Who We Are: Our True Story

It started with heartbreak.

Two teachers (just two of us) stood in classrooms watching bright-eyed children who loved Jesus get crushed by a system that had quietly removed Him from the center. We watched high-school students who could barely read graduate with smiles and empty diplomas. We watched spiritual formation replaced with behavior management and “values clarification.” We watched parents ache, unsure where to turn.

We couldn’t unsee it.

So we prayed one simple, dangerous prayer: “Lord Jesus, if You want something different for these children, show us. We’ll obey no matter the cost.”

He answered. Loudly.

Within months He stripped away every safety net (jobs, titles, predictable income) and made the call impossibly clear: Start a school. A real one. Small. Rigorous. Unapologetically Christ-centered. A place where children are known, loved, challenged, and sent.

With the steadfast help of our husbands, a handful of founding families who trusted us with their precious children, and a volunteer physicist professor who saw the eternal value of this mission, we stepped out in raw faith. In the summer of 2025, with zero investors and a whole lot of Jesus, Tetelestai Leadership Academy opened its doors a mile from Signal Butte in East Mesa, Arizona, inside a warm house at 2219 S. Valle Verde that now feels more like home than campus.

This is not a school we built. This is a stewardship we were handed, and together we have started the beginning of something huge, all while placing our trust completely on Jesus.

Every child who walks through our gate has been prayed for by name before they ever arrived. We feel the weight and the wonder of being entrusted with them. These are not “students.” They are future fathers, mothers, pastors, elders, missionaries, business owners, neighbors, and culture-shapers. 

They are arrows (Ps. 127:4), and we dare not aim them low.

Our promise is simple, but it changes everything:

• Jesus is not a subject. He is the center of every subject.
• Reading, writing, and arithmetic are taught at the highest possible level because God deserves our best.
• Small classes (never more than 15) mean no child hides and no child gets passed along illiterate.
• Grace is the air we breathe: we are already accepted in Christ, so we learn, fail, repent, and grow without fear.
• We exist to raise disciples who fish for men, children who will leave here loving God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving their neighbor with courage and skill.

From the 5-year-old sounding out his first Psalm to the high-school senior defending a thesis on the sovereignty of God in history, every moment is pointed toward one goal: that they would know Jesus, walk with Jesus, and make Him known.

This is our testimony. Two teachers saw a gaping hole (Jesus missing and excellence abandoned) and Jesus said, “Fill it.” So we did. 

And He is.

If you are a parent longing for more than survival-mode education, If you are a pastor looking for a place that will send your young people back stronger in faith and sharper in mind, If you are a professional or donor who believes the next generation is worth fighting for, come see what the Lord has done. Come partner with what He is doing.

Because Tetelestai, “It is finished.” Christ has already secured the victory. Now we get to raise children who live like it’s true.

In awe of His grace, Shannon Stark & Annel Hanson Co-Founders Tetelestai Leadership Academy A K-12 Classical Christian Microschool East Mesa, Arizona tetelestaileadershipacademy.com

We still have a few seats for 2026. If the Lord is stirring you, the door is open. Let’s raise the remnant together.

Tetelestai!