David had a great conversation with Christina Dougay who is the founder of Practical Education and Knowledge LLC (P.E.A.K.) a microschool in Houston, Texas.

With a background in both education and the mental health sector, she brings a unique perspective to creating safe, supportive, and engaging learning environments for children.

Driven by a desire to find an alternative to traditional public education for her own children and others in need, Christina strives to provide a positive, trauma-informed approach to learning. She believes that every child is capable of success, deserves to feel valued in the classroom, and should experience the joy of learning.

Christina invited her husband to join the podcast with her because they have been in this together since the beginning. They shared the origin story of how they were driven by the desire to create something better for their daughter, which drove them to launch with 3 students in their living room and grow to a larger space in a short amount of time.

Christina & Dusty are emblematic of the spirit and heart of the microschool movement. They have a great story to tell about how they took matters into their own hands and how it helped their own daughter while launching them into a journey of meaning and purpose to serve others.

There are tons of gems in here that you read about in the research about leadership and startups. They didn’t need to read that research, because they embody entrepreneurship and took one step at a time and made their vision come to life. Such an inspiring story!

You can learn more about their microschool here: https://www.practicaled.org/

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL.

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:
Simplify and streamline technology
Save teachers’ time
Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
Improve student performance on state assessments
🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

David had a great conversation with Don Soifer who is the CEO of the National Microschooling Center.

They discussed the recent report just released from the National Microschooling Center that illuminates important data about microschools like what percentage are private, public, what types of students microschools serve, facilities, types of models, and so much more!

We get to be one of the first to share this and get to hear Don’s analysis which is super exciting.

Here is a more about Don and the Center. The National Microschooling Center ia America’s comprehensive resource center, movement-builder and authority for the most exciting new education movement in a generation. He co-created and co-directed the Southern Nevada Urban Micro Academy, the nation’s first public–private partnership microschool with the City of North Las Vegas, delivering unprecedented academic growth with a previously underserved population of families under pandemic operating conditions.

Prior to opening the Center, Soifer has been President of Nevada Action for School Options, an award-winning nonpartisan “action tank” he founded in 2017 to support the growth of diverse choices of rich, high-quality and personalized educational opportunities for all students. He previously served as Executive Vice President of the Lexington Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Arlington, VA that he cofounded in 1998.

Soifer directed the institute’s education and other domestic-policy research programs, and his research has been published and discussed in many of the nation’s most influential news publications and policy journals, and cited by policy decisionmakers at all levels of government, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

Soifer earned a record as one of the nation’s most accomplished charter school authorizers, serving an unprecedented three mayor-appointed, Council-confirmed terms on the District of Columbia Public Charter School Board beginning in 2008. He was widely regarded as a driving force transforming one of the nation’s most successful charter authorizers as it instituted systems for prioritizing quality for the 120+ schools oversee. He subsequently served as a board member on the Nevada State Public Charter School Authority, appointed by the State Board of Education, from 2019-2021.

Soifer has been an Aspen/Pahara Institute education fellow since 2018.

You can learn about The National Microschooling Center here: https://microschoolingcenter.org/

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL.

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:
Simplify and streamline technology
Save teachers’ time
Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
Improve student performance on state assessments
🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

David had a great conversation with Raphael Gang who is a Program Officer at the Stand Together Trust (STT) where he makes investments focused on supporting a dynamic education marketplace for families, educators, and entrepreneurs. Prior to joining STT, he worked at 4.0 Schools, a nonprofit national incubator for early-stage education impact ventures, where he coached education entrepreneurs and led 4.0’s communications, fundraising, and research. He helped launch and implement the statewide school voucher program, oversaw charter schools statewide, and managed policy for supporting choice at the Louisiana Department of Education. A former elementary school teacher, he has worked in policy and in leadership at two networks of schools. As a father of two young children, Raphael believes strongly that if we want a future of learning that is for all children, we need to build it.

David and Raphael discussed how important it is to engage families in the process of building your microschool. We think that building schools is an intellectual process, but entrepreneurship is about doing and not thinking. In that spirit, Raphael recommends you start small, start fast, and start cheap by starting to talk with families and make that your top priority. They also discussed the transition from educator to entrepreneur which can be a big one for many educators! Finally, they discussed the need for microschools to be sustainable and to build a business not a charity to ensure your microschool stays around for years to come!

You can find Raphael on X here: x.com/raphaelgangedu

Here are some things that Raphael shared if you want to explore these topics further:

1. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-started-successful-school-just-27000-sam-rogerson/

2. Lean Startup by Eric Ries - https://theleanstartup.com/

3. Tom Arnett'sk, Families on the New Frontier report - https://www.christenseninstitute.org/publication/microschools-families/

4. Raphael's - Build a Business, not a Charity blog - https://microschoolingcenter.org/news-blog/gang

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL.

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:
Simplify and streamline technology
Save teachers’ time
Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
Improve student performance on state assessments
🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.