Microschools

When public schools closed their doors during the covid-19 pandemic, Dominique Burgess saw an opportunity. With the support of a small group of families, Burgess created an online “microschool” for students ready to continue learning online.

Parents liked her “open for business” sign so much that Burgess now has online and in-person schools enrolling students from 18 states, with plans to open five more locations in the next five years. Burgess’ microschool is an example of the new customized learning options growing nationwide and currently serving some two million students.

Burgess is the entrepreneur behind Burbrella Learning Academy Inc., which offers a “personalized, non-traditional educational experience” online for students in grades K-12 and students in K-5 at their in-person location in Burlington, N.C.

Microschools are, as the name suggests, generally private small schools that can offer individualized services due to their size. Parents in North Carolina can use education savings accounts, flexible scholarships that state families can use for education products and services, including tuition, to attend Burbrella.

Burgess explains that some of her students attend her location in Burlington five days per week, while others attend two days per week and spend the rest of the week in homeschool settings. According to the National Microschooling Center, a microschool advocacy and research organization based in Nevada, more than half of microschools offer full-day learning services, while one in five microschools have hybrid programs.

Precise estimates of how many students attend microschools nationwide are hard to come by, but at the pandemic’s height, a survey conducted by researchers at Harvard and Stanford found that some 3 million students were being educated full- or part-time in a small setting such as a learning pod or microschool.

Today, based on other polling data and enrollment trends, between 1 and 2 million students are in microschools full-time—a remarkable number considering the concept was nearly unheard of just three years ago.

In addition to being smaller than traditional schools, microschools also make use of nontraditional spaces in which to operate, like a former Foot Locker shoe store in a local mall. Burgess says her North Carolina location has converted the store into a small classroom and uses meeting space in former retail locations next door for activities.

After Burbrella’s first year, Burgess says she realized her school was targeting families “who wanted school choice” and “had an understanding of what their children needed . . . and wanted more.” And families want more of what Burgess is creating. This attitude of entrepreneurship, optimism, and opportunity are the essence of school choice.