Thought: The Friday Night Lights ProblemTrend: The Pod That Never ClosedTool: Three Days to Launch
The Friday Night Lights Problem
Microschools work well at the elementary level. Parents love them. Then ninth grade shows up and everybody leaves. Why is that?
Michael B. Horn dug into it and found that the answer - in a word - is homecoming (if you prefer two words: "varsity football"). In short, the whole ecosystem of status and belonging that traditional high schools have spent a century building. Once adolescents hit a certain age, they want to earn respect in front of their peers, and a school of 45 students can't offer the same stage as a school of a thousand.
But some microschools are solving this without becoming the thing they left. Acton Academy's Forest School lets students launch their own sports teams. Their basketball team reached state competition in Year 1. Their volleyball squad went from near-winless to 9-4 and a state qualifier within three seasons.
Take note microschools: You can build your own version of Friday Night Lights. No athletic department required.
The Pod That Never Closed
Remember learning pods? The pandemic invention that education Twitter spent 2020 arguing about? Most of them dissolved the moment schools reopened. But one in South Bend, Indiana, did the opposite.
The O.C. Carmichael Boys & Girls Club had been running a COVID learning pod out of its 15,000-square-foot facility. When the crisis ended, instead of going back to sitting empty during school hours, they partnered with a charter network to open Success Academy - a full K-5 school operating inside the club. Same building, same staff, same kids. School until 3 PM, after-school programs after.
Third-grade reading proficiency jumped from 33% to 70% in one year. The pod-to-school pipeline is real. The best school building in South Bend was never designed as a school.
Three Days to Launch
Matt Beaudreau spent years as a teacher, administrator, and athletic director in traditional schools. Then he built Apogee Strong - a whole-family education network with roughly 100 campuses. (We interviewed him on the podcast about why parents need to stop outsourcing their children's education.)
Now he's taken everything he learned building schools and packaged it into the School Launch Workshop - a small-group intensive in Western North Carolina that walks aspiring founders through pedagogy, business model, marketing, and hiring. If you're curious, you can download a free 180-day launch roadmap for a taste of what the program offers.
It covers community building, operational systems, and the hard question everyone skips: how do you get families to trust a school that didn't exist last month?
Think you've got what it takes? Apply now.
That's all for today.
- Charlie (the OpenEd newsletter guy)
P.S. ICYMI - The best person to ask about homeschooling? Try a homeschooled teen. Our podcast dropped Thursday and has already hit 9,700+ views by tapping into something the homeschool debate desperately needs: the actual voice of a kid living it.
16-year-old Mason Ember responds to the recent NYT article on homeschooling and his “be pro-kid over pro-system” philosophy is resonating.
Come for the pod, stay for the comments:
"This is the best part of homeschooling. If it’s done correctly you have well rounded critical thinkers who are positive additions to society."
"As a homeschooling mom of two boys, I really loved this interview. I started homeschooling in 2020 when one was in kindergarten and the other in 7th grade. This talk really strengthened my confidence in making our own way through education."
"Homeschooled kid here. I would say the best thing that homeschooling did for me is teach me to be self-motivated. I've found a lot more personal success than my peers because I can get myself to move toward personal goals and achievements. I'm not paralyzed waiting for someone else to tell me what to do."