Leaving the Classroom: A Transitioning Teacher Podcast

Leaving the Classroom 50: Breaking Free from Traditional Schools David Richards' Guide to Micro Schools

In this episode of the Leaving the Classroom Podcast, Kristi Oliva interviews David Richards, the founder of Growth Public Schools, about starting Micro Schools as an alternative to traditional public education. 

Tune in to find out:

• How Micro Schools can address common problems in traditional schools, such as bad administration and prescribed curriculum
• The step-by-step process for starting a Micro School, including finding a facility, setting tuition rates, and partnering with organizations to support the process
• How Micro Schools can provide teachers with more autonomy, flexibility, and the ability to personalize education for their students

 Listen to the episode here:

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Connect with David on Linkedin

This podcast is sponsored by IDOL Courses and is the only authorized vocational school and implementation program of its kind that not only shows you exactly how to create your job application assets and build a portfolio from scratch, but also includes credentials, mentorship, expert coaching, and paid experience opportunities in corporate instructional design and online learning for life! Learn more about the program here. 

Enjoy the podcast transcription:

Kristi Oliva 

Welcome to Leaving the Classroom. This is a podcast for teachers who are ready to transition out of the classroom and into a new career. Each week, I'll share stories about what I've learned moving from education to the corporate world. I'll answer the most common questions and share my best tips to help you get started. If you are considering leaving the classroom, this show is for you. Hello everyone, welcome to Leaving the Classroom. I'm Kristi Oliva, and I'm so glad you're here. Today I'm talking to David Richards, who is the founder of Growth Public Schools. Welcome David, I'm so glad to have you.

David Richards 

Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.

Kristi Oliva 

Yeah, so we met through LinkedIn, and I would love for you to just give us your best elevator pitch intro to what is Growth Public Schools. Why should teachers, especially transitioning teachers, who are my audience, why should they care about another school?

David Richards 

That's a great question. Well, so Growth Public Schools is a K through eight Charter School in Sacramento, California, and my current project is actually helping people open Micro Schools. So I've transitioned from- I've done a lot of transitions we can talk about throughout the episode, like from corporate banking to teaching and different things. But yeah, so Growth Public Schools is a Charter School, but I spent so much time opening that school and then opening 10 other charter schools in various roles, like teacher, principal, assistant superintendent, and so I have a real deep expertise about how to open schools, and I found the Micro schools movement, and I thought it was super exciting when I reached out to you because I was like, look, if you're in the classroom right now and you're considering leaving, there's so many different options, which I know, you know, which is this podcast is all about. But I wanted to present one other option in terms of, you know, maybe you could open your own small school with like, 10 kids, or 25 kids, and it's not as hard as you think.

Kristi Oliva 

I love this option, because there are so many people who still love teaching. I wasn't one of those people. I got out because I started to despise teaching, actually, but there are so many teachers who still love the teaching part. They don't want to leave their students. They love that part of it, but then everything else surrounding it is what is driving them out. So I'd love for you to give us what are the details that of those surrounding things, how are those things going to be better in a Micro school. I mean, you already mentioned one of the draws 10 to 15 students. That's a big one.

David Richards 

Every teacher's ears perked up like, wait, let's say that again.

Kristi Oliva 

Right, exactly.

David Richards 

And we all dream of, like, I always say, like, the best classroom was one student, right? Like, one to one is our dream. But either way. Yeah, so basically, what's really cool about the Micro Schools movement is that it is Microbe and it's small. And so I think, like you said, that's a huge draw. I think the- you know, if you think about what, really, what you loved about teaching, like you said, you were not very happy at the end. I think that's really common with a lot of people nowadays, especially. But the things that make people leave teaching, and you can tell me if this is correct, but from my understanding, it's like a bad administration. It's top-down mandates. It's like prescribed curriculum. It's no support with, you know, classroom management. It's not good cultures at the school, like teachers being mean to you. It's, you know, gossip, like, all the negative things that you're like, that stuff. Like, I started my career in Oakland Public Schools, and people are always like, oh, did you leave that school because the kids are- you know, it's an urban school. Like, you must have left because the kids were so bad, right? And I'm like, no, kids are amazing.

Kristi Oliva 

Right?

David Richards 

I left because it was a dysfunctional- it was literally the most- I came from corporate banking, and I walked into the most dysfunctional place on the planet. I'm like, this is like, a bad reality show, like, no, I'm not going to work here these kids. Like, how can I help these kids? That's how I ended up in charter schools. But, yeah, with Micro schools, you know, you can- so it's smaller, there's not an administration that's going to, like, tell you what to do, you know, it's like a very typically, they're all different. It's a kind of emerging movement. But typically, it's small. So there's, two teachers, maybe, you know, there's two classes of 12. So, and then there's, like, someone who started it, who was either a teacher or maybe, like, kind of acting as, like, the administrator, and that person is like, right there. So what I love, the reason I got excited about Micro schools is everything is just shrunk down to so small you think about all the big problems in schools, and a lot of it has to do with that. They're like factories and they're too big, and they're impersonal, and they're, you know, 1920s management, where it's like top to bottom, and the teachers are on the bottom. So it solves, like, all the problems that I've had with education in the last 25 years.

Kristi Oliva 

Yeah, one of the things I keep saying is I wish teaching was a little bit more like customer service, where we can review refuse or, sorry, we can. What's the word I'm looking for-

David Richards 

Reserve the right to refuse service.

Kristi Oliva 

Yes, we can, we can reserve the right to refuse service. And I think that would change education so much if we were able to say, listen, this family is so difficult to deal with. Why should it take up so many people's time? We reserve the right to refuse you service. Why is it on the school to accommodate everybody? We need to flip that. And so I don't know, tell me your perspective on that and how a Micro school can help solve that problem as well, of like, the choice of who you're getting to teach to a certain extent.

David Richards 

Yeah, such a great question. And I think that there's like, slippery slope, but then there's also a really positive part. So obviously, public schools help everybody, and that's, you know, what we typically like about public schools is that we're not saying, like, oh, you're the bad kid, we're gonna kick you off. What I've seen Micro schools do really well is they actually interview the parent. And I feel like that should be- if you talk to most teachers are like, oh, the kid was kind of hard to deal with, you know, like, I had to set really clear boundaries, and, you know, it wasn't easy, but it was really the parent, like, the parent constantly emailing me, or, you know, just constantly being- or, you like, you have this great plan, and the kids getting great, and then, like, four days later, like, why did that kid revert back? And then you talk to Mom and Mom's like, oh yeah, well, we gave him back his video games, and we let him stay up till 3 am we broke all the things we talked about in that meeting last, you know, four days ago. But he was doing great for four weeks. Yeah, well, sorry, you know. So anyway, so I feel like they interview the parents, and it allows you to say, like, here's our philosophy, and this is what we believe in, whether it's like, restorative justice, or whether it's like, you know, a very strict, militaristic discipline, whatever the Micro school decides they want to do, that's their philosophy. That's their values. And you think about like a small business. You choose, you're like, I'm going to go to that place because I like the- you know, I like the shake and I like the way they treat me, or whatever it may be. So-

Kristi Oliva 

Thank you for that. So I'd love for you to walk me through. I'm a teacher. I still love teaching. Fed up with all the things that we've said, what do they do next? What's the process? What do they need to know? What are- like what are the startup costs? Just give me that end to end like, how do they get going?

David Richards 

This is the- I can absolutely do this, because I was a teacher for so many years, and then I moved into administration. So I can, I can think through all that, you know, and then I started school, so I got the business side and the teaching side. So I think the cool part, well, number one, there is a new place called the National Micro schooling Center. So this really cool husband and wife actually created a place where you could go. It's, I don't know the exact websites like National Microschooling Center, I believe it's in Nevada. And it's bringing together, you know, they've done reports, or bringing together all of the different things that are going on with Micro schools. And so they do have a lot of tools on that website. But just to kind of break it down for you, I mean, what's interesting is that a lot of Micro schools are actually not official private schools in that they are home school learning centers. So I'm in the state of California, the regulations on schools are pretty intense, right? And so I would have to do so many things to start a private school in the state of California. But there are Micro schools like Acton Academy, which is now in 300 schools across the country. They have created learning centers that are homeschool actually, meaning that like they're under the homeschool laws. So that allows you to have a lot of freedom to do what's best for kids. So you don't have to deal with as much red tape and bureaucracy to open the school. You basically have to figure out how much you're going to charge. Certain states are, like, really friendly. So for example, if you go to Arizona, every kid gets $7,500 to use every family to use for each kid. You could, you could, I'm actually looking at opening schools in Phoenix. For this reason, you could literally serve, I've always served, you know, urban or more diverse kind of low-income populations. You could serve that type of population in Phoenix and have an actual private or homeschool Micro school that just eliminates all of the ridiculousness that we deal with as teachers. And it's like about the kids and the teaching and the learning and working with families in a way that's positive. And so I think that's it's really not as hard as you think you could do the learning center. You figure out how much you're going to charge. You figure out if your community has any kind of tax credits or some sort of way for the kids to get, you know, families get money so they don't have to pay out of their pocket. You figure out basic business, how much you're going to charge in tuition, how many students there's really, it's not as hard to get the facility. A lot of churches will partner with Micro schools, because what do churches do? They have classrooms on Sundays and in the evenings, sitting all day. So church gets revenue. You get a space that you could go into a small office, but again, you're talking about 12 kids. So you get an old 1000 square foot office space, and you know, it costs you $5,000, $10,000 a year in rent, and that's like one kid's tuition or something like that. So it's actually quite- like, there is a pretty simple step by step process. And there's so many tools that you can find now and so many places that are supporting you. And I want to share three different organizations, including the one I'm building that I think can take you, like soup to nuts or whatever, like step to step. So there's one called Primer. I think it's primer.com and they literally are recruiting teachers like you that are not in the mood and smart to be in, like traditional schools, and that are entrepreneurial and want to kind of, you know, start their own kind of small thing. And they give you everything. You become one of their employees. And you just go through their checklist and you open a school for them. And they give you everything, the platform, the curriculum, everything, so it's like everything's there for you. That's kind of one end of the spectrum. The other end of the spectrum is called KaiPod Learning, and that's where they will put you in a cohort, and they'll teach you for a year how to open your own Micro school. But it's like your own Micro school, it's your own brand, it's your own vision, all that kind of stuff. And then the one that I'm building is kind of like a merging of the two in that really want people to have their own vision, but we want to give them the tools to be able to, you know, take it and run with it really quickly. So, those are, there are emerging organizations that are making it even, you know, easier for you to open a Micro school nowadays.

David Richards 

Yeah. So the way that we're going to do it is there's different modules you can actually buy or license or whatever. And so for us, it would be like, here's a whole set of curriculum if you want to use it. If not, here's like, kind of a direction you can go, like, a bank of resources to find curriculum. Cool thing about Micro schools is you can find homeschool curriculum that actually works really well. And it's not what I call the industrial school complex, you know, where it's like, I just never loved the curriculum that I would have to use as a teacher. So I was like you, I like to create my own because I'm like, this is not great, and its so just kind of just not great. And so I feel like homeschools are because you're talking about moms with three kids. It's much more personalized. It's much more, you know, individually tailored to the kid’s needs. And so if you got a Micro school, you know, two classes of 12 or two classes of 10, you can use that homeschool curriculum. So we want to offer you like, here's the full curriculum, project-based learning projects, you know, different things you can do. Or here's a bank of resources you can go and build your own curriculum to your point around how every teacher is different.

Kristi Oliva 

I love that. We've had Amar Kumar from KaiPod Learning on the podcast before.

David Richards 

He's great.

Kristi Oliva 

And I love that you're presenting this range there, because that was going to be my next question is, like, you know, some teachers, one of their gripes, I hate that word, but like, one of their sticky points is that, you know, we don't get trusted to make certain decisions, and one of them is curriculum, and I liked to build my own curriculum. Other teachers might not. So I love that there's a range there of like, oh, if you don't want to build the curriculum, go to that end of the range. If you want to have full control over everything, go to this end of the range. So what would yours specifically be on that range, as far as curriculum, student choice, all of that?

Kristi Oliva 

So how would a teacher, let's say I'm interested. I want to set this up. I am clear on the steps. How do they find students to build their school with? Like, are they going to schools and recruiting students and saying-

David Richards 

It's a great question, you know, and being in the charter space for so many years, this was, you know, I worked at a school, and then I went from teacher to principal, and, like, you know, from June 15 to July 1, right? And so my boss was like, hey, you need to go recruit 115 kids in East San Jose. I was like, oh, okay, how to do that? I had the business background, so I was able to figure out, because it's really, it's like anything, right? You're running a small business in LA, so you got to go get customers. And so this is where I think these organizations can really support, and this is why, you know the what's, what's called Changemaker Schools is the one I'm launching. That's why we can help you navigate these steps. Because teachers are teachers, and they're not always salespeople or business. They are actually salespeople, like I would always say, if you could sell 10th grade history to you know, 15-year-olds. You can sell a school to a mom, but they might not have the tools to know how to translate, you know, their influential skills into sales. They might not know how to like do community outreach and stuff like that. But if you think about it again, it's so small. I had to recruit 115 kids to a brand-new high school in East San Jose. We're talking about finding, like, 10, maybe 20 families. And so what I did when I started my first school was, I would literally sit down and meet them at Starbucks and we'd just talk. Be like, what do you want in your kids educate- why are you looking at the [inaudible] high school, you know? Why are you looking at new high school? And let me tell you, they had a lot of stories about why they wanted to leave traditional education. And I was like, okay, well, that's what we're gonna do differently, you know. And I just was listening, and they're like, sign me up, you know? And you find people that are really excited about what you're doing, and they believe in your vision and your values, and they can see that you're trying to do it differently and they understand the teachers are such an important part of it, that if you're doing this with them, they know you're doing this with the teachers too, right?

Kristi Oliva 

Yeah, it's like, you're selling yourself a little bit and like, so you sitting down in that meeting is important. I have a feeling that if I just even posted on like my local Williamson County Moms Facebook Group, then I would immediately get a class, like that would be it. I would just be done. I'd probably have to turn people away, because so many moms have said to me that they're considering homeschooling. I'm one of them, but I'm like, I'm also, I'm a single mom with a full-time job. I'd never be able to do it. I wish someone would start a Micro school near me, because I would so quickly sign my kids up for it, and they've even asked to homeschool. I think they just want to be around me all day. So that would be a little bit of news to them that they wouldn't be but you know what kid doesn't like more individualized attention. So it just feels like, why wouldn't everybody flock to these Micro schools? Unless it’s a problem kid.

David Richards 

Exactly, it's happening, and I- you know, it's what did I read? So there's as many Micro schools there are catholic schools like, 1.5 excuse me, students, or 1.5 million students and I'm like that's a weird- but we know that's kind of catholic schools have gone down. But regardless, like, it's kind of becoming the new thing, and it's gone from, you know, 1% of education to like three. So now there's like 125,000 Micro schools, or 1.5 million students and people that are kind of doing research on this are predicting in the next five years, seven years, it'll be like 10% of everybody in education, right? Like in the country. And I think you're absolutely right, and I feel like, oh, I have a story for you. So, I helped a friend of mine. The reason I started, wanted to start these Micro schools is a friend of mine started one in rural South Dakota, in Martin, South Dakota. She started one right outside of the Native American reservation she grew up on. She was a teacher and a principal inside the reservation, and she was so disappointed about what happened during COVID because they wouldn't let her talk to her kids, or as a principal, she wasn't able to provide mental health supports to a community that we know has like, a lot of alcohol and depression, and she wasn't able to help them at all. They're like, no, no, you can't even talk to them. And so she was so upset about that that she just decided to start a small school. She was really worried about, how am I gonna enroll students, you know, like, I'm not, I'm not a, you know, recruitment director, and she called me, like, three days later, she's like I put a Facebook post up, and I have 25 kids, and she's like, I feel terrible. I have to turn people away, you know. I'm like, yeah. So it's really becoming a place where, I think, with the pandemic, you know, we all experienced in school. You have, you said you have kids like, I was just disillusioned, and I was like, I can't do this anymore. I just, there's too many kids that are in schools that they we just need to get better. And the Micro school’s movement gives you an opportunity to, like, make a quick and fast change.

Kristi Oliva 

Well, I mean, it would just be so good for all the problems that I'm thinking of in my class. I worked- as we were talking before, we started recording in the Bay Area of California, and so I worked in a very low-income area. Didn't mind that, though I loved it. There were a lot of immigrants there as well, and so and I taught middle school, so I would have anywhere from students who could not speak a word of English in my class all the way to kids that were reading at like, a 10th grade level. And how was I supposed to serve that population, 33 of them, 35 of them at once. But if teachers have, like, I had a heart for those lower kids, though, honestly, I really, really did, and so I could start a Micro school with just immigrant kids. I could start a Micro school, especially being bilingual. You know, these are the things that I think teachers can latch onto and say, I love serving this population, so I get to do that and make all the choices that make my life so miserable right now. I get to make it better now, and I just, that's why I really hope this is the future. I I'm pushing for this so hard. Any teacher who wants to leave, I really tell them about this first, especially if they're like, I don't want to leave, but I, what else am I going to do?

David Richards 

Yeah.

Kristi Oliva 

This just feels like it has to be the future of education. I want it to be so bad. 

David Richards 

Yeah, and the way, you know, the way you're talking about is kind of like my career, you know, I started with in Oakland Public Schools, and I had this kind of like oasis, we did, like, small group learning and all this stuff. And like, when the big fights would happen, like all the kids would flock, I was at the very back in a terrible portable that was falling apart. But either way-

Kristi Oliva 

Portables were my life. Yeah.

David Richards 

It was a portable from 1968 and it was like, 2005 so I'm like, this is not good. But anyways, back now, they'd all flock back there. And you know, the founder of this charter school I worked with, like, she came to visit my classroom, and she's like, oh, what you're doing in this classroom is what we're doing at our charter school. And then I started, you know, we opened 10 of those charter schools. So it's like, to your point, we have these amazing teachers in these little, tiny places, and they have this expertise or this passion or this love, and it's like you could actually take that and create your own little school, right? Like you said, newcomers, I remember teaching, and I would have like, 43 kids, and eight of them didn't speak English, and it was like, 11th grade U.S. History. And I'm like, what do you want me to do with that? So it's just-

Kristi Oliva 

Yeah, and you're having to read through a textbook that's written that nobody wants to read, not even me.

David Richards 

Don't even get me started on textbooks. Yeah, so it really allows the teacher to have- what do teachers want? They want autonomy. They want to be able to pay attention to kids in the way that they need it. They want to have abilities to make decisions around the things that matter to them. And all those things are possible.

Kristi Oliva 

Yeah, they can be flexible with hours. I mean, I'm just thinking of all the things like flexibility for a teacher.

David Richards 

Yep.

Kristi Oliva 

Was one of the things I would never be able to do as a single mom like my kids, you saw them running around in the background like, I know it's summer break here, but if it wasn't, what would I do? I would have no choice but to shell out a ton of money or quit my job, I guess so that- I mean, there's so much flexibility in that of like, you know now what I do when I work, I can bring my kids to work. Well, if you have a Micro school, why couldn't, like, you decide all of these things, and so it takes away so many of the pain points of teaching. I just love this so much. So I'm going to give you a last opportunity to tell us anything else we haven't talked about. What do you want people to know about what you're launching here and how can they get in touch with you?

David Richards 

Yeah, so the easiest way is to go to the website I just launched, which is pathfinder-ed.com. Pathfinder is the name of the organization that I started with my friend in South Dakota that is helping people open Micro schools. So that's an easiest way to find me, or you can go to davidkrichards.com which is my personal website. But I just want people to understand that I do think that this is the future, like you were saying. And I really believe that teachers are absolutely amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing, and they have so many talents. And I know, you know, as I was sitting down thinking about your podcast, I was like, oh gosh, I hope these teachers know how many talents they have, like, all the things they can do, project management, sales, influence, you know, influencing. Just so many skills that I'm sure you talk about all the time, and you can take all the skills you have, open your own Micro school, have the ability to, you know, to have control over everything and the teachers I've met have done it. They have said like they've gone from bad backs, you know, physical breakdowns, to the most free, open they've ever felt in their life. And it's not easy to run a little school, you know, you gotta deal with all this stuff. It's like a small business. But they don't care. They're so happy. They are so happy. So-

Kristi Oliva 

That's what keeps it interesting. Though. It's not just like I loved moving out of the classroom and taking on more of the project management stuff, and I mean, you're doing that as a teacher already, but again, it's more about like that word autonomy, I think is so key for this. So I just love this, and I really hope that all the teachers who listen to this at least give this a chance first before they- unless they were like me, I get it. But otherwise, I really think that they need to think about this first for sure.

Kristi Oliva 

And they don't have to start one. I just realized I didn't say this. You could, you might have a friend who says, I'm started one. All you need to do is teach here. Do you want eight kids? You can do what you want. I trust you.

David Richards 

Like, so that would be great, too.

Kristi Oliva 

Love it.

Kristi Oliva 

So there could be two different sides. There can be the teacher's side, and then there's almost somebody who maybe wants to be the PM or the admin, I dare say.

David Richards 

Yeah, it's not really an admin, but, yeah, it's like the it's like the owner of the small business, you know, it's like, we're gonna deal with all this stuff and also maybe teach, if you have, like, my friend in South Dakota, she teaches two hours a day, and then she deals with fundraising and, you know, the lease and this and that and the billing.

Kristi Oliva 

How many teachers would love that, though of just like, teach for a small amount and then do other things as well. Love that.

David Richards 

Yeah.

Kristi Oliva 

I love that so much.

David Richards 

Thank you so much for having me on. It's been exciting to talk to you.

Kristi Oliva 

Thank you. Oh my gosh, this has been so great. We will link everything that has to do with David K. Richards and the Micro schools in the show notes. Do you want to leave the classroom? But you're not sure where to start. Take my free Career Clarity Quiz at idolcourses.com/leavingtheclassroom and I guarantee, if Micro schools is for you, we will have that out as an option at the end. It's time to take control and make the career change that will change your life. It changed mine. See you next time. That's all for this episode, but you can find more at idolcourses.com or subscribe to the podcast, and if you are ready to leave the classroom, use my code classroom100 and get $100 off enrollment to IDOL courses Academy.

Send your stories or questions to [email protected] or share them with me on Instagram @leavingtheclassroom.