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(916) 481-2300
Summer Office Hours: Tuesday – Thursdays 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM (Appointments by Request)
Office hours: Mon-Thu 7:45 AM-4:00 PM | Fri 7:45 AM-2:00 PM
(916) 481-2300
A longitudinal study of 1,408 students found that only 49% experienced early academic success between prekindergarten and third grade, while 51% faced real academic challenges along the way. That statistic is the whole reason we’re writing this: beyond the basics, how elementary grit affects long-term academic performance is one of the most important questions a family can ask before their child ever reaches middle school. At Sacramento Adventist Academy, we watch this play out every year, in every grade, in every zip code we serve around Carmichael.
Here’s what parents in the Carmichael area need to know about elementary grit and long-term academic performance before their child’s next report card.
Grit isn’t a personality type. It’s a habit.
It’s the fourth grader who bombs a spelling test on Tuesday and studies harder for Friday’s quiz. It’s the second grader who can’t quite nail a multiplication fact and keeps trying anyway, because someone taught them that struggling is part of learning, not proof they can’t.
Beyond the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic, elementary school is where children decide, often without knowing it, whether they’re the kind of person who quits or the kind of person who pushes through. That decision gets made early. Research shows children as young as 5 years old already start absorbing messages that can lock in a fixed mindset about their own ability.
This is not Plan B. This is direction. The habits formed at age six or seven don’t disappear at graduation. They compound.
Here’s the part that surprises parents: elementary grit doesn’t just predict better report cards. It predicts whether a student is even in the room for advanced coursework a decade later.
Nationally, only about 25% of high school students perform at or above a proficient level in math. Only about one-third of high school seniors are sufficiently prepared for college-level work in reading and math. Those numbers aren’t about talent. They’re about whether a child built persistence early enough for it to become automatic by the time algebra gets hard.
We see the opposite outcome play out at our own graduations. This year’s Class of 2026 walked the stage with 27 seniors receiving diplomas, scholarships, and four years of academic rigor behind them. That send-off wasn’t built in senior year. It was built in second grade, third grade, fourth grade, one small act of persistence at a time.
Twenty-nine specific empirical studies published between 2012 and 2017 examined grit’s role in education, and the pattern across nearly all of them is consistent: persistence beats raw ability as a predictor of how far a student goes.
That’s not a knock on ability. It’s a reminder that ability without persistence stalls out, while persistence without much natural talent often keeps climbing.
Public elementary and middle schools enrolled 33.9 million students nationwide in fall 2023 alone. That’s an enormous window, and most of those students, our students included, spend eight or nine formative years inside it before high school even starts.
We’re known around Carmichael for our sports program and our humanities program, and that’s not an accident. Both are deliberate tools for building grit.
A cross-country runner who finishes last in a meet and shows up to practice the next morning is doing the same internal work as a student wrestling with a tough novel in humanities class. Neither result feels good in the moment. Both build the same muscle.
Keilana Rivas’ path to the California State Championship is a good example of what that looks like in real life. It wasn’t one great race. It was years of showing up when showing up was hard.
“Students aren’t funneled, they’re equipped to choose well.” That’s true whether the choice is a college major, a varsity roster spot, or simply whether to try again after a hard quarter.
Our schoolwide learner outcomes lean directly on this: living healthy and balanced lives, nurturing lifelong relationships, and building academic strength from elementary through graduation. Keilana’s story is one example of grit paying off years after it was first practiced.
Families researching a private school in Sacramento often ask the same question: will smaller class sizes and a values-based approach actually change how my child handles setbacks?
Our answer comes from watching it happen. Faith and character are cornerstones of our approach here, and that’s not separate from academics, it’s woven through them. Faith formation is the secret ingredient for student success because it gives a child language for perseverance beyond “try harder.”
We hear this from families who transfer in from Heritage Elementary, Fairview Elementary, Garfield Elementary, Lakeview Elementary, Adams Elementary, and Edison Elementary across the Sacramento area. They’re not looking for a different set of worksheets. They’re looking for a school where grit is built on purpose, every day, from elementary through senior year.
Elementary grit doesn’t stay in elementary school. It shows up years later in whether a student raises their hand for an AP class they’re not sure they can pass.
That’s part of why so many families searching for the best high school in Sacramento actually start their research years earlier, back in the elementary grades where the real groundwork gets laid. We’re proud to be a Platinum Level AP School, and we’ve built open enrollment for AP courses specifically so grit built early has somewhere to go later.
Students who’ve spent years practicing persistence in elementary don’t flinch at rigor in high school. They recognize it. Sacramento Adventist Academy is a college-prep school, but “college prep” doesn’t mean college is the only successful outcome.
It means we prepare students so thoroughly that when they graduate, they have genuine options: a four-year university, a trade, the military, ministry, or straight into the workforce. All of it counts. All of it is success.
Our recently re-established National Honor Society and our comparison of AP courses vs. dual credit both exist for the same reason: to give students who’ve built the habit of persistence a real place to spend it.
Every elementary school builds grit a little differently, and we hear about it from the families who land on our campus after starting somewhere else.
Parents describe experiences at Sunrise Elementary, Carver Elementary, Oak Grove Elementary, Eisenhower Elementary, Oakview Elementary, Hillside Elementary, and West Elementary, and the common thread is that grit gets built through small, repeated challenges, not one big moment. The same is true of Horace Mann Elementary, Sunset Elementary, Northside Elementary, Crestview Elementary, Eastside Elementary, Cleveland Elementary, Thomas Jefferson Elementary, Williams Elementary, Brookside Elementary, Clinton Elementary, and Midway Elementary. Wherever a child starts, the habit either gets reinforced or it doesn’t.
What we add at SAA is the humanities side of that equation. Spring musicals bring elementary and middle school students onto the same stage, learning lines they didn’t think they could memorize and hitting notes they didn’t think they could hit. That’s grit, set to music.
Watch our Spring Musicals and you’ll see it firsthand, or check out the full high school production that follows the same tradition a few grades later.
School safety is a promise SAA strives to keep every day, and that same sense of promise extends to how we build character, not just protect it.
Our approach treats grit as something you practice on purpose: through AP coursework once students reach that stage, through rigorous academic programs, through athletics, and through the humanities. Every staff member is trained to notice the moment a student wants to quit and to walk them through it instead of around it.
We’re proud of our Platinum Level AP School designation, but we’re prouder of what leads up to it: years of small, unglamorous persistence starting in kindergarten.
Beyond the basics of reading, writing, and math facts, elementary grit affects long-term academic performance in ways that show up years later, on report cards, on AP exams, and on college applications.
Nearly half of all students hit real academic struggle before third grade. What separates a hard year from a lost decade is whether that struggle gets met with support that teaches persistence rather than shame.
That’s the work we do at Sacramento Adventist Academy, every grade, every zip code we serve around Carmichael. Beyond the basics is not a slogan for us. It’s direction.
Grit in elementary education refers to a child’s ability to persist through academic struggle instead of giving up. Research consistently shows that elementary grit affects long-term academic performance more reliably than raw test scores alone.
Studies reviewing dozens of empirical papers on grit in education have found that persistence often predicts academic trajectory better than initial ability. A child with strong grit tends to close skill gaps over time, while ability without persistence often stalls.
Children as young as 5 years old already begin absorbing messages about whether they’re “good” at school, which shapes how they respond to challenges for years afterward. This is why building elementary grit early has such a strong effect on long-term academic performance.
A private school in Sacramento with smaller class sizes and a values-based approach can respond to a struggling student individually rather than waiting for standardized intervention. At SAA, faith formation and character development are built directly into daily academics, not treated as separate programs.
Yes. Only about one-third of U.S. high school seniors arrive prepared for college-level reading and math, and the students who do arrive prepared typically built persistence habits years earlier in elementary school. That’s part of why programs like open enrollment for AP courses matter, they give grit somewhere to go.
Parents can praise effort and process rather than just results, let children work through frustration before stepping in, and connect struggle to specific activities like sports or reading that require repeated practice. These habits reinforce what strong elementary programs are already doing during the school day.
Yes, sports and humanities programs both require repeated practice, public failure, and recovery, which are the exact conditions that build grit. Families searching for the best high school in Sacramento often find that schools balancing athletics, arts, and academic rigor produce students better prepared for long-term academic performance.
