I'm OUT of the Public School

Did you have your fill of public school? Were you a teacher or administrator who just couldn’t do it anymore? Or are you a parent with a child who has had their fill of public school? If you fall in one of these categories, you are not alone. Research shows that 1 in 7 teachers leave the profession each year. It also shows that after 2020, there are over 1 million students who didn’t return to the public school system. THIS IS NOT A CRISIS! THIS IS AN AWAKENING! If this is you, congratulations on having your eyes opened to a failing system and having the courage to step out of it!

If you were like me, you took the step of obedience, but you didn’t really know where to start. First and foremost, pray, pray, and pray some more. If the Lord is calling you into starting a school, then he has also designed it and planned it down to even the smallest of details; you can be confident in that! The Lord is in the business of rescue! He told Noah how to build the Ark to rescue his family. He gave Moses explicit instructions on how to build the Tabernacle, so the people would have a way to atone for and be rescued from their sin. He gave us Jesus as the foundation to build his church, so all who call upon him will be saved! Our God is the great writer of rescue story after rescue story! He is faithful.

During your journey to open your Discipleship Academy, don’t do what I did and focus on what I thought was the most important: building, money, and the number of students. Yes, those things are important, but those three things are what we see the enemy repeatedly use to take Discipleship Academy founders' eyes off of what the Lord has asked them specifically to do. Know your why. When I heard the Holy Spirit tell me, “School doesn’t have to look this way,” I was led to a Discipleship Academy Conference. During the conference, I learned so much about why the public school system was failing and why I had the feeling that I just could not be a part of it anymore.

Aside from learning more about the history of education in the public school system, I also learned that there was more than one way to “do” school. A microschool is defined as a consistent meeting of children from two or more families using the same curriculum together, being community-based and in-person, having community collaboration, identifiable by others as a “neighborhood learning center”, and a unified plan for every student to get the necessary academics for their age group. Let this definition set you free from the idea that learning only takes place in a building that has rooms with 20 desks in rows or groups, with neatly decorated bulletin boards, a lunch room with a lunch line, a school bus parked out front, and a PE class.

Did you know that My Father’s World curriculum is in over 160 Microschools, and not one of them is run the same way. Students are learning in church Sunday School rooms, living room floors, basements, family farms, and so much more! Your school can be literally anywhere!

The next big concern for Discipleship Academy founders is always money. I was the worst. I think I live with the words, “but there’s no money for that,” stamped across my forehead. The other side of that worry is also stories of faithfulness. I have seen where God provided the funds for schools over and over. So are you asking? Are you seeking places that the Lord would want you to seek? Another thing I learned at the Discipleship Academy Conference was how to set a budget, how to charge tuition without ever being in a deficit, places to apply for grants, and how to order curriculum wisely, which cut down on ordering things we didn’t need at our school.

It’s interesting to think about when the Lord commissioned Noah to build the Ark and Moses to build the Tabernacle; you don’t see the conversations of Noah and Moses saying, “But how will I pay for those materials? Where will they come from?” And if they did ask, the Lord did not choose to include that in his Word. I think it’s because he wants his followers to see the obedience of what the men built and did. After all, Jesus sent his twelve out telling them “to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts—” Mark 6:8 Lastly, don’t get caught up in the numbers game. If you have been a public school educator in the past, student count gets ingrained in you because more students equal more dollars. And yes, students equal dollars at your school, too, but more importantly, students equal souls. How many times have we said, “If my testimony just leads one person to Christ, that is enough?” But when our school roster isn’t full, we think we are doing it wrong.

The Discipleship Academy model for a microschool is a way to change that mentality. The Christian one-room schoolhouse allows an educational alternative to the public school system that can be an important option for rescuing children from the spiritual, moral, and academic wasteland of the public school. Discipleship Academies thrive with multi-ages in small groups. The Lord has exactly the right students picked for your school. If he has led you so far as to have the vision, the curriculum, and the place, why would he not also send the children? “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” Matthew 6:26

As believers, we are called to walk by faith, and not by sight. In the public education world, it always has to make sense on paper. In the kingdom, the Lord’s economy never makes sense, and it is the ONLY kingdom that has not failed, will not fail, and has the perfect comeback story. So, if you are wondering, “What now?” Take the step, open the school, and watch the Lord work!