Our Story
Founded in 1986 by Dr. Rodney L. Parsley, as the PK-12 Educational Division of then Word of Life Church, Harvest Preparatory School (HPS) was opened as Word of Life Christian Academy, later renamed World Harvest Christian Academy when the church moved to the Gender Road campus and renamed as World Harvest Church, and then in 2002 was renamed as Harvest Preparatory School.
Although the school has gone through name changes and campus expansions over the last nearly 40 years, our mission has remained the same. Our vision has remained the same. And our core values have remained the same. Our school received a charter to operate as a non-public Christian school from the Ohio Department of Education in 1986. The school continues to meet and exceed all requirements to maintain the non-public charter.
Dr. Parsley set forth to build a Christ-centered educational system in the Columbus, Ohio area for Christian families seeking a better educational experience. His mission was to provide the same experiences and opportunities as some of the most innovative and state-of-the-art public schools in central Ohio, but to provide those experiences for our students in a faith-based environment and with Christian teachers and staff.
From our humble beginnings in the basement of a 180-seat church building, the school has grown to an enrollment of 850 students and 85 teachers & staff. The school is housed on the 86-acre campus of World Harvest Church and has access to the nearly 500,000 square feet of classroom, meeting, office, and athletic spaces and facilities.
The school offers a full range of academic courses from Preschool through Grade 12, to include Christian curriculum, Advanced Placement and College Credit Plus courses, to foreign language and fine arts programs. Daily Bible classes and weekly chapel services set HPS apart, while also providing students with a practical hands-on approach when it comes to service in the community and beyond.
Our athletic programs successfully compete with those of area public and non-public schools. While our programs have amassed over 20 league championships since 2001, our programs have also won district and regional championships too. We are especially proud of our boys and girls varsity basketball programs for both winning state championships in their respective programs.
We pride ourselves on how well our students represent themselves both in the classroom and in Christ. It is our expectation as a condition of the admissions process that all students identify as having accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Our student body represents 80+ different Church congregations from the central Ohio area and our students are encouraged to remain active and involved in their home churches.