Enlightium Academy is Washington's largest reported private school enrollment by a wide margin — but the headcount is misleading. Enlightium is an online Christian K-12 distance-learning program, headquartered in Spokane, that reports thousands of online students from across Washington and beyond as a single OSPI registration. The actual physical-campus enrollment is far smaller; the OSPI number reflects geographically dispersed remote learners rather than a single-site student body.
Founded in 2003 by Dr. Yelena Solodyankin, Enlightium operates in a distinct category from any in-person private school in the state. Comparable institutions are national online academies — Liberty University Online Academy, Sevenstar, Power Homeschool — rather than Washington-state physical privates. The program is approved by the Washington State Board of Education, accredited by Cognia and the Association of Christian Schools International, and approved by the NCAA for athletic-eligibility coursework and by the College Board for AP courses. The catalog spans more than 100 electives.
In 2024 Enlightium opened a brick-and-mortar companion campus, Enlightium Prep, on Spokane's North Side — giving local families an in-person option that runs on the same curriculum framework. The OSPI registration confusion makes statewide comparisons against Enlightium uninformative for most rankings, since the school's selection model — self-paced, parent-administered, distance — doesn't translate into the test-score and placement metrics applied to brick-and-mortar institutions.
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