Public school teachers are not stuck in public schools.
It is important for us to understand this point because teacher job satisfaction is at an all-time low.
One option teachers have is to start their own microschool.
I recently visited four microschools in Las Vegas and was surprised to learn that each of these school leaders was a former public school teacher or administrator. They left the public system because they were frustrated that they were not able to do the things that they knew the students in their classrooms needed. They felt weighed down by the bureaucracy of public education.
Javonne Tanner chose to begin her own school. With her husband Paul, they began CHOICE Academy in Bountiful, Utah. I visited her school in early September and asked her what it is like to teach outside of the system. To paraphrase her response, it is freeing. She said the students are excited to come to school because they are guiding their learning. She is finally able to create the classroom that made her go into education in the first place.
And she isn’t the only one.
Amy Novak runs the Red Rock Academy in Las Vegas. She implemented a lot of the principles she was using in her former teaching job, but now she doesn’t have to hide what she is doing. She can just do it.
In my recent interview with Kerry McDonald, I was asked what I would say to a teacher who is thinking about beginning their own school.
My answer is still the same: do it!
The idea of beginning something new is scary for teachers, but the rewards outweigh the fear. You can begin the classroom you envisioned during your college years. You can have the impact in your students’ lives that you dreamt about as a student teacher. Do it!
