Legacy Christian Academy (LCA) prepares its students to lead with conviction and succeed in college and beyond. Challenging academics, a robust fine arts program, competitive athletics, and intentional mentoring define the student experience, all grounded in close partnership with families.

That partnership extends to affordability. As part of the financial stewardship anchoring the school's strategic plan, LCA awards more than $1 million in financial aid each year. The process for deciding those awards, however, had grown unwieldy.

When Award Season Means Months of Meetings

Their previous platform's verification timeline meant applications trickled in over months, leaving no clean point to evaluate families together.

"Every other week from February through April we had rolling committee meetings where we would look at a small group of applications that were ready and give out awards," explained Whitney Younts, Senior Director of Finance at Legacy Christian Academy. 

"Then for the next group, we would have less money to offer, and things could look quite different from one meeting to the next."

“Award season was labor-intensive, inconsistent, and just very frustrating."

The burden of manual work compounded the problem. "Each meeting, we had a spreadsheet with a tab for each family and a summary of their financial situation. After the meeting, we had to go back into the system and update what awards were given. It was very tedious and there was room for human error.”

The breaking point came naturally. "We were just so fed up and we knew we had to figure out something better," shared Younts. 

“I finally saw Clarity and knew: this is what we need."

Running Committee Meetings Without Spreadsheets

The first award season with Clarity transformed their workflow entirely.

"We no longer needed that massive spreadsheet because we run the committee meeting directly in Clarity," Younts explained. 

"It shows everything the committee needs to see, and you can finalize the award right there on the screen," she continued. "It's just seamless and saves us time."

“Clarity gave us a week's worth of time back in our award season to do the other pressing business office duties we have."

Navigating a New ESA Program

LCA’s first year on Clarity coincided with the rollout of TEFA — Texas's new school choice ESA program. The flexibility of Clarity's platform proved essential.

"When award season started, we didn't really know much about TEFA, so we went through our normal process," Younts explained. "We customized our award notification letters to say that if families received the TEFA award, their financial aid would be adjusted."

"We thought maybe we would have 10 or 20 families, and we got over 150."

For LCA, making the adjustments was simple. "Once we found out who got a TEFA award, it was easy to adjust the amount in Clarity, and it flowed through the rest of the application."

"If we had not used Clarity, that process would have been a lot more difficult. In our previous system, once you posted the award to the payment plan, it was very difficult to change it."

Fewer Questions and Smoother Communication

Families felt the difference too. "We definitely received fewer questions from our families," shared Younts. "Clarity handles the communication for us, whether it's document collection or managing a split household. Emails are sent in a single click at most, and it makes everything smoother."

The mental load lightened along with the workload. "Manually tracking, uploading, or making changes is not something I have to worry about anymore. That saves brain space, which is a big plus."

A Partner Who Prioritizes Service

For Younts, the Clarity difference goes beyond the product.

"From our very first interaction, it’s obvious that the people at Clarity genuinely want to help, and they understand the financial aid process," she shared.

"No one has ever told us 'just do this workaround’. They take our ideas for improvement, and they make updates to the platform quickly."

"I wish I would have switched to Clarity sooner. That's probably my biggest takeaway. We should have done it sooner."