The profound diversity of America's microschooling sector is found across many aspects and dimensions of the work they do to support their learners and families each day. Their innovative use of facilities space and schedules are two of these.
Because microschools differ in the ways they are organized -- as private schools (accredited or unaccredited), learning centers serving families adhering to their state's homeschooling requirements. or sometimes as public charter or even traditional public school governance -- most microschools inherently possess flexibilities which allow them to adapt to meet the needs of the families they serve.
Microschools which support homeschooled students enjoy the greatest amount of flexibility concerning daily and weekly schedules. As a result, even within the same microschool, some families can choose for their learners to attend full-time (54%), while others can choose part-time weekly schedules (22%) where families supplement their microschool's teaching and learning model by adding other learning sources, frequently with what many describe as a "Learn Everywhere" approach. Still other microschools allow their families to choose one or the other.
Because the vast majority of currently-operating microschools draw their operating revenue primarily from collecting tuition, part-time/hybrid schedules have the added advantage of allowing them to pro-rate the amount families pay based upon the schedules they choose.
Microschools also differ in the types of facilities they utilize.
While in their early days, public charter schools earned a reputation for ingeniously converting space in former warehouses, light industrial space or even rope factories into places of learning, most new charter schools these days seem to conform to more traditional school space. Microschools, on the other hand, remain scrappy in their willingness to optimize facilities, usually out of financial necessity.
Such ingenuity born of necessity brings microschools to draw on all sorts of habitation (and co-habitation) opportunities. This makes commercial business space, whether storefronts, converted racecar design and manufacturing floors, repurposed park nature centers, or many other variations, the most popular type of space (39%). Houses of worship, which may or may not have a direct connection to the microschool, its teaching and learning model, or its leaders, are the next most-popular category, at over one in four.
About one in seven microschools convene private homes that also serve as residence. Houses which are not currently residences account for about the same share. Meanwhile, microschools hosted by or adjacent to employers represent a small, but growing, market share.
So the diversity of America's microschools, while found vastly in their people, is also a defining factor of many other aspects of their work. The evolution of this trend will be fascinating to watch as the microschooling sector continues to grow around the country. The National Microschooling Center would love to hear about yours.
Findings above from the National Microschooling Center, "American Microschools: A Sector Analysis," April 2023.