25x — thin; monitor.
- 1.25x+ — NACUBO's healthy threshold.
- 3.0x+ — deep institutional cushion.
We use total liabilities from Form 990 Part X rather than long-term debt isolated (a Schedule D Part X detail we do not yet parse). This proxy understates viability for schools carrying meaningful short-term debt or current-year obligations against payables, since both are pulled into the denominator.
HOW TO READ RESERVE COVERAGE AND VIABILITY
Reserve coverage answers “how many months of operating expense are sitting on the balance sheet right now?” We compute it as net assets / monthly expense. NACUBO’s Primary Reserve Ratio targets at least 3–6 months as a minimum healthy floor; 12+ months is considered strong, and 24+ months indicates a deep institutional balance. Below 3 months is precarious.
Viability is net assets per dollar of total liabilities — the cushion against debt obligations. Above 1.25x is considered healthy by NACUBO; below 1.0x means liabilities exceed accumulated net assets. v1 caveat: we use total liabilities rather than long-term debt isolated (a Form 990 Schedule D detail we do not yet parse), which understates this ratio for schools carrying significant short-term debt.
WHY REVENUE MIX MATTERS
Program revenue = tuition and fees. Contributions = annual fund + capital campaigns + restricted gifts. Investment income = endowment payout, interest, and realized/unrealized gains. Other captures auxiliary lines (summer programs, rentals, dining).
A school deriving 90%+ from program revenue is highly sensitive to a tuition shock — a class that fails to fill, an unexpected attrition spike. A balanced mix (program + contributions + investment) signals resilience: a soft year on tuition does not translate one-for-one into a revenue downturn. Mature boarding schools and established day schools with endowments typically show contribution and investment shares of 5–20% combined; newer schools and smaller day schools sit closer to 95% program revenue.
HOW TO READ THREE-YEAR CAGR
CAGR (compound annual growth rate) smooths year-over-year variation by reporting the constant annual rate that would produce the same end-state over the period. For a healthy school, the load-bearing relationship is revenue CAGR ≥ expense CAGR. When expenses outpace revenue over three years, operating margin compresses even if the latest year still posts a surplus.
Net-asset CAGR captures the trajectory of accumulated reserves — a positive figure means the school is building cushion; a persistently negative figure means it is drawing down.
HOW TO READ TUITION DEPENDENCY AND COMP RATIO
Tuition dependency is the share of total revenue that comes from program service revenue (tuition + fees). NAIS DASL benchmarks place the K-12 day-school median at roughly 85%. Below 70% indicates a well-diversified revenue base (typical of mature boarding schools); above 90% is concentrated and warrants scenario planning for tuition shocks (an unfilled class, attrition spike).
Comp ratio is salaries + benefits as a share of total operating expenses. Per ISM benchmarks for independent schools, the typical range is 55–70%. Above 70% can signal salary pressure outpacing revenue growth; below 55% is unusual and may indicate large outsourced contracts or non-comp capital expense in the period.
From this school’s IRS Form 990 Schedule J — a publicly filed federal disclosure. If you’re the school and this looks wrong, email us.
ABOUT HEAD-OF-SCHOOL COMPENSATION
Head-of-School total compensation is reported on IRS Form 990 Schedule J, columns (B) and (F): base compensation, bonus and incentive compensation, other reportable compensation, deferred compensation, and nontaxable benefits combined. The figure shown here is the total of those columns for the head of school as named on the most recent filing. The title shown alongside the figure is that person’s Schedule J designation — a tax-filing label — not necessarily their functional title at the school.
Compensation varies widely with school size, region, and association membership. NAIS and ISM publish annual benchmark ranges; CASE tracks fundraising-leadership compensation. The Schedule J value is the most defensible apples-to-apples source because it is the same disclosure every 501(c)(3) school files with the IRS.
FACULTY AND STAFF · AVG COMP
Faculty and Staff Average Compensation is the average compensation of every employee at the school minus the top-compensated roster reported on Schedule J (officers, key employees, and highest-paid). The residual is almost entirely faculty plus staff — classroom teachers, division leadership below the head, admissions and advancement, athletics, business office, facilities, dining and after-school programs. The number includes both salary and benefits (medical, retirement, payroll tax).
(salaries_benefits − Σ top_comp.total_comp) ÷ (total_employees − count(top_comp))
For FY2024: salaries+benefits $14.7M · 141 total employees · 5 top-comp rows totaling $1.1M · 136 residual non-officer employees.
The Head’s comp gets the headlines; this is the line every other employee actually lives next to. A school whose average non-officer compensation runs $78K reads very differently from one where it runs $58K — and the IRS Form 990 carries enough to triangulate the answer without a NAIS DASL subscription.
This is an average across faculty and staff, not a faculty median. The 990 doesn’t separate classroom teachers from administrative, athletics, dining, maintenance, or after-school staff in the residual, and mixes full-time with part-time headcount. The number includes benefits, so it runs roughly 25-40% above pure salary. Schools with outsourced operations (dining, maintenance) will read higher than schools that employ that staff directly. A true faculty median requires NAIS DASL. We omit this metric entirely when fewer than six non-officer employees remain after the top-comp subtraction.
Approximate. Excludes the top-paid roster from Schedule J. Form 990 Part IX line 7. NAIS DASL would give true median.
PEER COMPARISON
Among 24 peer schools in the same size and region cohort, Beacon Hollow Academy’s position by metric is below. The gray band shows the peer distribution from the bottom quarter to the top quarter; the tick marks label each quartile position. The purple marker is Beacon Hollow Academy.
HOW WE COMPARE
We compare this school against its peer cohort on this metric and count how many peers it sits above. We never frame this as “top X%” or “bottom X%” because the right reading depends on the metric’s natural direction.
- Operating margin, endowment / OpEx — higher is better.
- Tuition dependency, comp ratio — higher is riskier (more concentration, less flex).
About the peer set. Peers are matched on size cohort (Form 990 revenue + employee band), region, and association overlap. NCES Private School Universe Survey enrollment is now live on the Community Demographics panel for the roughly 924 of 1,620 HiveCheck schools that match against PSS — but peer cohort matching still uses the 990-derived size proxy so every school (matched or not) resolves against the same criteria. Recutting cohorts on real NCES enrollment is a v1.2 refinement.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
What it measures. The share of total revenue left over after operating expenses — calculated as (revenue − expenses) / revenue on the IRS Form 990. Positive = surplus reinvested; negative = deficit drawn from reserves.
How to read it. Higher is better. NACUBO scores a Net Operating Revenues ratio of about 1.3% (i.e. operating margin ~1.3%) as the “baseline” SF 1.0 reading; sustained surpluses of 3–8% are the healthy range for K-12 independent schools. A persistent negative margin signals reserve drawdown.
HOW WE COMPARE
We compare this school against its peer cohort on this metric and count how many peers it sits above. We never frame this as “top X%” or “bottom X%” because the right reading depends on the metric’s natural direction.
- Operating margin, endowment / OpEx — higher is better.
- Tuition dependency, comp ratio — higher is riskier (more concentration, less flex).
About the peer set. Peers are matched on size cohort (Form 990 revenue + employee band), region, and association overlap. NCES Private School Universe Survey enrollment is now live on the Community Demographics panel for the roughly 924 of 1,620 HiveCheck schools that match against PSS — but peer cohort matching still uses the 990-derived size proxy so every school (matched or not) resolves against the same criteria. Recutting cohorts on real NCES enrollment is a v1.2 refinement.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
What it measures. Share of total revenue that comes from program-service revenue (tuition + fees) on the Form 990. Independent schools without significant endowments often run 85–95% tuition-dependent; schools with strong fundraising or large endowment payouts sit lower.
How to read it. Higher is riskier — concentration means a tuition shock (an unfilled class, an attrition spike) translates directly into a revenue shock. NAIS DASL benchmarks place the K-12 day-school median at roughly 85% tuition-dependent. Below 70% indicates a well-diversified revenue base (typical of mature boarding schools); above 90% is concentrated.
HOW WE COMPARE
We compare this school against its peer cohort on this metric and count how many peers it sits above. We never frame this as “top X%” or “bottom X%” because the right reading depends on the metric’s natural direction.
- Operating margin, endowment / OpEx — higher is better.
- Tuition dependency, comp ratio — higher is riskier (more concentration, less flex).
About the peer set. Peers are matched on size cohort (Form 990 revenue + employee band), region, and association overlap. NCES Private School Universe Survey enrollment is now live on the Community Demographics panel for the roughly 924 of 1,620 HiveCheck schools that match against PSS — but peer cohort matching still uses the 990-derived size proxy so every school (matched or not) resolves against the same criteria. Recutting cohorts on real NCES enrollment is a v1.2 refinement.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
What it measures. Salaries + benefits as a share of total operating expenses (Form 990 Part IX, line totals). Captures how much of the cost base is human capital — the dominant cost structure at every independent school.
How to read it. Higher = leaner room for non-comp investment. ISM’s independent-school benchmarks typically land in the 55–70% range. Above 70% can signal salary pressure outpacing revenue; below 55% is unusual and worth investigating (possible unusual non-comp expense or outsourced staffing).
HOW WE COMPARE
We compare this school against its peer cohort on this metric and count how many peers it sits above. We never frame this as “top X%” or “bottom X%” because the right reading depends on the metric’s natural direction.
- Operating margin, endowment / OpEx — higher is better.
- Tuition dependency, comp ratio — higher is riskier (more concentration, less flex).
About the peer set. Peers are matched on size cohort (Form 990 revenue + employee band), region, and association overlap. NCES Private School Universe Survey enrollment is now live on the Community Demographics panel for the roughly 924 of 1,620 HiveCheck schools that match against PSS — but peer cohort matching still uses the 990-derived size proxy so every school (matched or not) resolves against the same criteria. Recutting cohorts on real NCES enrollment is a v1.2 refinement.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
What it measures. Net assets divided by total annual operating expense. Expresses how many years of operations the school could fund from its accumulated net position. The v1 calculation uses total net assets (Schedule A) rather than expendable net assets isolated.
How to read it. Higher is better. For independent schools, <1x is a thin cushion, 1–3x is healthy, 3x+ indicates a deep institutional balance sheet (typical of established boarding schools and large day schools with mature endowments).
HOW TO READ THE PERCENTILE
A percentile tells you where this school sits in the peer distribution. p30 means the school is at or above 30% of peers on that measure — only 70% of peers are higher. The right reading depends on the metric’s natural direction: for operating margin and reserves higher is better; for tuition dependency and comp ratio higher is riskier. The one-line hint under each chart calls out the polarity.
Some metrics show fewer peers than the panel total (n_peers_in_calc) — that happens when peers don’t have an overlapping filing year for that specific ratio. The displayed percentile is computed only against peers that filed in the same window.
About the size cohort. Peer cohort matching uses IRS Form 990 employee count + max-revenue tier — proxies for school size, since the 990 doesn’t carry student counts. Real per-school enrollment from the NCES Private School Universe Survey is now live on the Community Demographics panel for the roughly 924 of 1,620 HiveCheck schools that match against PSS 2021-22; peer cohort matching still uses the 990 size proxy so every school (matched or not) resolves against the same criteria, and recutting cohorts on real enrollment is a v1.2 refinement.
The market underneath the school: who lives here, whether they can pay, whether they will give, who they choose instead, and which way the money is moving.
Families here can afford tuition, but the local giving climate is thinner than the paying base. Paying Capacity reads 72 / 100 and Giving Capacity 54 / 100 for the 06870 area. Read this as an enrollment market where financial-aid strategy will matter more than betting on local wealth. That giving read is the local philanthropic climate, not this school's donor base — its actual fundraising shows in its own 990 contributions, since gifts come from families, grandparents, and alumni wherever they live.
COMMUNITY DEMOGRAPHICS
About the area: these numbers describe the community around the school — the neighborhoods nearest the school (its ZIP-code area) — a closer-in read than the whole metro. They come from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, which pools five years of responses for a reliable picture. Cost-of-living and wealth-context signals are layered on from HUD (the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) and BEA (the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis) where available.
THIS SCHOOL · NCES PSS
The Private School Universe Survey (PSS) is the federal census of U.S. private schools, conducted every two years by NCES with the U.S. Census Bureau collecting responses. It covers ~22,000 private schools across the country and reports total enrollment, per-grade enrollment, FTE teachers, and basic school identity.
Most recent published vintage: 2023-2024 (released September 2023). The 2023-24 vintage collection is in the field; expected release fall 2025.
HiveCheck → NCES match for this school: manual at 100% confidence (PPIN DEMO0000000). Match was made by joining state + normalized school name + city.
Per-grade bands are summed from the PSS per-grade enrollment columns (Pxxx). When a school has a transitional / postgrad program, the total enrollment may include students not assigned to a standard grade band. PSS is voluntary but achieves > 95% response across the universe.
school-age children live in families who can likely afford tuition, within a ~45-minute drive.
Heads up — this area has two distinct income clusters (roughly $96K–$215K). Your realistic market is concentrated in the higher-income communities below.
Families come from 9 communities — including Marlowe, CT, Harlow Falls, CT, and Wend River, CT. Total population is 193,000, of whom 33,180 are school-age (5–17).
About 69% of the area’s school-age children are in 5 communities (Marlowe, CT, Harlow Falls, CT, and Wend River, CT).
Each dot is one community — bigger dots have more school-age children. The school’s home ZIP is filled purple; the vertical purple line marks the typical family income across the whole draw area.
SEE THE 9 ZIPS
| ZIP | Community | Typical income | $200K+ | % BA+ | Pop. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 06870 | Marlowe, CT | $143K | 38.1% | 64.2% | 31,200 |
| 06871 | Harlow Falls, CT | $135K | 34.6% | 60.8% | 28,900 |
| 06872 | Wend River, CT | $118K | 27.9% | 53.1% | 26,400 |
| 06873 | Calder, CT | $110K | 24.3% | 49.7% | 24,100 |
| 06874 | Stillwater, CT | $122K | 28.8% | 55.4% | 22,800 |
| 06875 | Ashbury, CT | $215K | 41.5% | 71.2% | 21,700 |
| 06876 | Penmar, CT | $96K | 18.2% | 41.9% | 13,900 |
| 06877 | Glenholt, CT | $104K | 21.7% | 46.5% | 12,300 |
| 06878 | Rowe Crossing, CT | $113K | 25.1% | 51.0% | 11,700 |
HOW TO READ THESE DEMOGRAPHIC SIGNALS
The Census Bureau’s community survey pools five years of responses to produce the most statistically reliable picture of a community around the school. Vintage 2020-2024 means the pooled survey period. This is the school's ZIP-code area, a far sharper read of the immediate draw area than a whole-metro average.
Population sizes the catchment universe. Median HH income is reported per household, not per individual — the standard wealth signal. Bachelor’s or higher is a strong proxy for the independent-school candidate pool: education-completion patterns correlate tightly with private-school enrollment in U.S. metros.
Households with kids <18 and school-aged (5–17) size the K-12 market specifically. Households $200K+ is the tuition-affordability ceiling proxy — independent-school tuitions for upper grades typically require household income at or above this band.
WHY COST OF LIVING MATTERS HERE
Cost-of-living context is a second-order signal for the independent-school market. Higher housing costs tend to concentrate wealth (and willingness-to-pay) in the metro; they also raise the salary floor a school must hit to retain faculty. Median home value is the typical ownership signal; Fair Market Rent is the federal benchmark used to set Section 8 vouchers and is a defensible cross-metro comparison for housing pressure.
Can families here afford tuition?
The typical family within a 45-minute drive earns $121,300. At $34,000 a year (net of aid), your tuition is 28% of that income — A stretch.
How this verdict is set
The verdict is a plain read on tuition affordability at the catchment level, computed as tuition (net of financial aid) divided by the typical household income in the school’s 45-minute drive-time draw area.
- Comfortable — tuition is 15% or less of the typical income. The median family can absorb tuition without aid.
- A stretch — tuition is between 15% and 30% of income. The median family would feel the price; the paying pool is the higher-income segment plus targeted aid.
- Aid territory — tuition exceeds 30% of income. The median family needs aid; the sustainable paying pool is the $200K+ segment and the aid budget.
Tuition is the school’s IRS 990 net revenue per student (program-service revenue divided by enrollment) — an estimate of the net-of-aid price, not the sticker price. Typical income is the population-weighted median household income across the ZIPs (ZCTAs) that fall within roughly a 45-minute drive of the school, from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey.
This is a draw-area read, not a household-level guarantee. Real paying families are drawn from the higher-income tail of the distribution; the median is the anchor, not the enrolled family. The tuition proxy is a 990-derived estimate that trails the current year and may not reflect a recent tuition change.
~4,200 school-age children live in families who can likely afford you — the addressable pool. See Community Demographics for how that pool is distributed across the draw area.
The typical family here would feel your tuition. Your realistic paying pool is the higher-income segment — the 29.7% of local households earning $200K+; expanding beyond that segment means growing the aid budget.
Tuition is a 990-derived net-of-aid estimate; income is a population-weighted draw-area estimate (U.S. Census ACS); this is a draw-area read, not a household-level guarantee. It reads parent affordability in the draw area — geography does not measure the school’s fundraising, which comes from its own families, grandparents, and alumni.
GIVING PROFILE
HOW WE READ GIVING
Every number in this profile comes from this school’s own IRS Form 990 filings — nothing from outside data.
Four signals build the read. TREND compares the average of the earliest half of the school’s non-PPP years to the latest half, so one big gift can’t drive the direction. CONSISTENCY reads year-to-year swings against the typical year — a broad donor base moves less than reliance on a few large relationships. SHARE OF REVENUE is gifts as a share of total revenue. FINANCIAL CUSHION reads reserves against a year of operating expense; we never publish a back-calculated endowment dollar.
PPP years (FY2020 and FY2021) stay on the bar, greyed and tagged, but are excluded from every calculation — many independent schools booked PPP loans on the contributions line. Amended returns are collapsed to the latest filing for each tax year, so the same year never counts twice.
What the 990 can’t tell you: donor concentration (Schedule B is redacted on public filings, so the year-to-year swings above are the honest proxy), government-grant share (folded into the contributions line), and cost per dollar raised (fundraising expense is reported too inconsistently to trust). Named as gaps, not filled with guesses.
A growing, broad-based giving culture. Contributed revenue climbed from about $920K a year in its earliest filings (FY2017–FY2018) to roughly $1.4M in the latest filings, holding near 8% of revenue — the shape of a durable giving habit, not a one-time windfall.
How much of the recent rise is the annual fund versus a one-time campaign, and how deep is the donor base below the largest few gifts?
Gifts run about 8% of revenue. Most recent filing (FY2023): $1.5M.
FY2020–21 shown lighter — PPP loans inflated contributions those years, so they’re left out of the trend, consistency, and share-of-revenue math.
Figures are nominal, not inflation-adjusted; roughly 20% cumulative inflation over this window means flat giving is a real-terms decline.
TREND · 5-YEAR
The direction of contributions and grants (IRS Form 990 Part VIII line 1h) over the school’s non-PPP filings. We average the earliest half of the years and compare that to the latest half — so one big year at either end can’t drive the read on its own.
Bands with four or more usable years: a change of at least +20% reads GROWING, at least -20% reads ERODING, anything between reads FLAT. With only three usable years we hold to a stricter ±30% gate on the verdict and label the cell “direction only” so it can’t disagree with the verdict.
What would move it: a capital campaign, a lapsed lead donor, a Head-led development push. Caveat: the 990 folds annual fund and campaign gifts into one line, so we can’t split them here.
Contributions rose from an average of $920K (FY2017-2018) to $1.4M (FY2022-2023) — up about 55%. Compared first-few-years to last-few-years so one big year can’t drive the read.
CONSISTENCY
How steadily contributions come in year to year — we measure how far each non-PPP year swings from the school’s typical one (a coefficient of variation).
Bands with four or more usable years: swings under 30% of the typical year read STEADY, 30-60% read VARIABLE, above 60% read VOLATILE. A single year more than three times the typical one, landing in the latest two years, is a spike override to VOLATILE-FRAGILE.
Not scored when the average giving base runs under $10k, or when a year is negative (a refund or restatement). Caveat: this is the honest proxy for donor concentration — Schedule B is redacted on public 990s, so we’re reading the pattern, not the roster.
Year-to-year gifts stay in a narrow band, which is consistent with a broad donor base — though public 990s redact donor counts (Schedule B), so we’re inferring from the pattern, not the roster.
SHARE OF REVENUE
Gifts and grants as a share of total revenue, averaged over the non-PPP years — the fingerprint of a giving culture versus tuition-only economics.
Bands: under 5% reads TRANSACTIONAL (the school runs largely on tuition; a Head-led push would be building the muscle from a low base). Between 5% and 10% reads TYPICAL for a day school — a real, working annual fund. Above 10% reads STRONG CULTURE — a defining piece of the budget.
Not scored with fewer than three non-PPP filings, or when the school doesn’t break out total revenue on its 990. What it can’t see: whether that share is annual fund, capital campaign, or grant.
Gifts run about 8% of revenue — a real, working annual fund. This is the norm for a tuition-driven day school, a base to build on rather than a gap.
FINANCIAL CUSHION
The school’s reserves against a year of operating expense (net assets ÷ annual operating cost), taken from the same 990 balance sheets. We never publish a back-calculated endowment dollar — that estimate is unreliable.
Bands: under 0.5 years reads NO CUSHION — a soft year lands straight on operations. Between 0.5 and 1 reads MODEST. Between 1 and 2 reads SOLID. Above 2 reads STRONG.
When the balance-sheet ratio isn’t reported we fall back to investment income: median under about $25k/year reads NO CUSHION; more than that reads RESERVE PRESENT without sizing the endowment. Not scored with fewer than three non-PPP filings. Caveat: reserves include property and plant, so this is a rough cushion, not spendable cash.
Reserves run roughly one to two years of operating budget — a solid cushion behind the school.
Reserves include property and plant, which aren’t spendable — read this as a rough cushion, not a war chest. We don’t back-calculate an endowment dollar figure from investment income; that estimate is unreliable.
The surrounding 45-minute area includes 4 higher-capacity communities — market context only, not a read on this school’s donor base. Independent-school giving is relationship-based (parents, grandparents, alumni) and those relationships reach well beyond geography.
Three things public 990s don’t disclose, so we don’t guess:
- Donor concentration. Schedule B (top donors) is redacted on public filings, so we can’t show whether one or two families drive the total. The year-to-year swings above are the closest available proxy.
- Government-grant share. The 990 folds grants into the contributions line with no clean sub-total, so PPP years in particular inflate the raw figure. FY2020 and FY2021 are excluded from every calculation above.
- Cost per dollar raised. Fundraising expense is reported so inconsistently on school 990s (many report zero) that the ratio would mislead — so we don’t show it.
HOW TO READ THIS
Every number here comes from this school’s own IRS Form 990. The bar shows contributions and grants (Part VIII line 1h) as reported, year by year. The trend, consistency, share-of-revenue, and reserve cushion reads are all computed from those same filings. Nothing here comes from outside data about the surrounding area.
Four signals build the read. TREND compares the average of the earliest half of the years to the average of the latest half, so one big year can’t drive the direction. CONSISTENCY reads year-to-year swings — a broad donor base moves less than reliance on a few large relationships. SHARE OF REVENUE compares gifts to total revenue — the fingerprint of a giving culture vs. tuition-only economics. FINANCIAL CUSHION reads investment income and net assets — is there a reserve behind the operating budget or not?
PPP years (FY2020, FY2021) are excluded from every calculation. Many independent schools booked PPP loans as contributions on the 990, so those two years overstate real giving. They still show on the bar, greyed and tagged “PPP,” so nothing is hidden.
The verdict is a direction, not a rating. GROWING, FLAT, ERODING, VOLATILE-FRAGILE — a plain read of how the school’s own giving history has moved. A “worth asking in diligence” prompt sits underneath because the 990 tells you the shape, not the story behind it.
Three things the 990 can’t tell you. Donor concentration (Schedule B is redacted on public filings). Government-grant share (folded into the contributions line, no clean sub-total). Cost per dollar raised (fundraising expense is reported too inconsistently to trust). Named as gaps rather than filled with guesses.
COMPETITIVE POSITION
State K-12 private-school-choice policy is changing on a legislative-session cadence; this entry was verified in mid-2026 and is shown as market context, not enrollment advice, and not a statement that this school participates or that any given family will qualify. Verify current program status, eligibility, and award amount with the state administrator before relying on it.
HOW WE READ COMPETITION
Market fill is a single unduplicated ratio: total private-school enrollment inside the school’s 45-minute drive-time catchment ÷ school-age children in $200k+ households in that catchment. Bands: under 0.5 reads OPEN FIELD, 0.5-0.85 reads BALANCED, 0.85-1.1 reads CROWDED, 1.1 or above reads OVERSATURATED (private capacity already exceeds the affording pool).
The by-band chart is a relative-pressure read: each band’s private capacity is rescaled by that band’s share of school-age children (elementary 6/13, middle 3/13, high 4/13) so a K-12 school isn’t double-counted against a slice of the pool. Bars and hero sit on the same seats-per-affording-child scale.
Thin-market guard: when the affording pool inside the drive is under about 1,000 children we don’t call a verdict — the ratios get too noisy in isolated markets.
Sources: private-school counts come from the NCES Private School Universe Survey (biennial, currently the 2021-22 vintage); public and charter counts from the NCES Common Core of Data via the Urban Institute Education Data Portal; the affording pool from the U.S. Census ACS $200k+ bracket; drive-time areas from OpenStreetMap via openrouteservice.
What we can’t see: each competitor’s tuition, selectivity, or waitlist; the actual choice set a family weighs; the school’s own realized yield. A precise concentration score (HHI) waits on the PSS enrollment-history backfill.
A balanced market. About 18 private schools within 45 minutes; private seats fill roughly 51% of the affording-family pool.
With runway in the market, what's kept enrollment from capturing more of it — awareness, price, or program?
Relative pressure = per-band capacity of the schools that serve this band, divided by the same-band slice of the 45-minute affording pool. Above 1.0, that share of local capacity already exceeds its slice of the affording pool. Bands read on the same seats-per-affording-child scale as the market-wide fill above, so a school can sit in a "balanced" market while one band runs tighter than the others.
Overall market fill (unduplicated): about 51% of the affording-family pool sits in a private seat.
Private seats fill about 51% of the affording-family pool across the catchment — this school serves elementary, middle, and high.
18 private schools, about 2,150 seats, 12 nonsectarian, within 45 minutes.
Whether that count is rising or falling needs the biennial PSS backfill.
A moderately concentrated market across 18 private schools — a handful of larger players share most of the field. About 67% are nonsectarian.
A precise concentration score (HHI) needs per-school enrollment history.
The county runs 42 public schools enrolling 28,500 students, including 3 charters — the free alternative families weigh.
County figures here cover only the school’s home county — the school’s 45-minute draw area can span several counties, so county-grain signals describe the core of the market, not all of it.
Its enrollment trend (the demand mirror) needs the annual CCD backfill.
Each competitor’s tuition, selectivity, or waitlist; the actual choice set a given family weighs; the school’s own realized yield against these rivals. PSS is biennial and released on a ~2-year lag — read direction over precision.
- Private-seat saturation of the affording pool — how full the market already is, by grade band.
- Competitive density and its trend — whether the field is thickening or thinning (entries vs closures).
- Market concentration and the same-format competitor set — raw counts overstate the threat.
- Public and charter free capacity — the alternative that anchors the demand mirror.
BY THE NUMBERS · PUBLIC & PRIVATE COUNTS
Across the whole 45-minute market, 18 private schools enroll about 2,150 students in total, against the 4,180 school-age children in families who can likely afford tuition. Private enrollment fills roughly 51% of the affording pool — a partly-saturated market.
Total enrollment summed across every distinct private school in the catchment, each counted once (NCES PSS); the by-band count above overlaps (a K–12 school appears in all three bands), so it exceeds the 18 distinct schools here. Affording pool is a conservative $200K+ proxy, so a ratio near 1 signals a market that also serves families below that line.
The most-saturated grade band here reads as an undersupplied elementary market — relatively few private seats per affording child, with room to grow.
Estimated net revenue per student: $34,000 — about 28% of the draw area's $121,300 median household income. IRS 990 program revenue ÷ enrollment; net of financial aid, not list tuition.
How this market estimate is built
Affording children estimates school-age (5–17) residents in households earning $200K+ within a 45-minute drive of the school, summed from Census ACS ZIP-level data over the drive-time catchment. Competing private schools counts the NCES Private School Universe within that same 45-minute drive by grade band; a K–12 school counts in every band it serves. The $200K cutoff is the available ACS bracket and is a conservative affordability proxy — many independent-school families earn less and pay with aid — so read the figure as a relative market signal across schools, not an exact addressable count. The biennial PSS vintage is a v1 limitation.
What does public K-12 enrollment tell you?
This is the count of students enrolled in public K-12 schools in the county, from the NCES Common Core of Data via the Urban Institute Education Data Portal. It sizes the public-school pool that families weigh against an independent option.
This is a county aggregate, not a measurement of any single public school, and not a rating of any school. HiveCheck does not rate individual schools. Use it to read the scale and structure of the public-school market, not to compare named schools.
NCES Common Core of Data (CCD), via Education Data Portal, Urban Institute, under ODC Attribution License.
This county runs a relatively consolidated public market: about 42 public schools serving roughly 28,500 students, an average near 679 per school. 3 of those are charter schools, a public alternative that competes for the same families an independent school can enroll from.
A note on quality signals
Any public-school signal HiveCheck shows here is a county-level aggregate, not a rating of any individual school. HiveCheck does not rate schools. Where we report a coarse signal (school counts, public enrollment), read it as the shape of the competitive market, not a quality judgment on a named campus.
NCES Common Core of Data (CCD), via Education Data Portal, Urban Institute, under ODC Attribution License.
HOW TO USE THE COMPETITIVE SIGNAL
The NCES Common Core of Data is the federal census of U.S. public schools, sourced here through the Urban Institute Education Data Portal. The signal is market scale and structure: how many K-12 students sit in the public-school pipeline in this county, and how consolidated (few schools, large enrollment) or fragmented (many schools, smaller enrollment) that market is.
A county with a large, consolidated public system behaves very differently from one with many smaller schools and charter alternatives. An independent school reads this to understand switching dynamics and how much of the local market is already committed to a public option.
Every figure here is a county aggregate, not a school-level rating. NCES Common Core of Data (CCD), via Education Data Portal, Urban Institute, under ODC Attribution License.
ENROLLMENT & DEMAND PROFILE
HOW WE READ DEMAND
The trajectory verdict is anchored on the school’s own IRS Form 990 tuition-and-fees line (Part VIII line 2) — realized demand in nominal dollars, year by year. We average the earliest half of the years and compare to the latest half. Bands: growth of at least +20% reads EXPANDING, +5% to +20% reads STEADY, -5% to +5% reads SOFTENING, below -5% reads ERODING. When year-to-year swings dominate (a coefficient of variation of 20% or more, four-plus years) the verdict flips to STRAINED.
RESILIENCE is the honest stand-in for retention — we can’t see the admissions system, so we read how tightly the tuition-revenue series holds together. PRICING compares 990-derived net revenue per student to local median household income, with bands at 15% and 30%. DEMAND PIPELINE reads county live births, a ~5-year leading indicator: +5% or higher is a tailwind, -5% to -15% a headwind, below -15% a cliff.
What this profile can’t see: retention, the admissions funnel (inquiries → applications → yield), waitlist depth, summer melt, and whether the trajectory is price or headcount. The 990 shows enrollment × price, not the two apart.
Births-series notes: 2020 is absent — the Census skipped that vintage. When a county’s series ends more than two years ago we don’t call a pipeline (Connecticut’s counties were redrawn in 2022, so most CT schools sit on legacy FIPS with no post-2019 rows).
Demand is steady. Tuition & fees have held around $18.4M a year — up about 27% over 2017–2024 in nominal dollars, roughly flat once inflation is netted out.
Is enrollment holding while tuition rises, or is headcount slipping under a higher sticker price? The 990 can't separate the two.
Program-service revenue (IRS 990 Part VIII line 2) — tuition & fees, which PPP loans never touched, so every year counts. This is enrollment × price; the 990 can’t split the two.
Figures are nominal; roughly 20% cumulative inflation over this window means flat tuition revenue is a real-terms decline.
Ran about $16.0M a year early on (FY2017–FY2020) versus $18.4M lately (FY2021–FY2024) — the base held its shape across the window.
Year-to-year moves widen a bit, and grew straight through 2020–21. It’s the closest read we have on retention, which lives only in the school’s admissions system.
Net revenue runs about $34K per student — roughly 28% of the area’s $121K median household income, against 4,180 school-age children in $200k+ households within the drive.
County births ran about 2,885 a year in 2011–2016 and about 2,775 in 2018–2024 (-4%) — the pool that reaches kindergarten in ~5 years is shrinking.
County figures here cover only the school’s home county — the school’s 45-minute draw area can span several counties, so county-grain signals describe the core of the market, not all of it.
Births are the earliest demand signal — this year's births are kindergarten demand in about five years.
Retention and re-enrollment (the sector’s single most-watched enrollment metric), the admissions funnel (inquiries → applications → yield) and summer melt, waitlist depth, and whether the trajectory above is price or headcount — all live only in the school’s own admissions system. Named as gaps, not filled with guesses.
- Enrollment trajectory. Direction first, magnitude second, volatility third — the headline every trustee wants to see.
- Retention / re-enrollment. The leading indicator of school health. Lives in the SIS, so the resilience read above is the honest stand-in.
- Net tuition per student vs. local income. The affordability squeeze — a rising ratio narrows the addressable pool.
- County births and the affording pool. The ~5-year leading indicators for kindergarten demand and paying capacity.
BY THE NUMBERS · MIGRATION & HOME PRICES
FHFA House Price Index over available quarters for ZIP3 068.
What does net migration tell you?
Net migration is the inflow minus the outflow of tax returns for the county, read as a proxy for households moving in or out. A positive number means more affluent households arrived than left; a negative number is the reverse. The sign carries the meaning.
HiveCheck reads the upper adjusted-gross-income brackets of the IRS Statistics of Income county-to-county migration file, so the signal weights toward the households a school recruits and cultivates.
IRS SOI migration is released on roughly a two-year lag and is reported at the county level. Post-pandemic flows are noisier than historical norms, so read direction over precision.
What does the home-price trend tell you?
The FHFA House Price Index tracks repeat sales of the same homes over time, so it reads price direction cleanly without being skewed by the mix of what sold. HiveCheck reports the trailing three-year percent change and a one-word direction (rising, flat, or cooling) as a wealth-direction proxy.
Home-price data is published at the 3-digit ZIP / metro level, a broader area than the rest of this section, which works at the ZIP5 or county grain. Read it as regional context, not a block-level read.
HiveCheck uses FHFA because it is U.S. federal public-domain data with a clean repeat-sales method, rather than a proprietary consumer index with restrictive licensing.
Five questions to ask the search committee
Generated from anomalies in this school's public IRS Form 990 filings. Each question is anchored to a specific number so you can defend asking it. The point is not to interrogate — it is to show the board you have read the school carefully.
Contributions and investment income are a real part of the revenue mix, about 7% and 5% respectively on the latest 990. Who are the school's most strategic donors and partners right now, and what's the alumni engagement story?
TRIGGERED BY: CONTRIBUTIONS 7% + INVESTMENT INCOME 5% OF REVENUE
Salaries and benefits run about 70% of total expenses, which is at the higher end of the independent-school range. Is that a deliberate investment in faculty compensation, or is non-comp expense being held back?
TRIGGERED BY: SALARIES + BENEFITS / TOTAL EXPENSES = 70%
What's the school's read on the independent-school market in your region (application volume trends, the competitor set, where families compare you against), and how is that informing the next strategic plan?
TRIGGERED BY: MARKET-CONTEXT QUESTIONS APPLY TO ALL DAY SCHOOLS
How long has the current board chair been in role, and what's the typical board tenure and term structure here? In particular, who on the board would the Head's first three big decisions need to move through?
TRIGGERED BY: GOVERNANCE QUESTIONS ARE STANDARD FINAL-ROUND TERRITORY
The Schedule J shows who the highest-compensated employees are, the senior team composition. How long has the leadership team been together, and which seats has the Head been thinking about reshaping in the next two years?
TRIGGERED BY: SCHEDULE J HIGHEST-COMPENSATED PEOPLE DATA AVAILABLE
These are starting points, not a script. The strongest version of any question becomes specific once you walk the campus and meet the team.
Board of trustees (IRS Form 990, Part VII)
This is a sample report built on fabricated data for a fictional school. A live report is compiled by Lomuscio Labs from verified public datasets — IRS Form 990 (through FY2024), U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-year estimates, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Education NCES, BEA, and HUD. No real school data appears on this page.
Community & Market section sources: Source: IRS Statistics of Income. NCES Common Core of Data (CCD), via Education Data Portal, Urban Institute, under ODC Attribution License. Source: Federal Housing Finance Agency, House Price Index. Drive-time areas: map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), routing via openrouteservice.org.
FICTIONAL DEMO — sample data for illustration. Not a real school. A product of Lomuscio Labs.