In the last year, I have given tours of my home to over 40 families. The very first open house we held last August to start The Treehouse was exciting. Several friends came to support us, and it was the first time our founding families saw the space that would become their kids’ new home away from home. I loved opening my home up to become a loving and inviting space for these families. Since then, my enrollment and waitlist have more than tripled.
I feel excited by the growing interest in my program, and I’m motivated to make space for as many children as possible. My school is one of just a few learner-driven microschools in my area, and the only agile learning center. Space is a constraint, but demand is growing rapidly as more families discover the concept of microschools and the funding available to pay for them through programs like the Utah Fits All scholarship, Open Ed, and Harmony Education.
While the enthusiasm is invigorating, I do wonder how long I can sustain hosting my little learning pod in my home. Aside from the fact that my home-based microschool business license caps my enrollment, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to hold boundaries for both space and time in my home. The lines between work and home blur evermore as I have an increased workload to manage the larger number of students and their parents.
Starting in my home was a no-brainer for me. It allowed me to open the school with just six students in addition to my own three children. I was grateful to find my founding families who aligned with my vision and entrusted me with their kids that first year.
As the year progressed, I realized there are benefits to having a larger group of students. Student projects could gain better traction with more peers. For example, a Dungeons & Dragons campaign offering falls flat with just two kids, but with more, the chances grow of finding like-minded peers. I continued to spread the word about my school, and by the end of the first year, my original six had become ten.
Our family has a second small house we have normally used as a long-term rental. This year, we decided to convert it into another campus for our school. We will now be running two home-based microschools in order to meet the growing demand. This fall I will start with 27 students between the two campuses, and still have a growing waitlist! Even though we are bursting at the seams, we plan to continue in our two homes at least one more year. Here are a few lessons I have learned and plan to implement going into a second year:
- Systems and Boundaries: You have to create systems to help you maintain boundaries. Some are simple, such as hiding my phone from myself on weekends so I can maintain some semblance of out-of-office hours. I have also moved all tours to Mondays, which happen to be our chore days. This has eliminated the mad cleanings at random times, and allows me to group visits together.
- Screen Applicants: Tours are the last step in my enrollment process. I now start with phone interviews and require an application form before scheduling a tour. I just can’t ask my family to open our house to every curious parent, so we now screen first for fit and commitment level.
- Insurance and Licensing: Running a business in your home requires additional insurance, and our new campus is a home that operates solely as a school. This may not be possible according to some zoning laws, and it also requires some unique insurance policies. I have learned that any red tape items need to be done first, even if you don’t have your minimum enrollment. It isn’t costly to get a business license, and applying for insurance is free, but both processes can be very slow, so start early.
- Taxes and Bookkeeping: The tax deduction for a home office is actually quite small, but there are lots of other deductions you may miss if you’re not tracking properly. Talking with a business coach helped me get my bookkeeping organized in a way to maximize my tax savings.
- Sick Days and Contingency Plans: We had one run-in with the stomach flu our first year. Our school runs Tuesday to Thursday, so when it hit our kids Friday, we hoped that we could get through it quickly enough. But by Monday night, we weren’t symptom-free for 48 hours, and the house could use a good sanitization. We contacted our families and planned an off-campus day, meeting at our local children’s museum for a learning adventure. Having a large van has given us flexibility for contingency plans.
For now, running the school in our homes makes sense financially and for the lifestyle we have chosen. I like that it gives me flexibility to be home when my youngest comes home from her neighborhood preschool. We have also kept some of the flexibility we enjoyed with homeschool by keeping our slow mornings—no mad dash to get everyone in the car on time. And the students seem to love it too: when we have talked about our dreams of building a larger space, they protest and say that they like the warmth of our home. So for now, that is where we will be.
