One evening during my first year of running my microschool, I attended a cohort call with other school founders at Microschool Solutions. We were learning about different types of schedules and rhythms to consider using in our programs. As our guide described the loose structure used for self-directed and project-based learning that I was trying to build in my school, she made a comment that really caught my attention: This method requires a highly skilled facilitator.
The term “highly skilled facilitator” struck me because I was in the beginning stages of working with my first staff hire, and was quickly realizing that what felt natural and intuitive to me was not coming naturally to my assistant. I had taken for granted the years I had spent before opening the school—listening to podcasts, reading books, unschooling my own kids—things that had made me a skilled facilitator. I had assumed that all I needed was someone who was “good with kids.” But so much of what was crucial to make things run smoothly and to intuit curating the space and opportunities for the students, was living only in my head. Although the college student I had hired was sweet with the kids and hungry to learn, I realized that I needed more than a babysitter. This would require me to create a more thorough interview process, training, and systems—all of which felt like more work rather than a lightening of my burden.
Despite this realization, my second year of running the school still felt a bit experimental when it came to hiring. Our enrollment more than doubled from year one to year two, so I was already figuring out how to scale the brand-new systems I had just created with my first assistant—and now also trying to teach those to three new facilitators.
What I found was that vague job descriptions make it almost impossible for people to take work off your plate. When responsibilities are unclear, employees constantly need direction and approval. Instead of creating capacity, you create more management work for yourself. So heading into my third year, I am using this summer to refine my systems, defining specific outcomes, tasks, and rhythms that my employees will need to manage, so that I can hire the right people for the right roles.
Here are the steps I am taking to prepare for my next new hire.
- Clarify your vision.
This part I actually had pretty clear the first time I went to hire, but I made the mistake of thinking it was the only thing I needed to discuss in the interview. I wrongly assumed that if someone understood and aligned with the philosophy, they would somehow magically know how to do it.
Still, if you are starting a new school, do not skip this step. Your vision is what you want your space to feel like: the kinds of things you should see, hear, and feel when in your environment. Checking for alignment here is paramount because if your employee can’t buy into what you are creating, no amount of training will change their attitude.
- Define your systems.
Take a time inventory by tracking everything you do in a day, week, and month. These are your systems, however messy they currently may be. You can refine them before handing them off to an employee by giving due dates or rhythms, but you can’t do that until you know the whole list of what you’re doing. So make the list, and then refine.
I have had administrative jobs I have wanted to hand off for a while, but I kept saying I’m too disorganized to give that job to anyone else. Making the list of what I do helped me see that I am actually doing many different roles: facilitator, parent communicator, enrollment coordinator, environment designer, administrative assistant, and curriculum curator. Even if the same person fills more than one role for me as an employee, grouping tasks together into roles helps me see which jobs need to stay with me and which can be delegated.
- Identify your priorities.
This refers to your overall goals including your work–life balance, financial goals, growth projections, or scaling goals for the business, as well as your desires for student success. Things you might consider in these categories include doing less work from home after school, being able to take a true summer break, expanding to a second location, or giving yourself a raise. Rank these in order of highest to lowest priority to clarify which job really needs to be hired first. For example, I was missing having time to teach just my own kids, so this year, I am hiring someone to lead my younger cohort without me. Now that I know how that cohort needs to run, I know the exact skills that facilitators will need in order to own their days without my help.
- Separate founder work from staff work.
There are some tasks that need to stay on my plate such as recruiting families and interviewing to check for alignment, holding cohesion between my two cohorts by hosting our community days, training staff as I continue to refine systems, and making the large financial decisions. But the clearer my systems get, the more I can empower my employees to run their parts without my help.
Hearing my cohort guide that day refer to my role as a “highly skilled facilitator” led me to recognize the true work I was doing in my microschool. The challenge isn’t finding people who care about kids or believe in self-directed learning. It is learning to define the work, clarify the goals, and train the skills so that I can truly share the work that has previously only existed in my head.
When I first considered growing my school, hiring people was one of my fears. It felt like growth would open me up to more risk—employee dissatisfaction, more parents to communicate with, less personal contact with each student and family—not to mention all the new skills I needed to learn like payroll, workers compensation insurance, and determining pay rates that fit my budget. My friend Shalese Kapp, who founded Seed School in Cache Valley, Utah, and has expanded it to three locations, encouraged me with her beautiful perspective on what growth has meant for her. She said that it has been so satisfying to watch teachers that she hires feel so happy with the opportunity to be teaching again on their terms. She told me that bringing people in to share their unique gifts has made Seed School better than she could have ever made it on her own.
I’m looking forward to testing her word this year, learning to trust a little more and watch beauty unfold as I bring in new people to love and nurture The Treehouse with me.
