Message to Ron Roberts - Christofuture Prep Update
Date: December 22, 2025
From: Gary Sheng
Re: Weekend Update & How It Affects Our Schoolhouse Discussions
Ron,
Here's the update I promised!
As we're in this early stage (and before any contracts are signed between us and anyone else), you know it's incredibly important to get aligned.
I respect you tremendously, and I think earnestly discussing the desires of our heart is going to be really fruitful to figure out how we can support each other as friends and do things together as business partners where it makes sense.
I've become increasingly convinced that one of the most important things a Christian can do is shape the future of education. And I've landed on a specific conviction: I want to help incubate a really strong K-8 (and eventually beyond) Christian prep system.
We're tentatively calling it Christofuture Prep.
Ida Villavicencio
I met Ida at a revival event in San Antonio back in October. She's become a close friend—invited me to Thanksgiving, invited me to her family's Christmas party this weekend. We did a lot of brainstorming together this weekend and before.
As the year has gone on, I've become more and more confident I want to be part of a school that teaches:
- About God and the Holy Spirit
- About spiritual gifts like healing and prophecy
- About spiritual warfare and demonization
- Realities that aren't being taught in schools—and in most states, are illegal to teach in public schools
The Delta in My Thinking
My biggest shift from where I thought I'd spend my time to where I want to spend my time, even just in the last few days:
Before: Maybe I'll help in a light capacity with a bunch of different microschools, including Tauren Wells's.
Now: I want to incubate one school system deeply. Maybe that school has multiple church-based campuses and 1 or more pods within each campus, but probably not multiple cities initially. Maybe 1-3 churches within San Antonio, each incubating one or more microschool pods.
This means:
- Regular trips to San Antonio to make sure things start off right
- Hosting guide training this summer in San Antonio
- Ida as the experienced spiritual warrior and education leader at the helm
- Raising money from wealthy donors + crowdfunding + ESA funds through Prenda
Why I'm Exploring Dedicating A Lot Of Time To This School
It takes enormous energy, time, and love to incubate a single good school. That's one of the things I realized being at Alpha for even just a few months—so many moving parts to creating something actually good.
Outside of just having a good life where I'm wealthy, one of the things I really want to do is incubate the school I want to eventually send my kids to. That school doesn't exist right now.
But here's the bigger picture: we're not just launching a school, we're launching a movement. The success of the first school is critical to the momentum of the next set of schools, and so on. Get San Antonio right, document everything, prove the model works—and suddenly donors from around the country (and world) want in. They're not just funding one school; they're seeding something much bigger. That's the pitch.
The Value Proposition
For a certain parent audience, their kid being in a Christian environment where you're:
- Getting taught the laws of the universe and your identity as an image bearer
- Being prepared to lead in this AI-transformed world
Preparing them for heaven AND preparing them to lead on earth.
As soon as they can, they're applying AI to help their church. As soon as they can, they're getting internships at local businesses. As soon as they can, they're being pushed to pursue their God-given calling. We're all designed in a one-of-one way—help kids find their one-of-one purpose.
Prenda Reality Check
The two-hour learning model that Alpha preaches about—totally the future. But our texts back and forth today are making me think that here's not a platform that meets that hype yet.
Prenda is more of a coordination tool for guides: keeping kids on track, motivated, self-initiated, with curated curricular building blocks. It's much less the "AI adaptive tutor" thing right now. It will be over time, but selling that at this current point is a little misleading. I think Alpha is encountering this same reality.
How This Affects Schoolhaus
I'm aware that focusing on incubating one school isn't what we talked about when we discussed Schoolhaus a few days ago.
One possibility to potentially get aligned on: Schoolhaus treats the San Antonio Christian school system as its first incubation client. We do a really good job to earn the right to do good work elsewhere. Go slow to go fast.
There's money to be made even just focusing on one school to start. We'd just have to figure out the right deal structure.
The "selling adaptive AI solutions" opportunity we discussed is probably more of a later-down-the-line thing if the current capabilities aren't there yet. Some relationships are important to just keep warm and not ruin reputation by overpromising.
But in terms of what is possible now, is working with good humans I/we trust, and incubating a school with a very strong POV that will resonate with a Christian demographic with a bunch of failing schools (San Antonio).
I wanted to give you this update as we transparently have conversations about how we work together in 2026.
One More Thing
I'm open to hearing the strategic case for incubating non-Christian schools too. Maybe there's wisdom in diversifying. But I'm also not sure it's smart to divert attention between secular and non-secular—feels like it could dilute the conviction that makes this compelling in the first place.
And honestly: if the Schoolhaus vision in your mind needs to be more universalist to work, there would be no hard feelings. I could still help out in some capacity, but it probably wouldn't be a cofounder-type deal. I just want us to be honest about where our hearts are so we can figure out the right configuration.
Something to pray on for sure.
Love you.
— Gary
Btw, I'm bringing some ppl to Liberty for NYE https://www.encounter-intl.com/visitor-guide/new-years-eve