What skills do I need to start a hybrid school?

What skills make entrepreneurs successful?! The short answer is there isn’t just one set of skills that you need. Vision, discipline, big-picture thinking, the ability to see possibilities on the other side of challenges, ability to manage finances…oh, but it also comes in handy to be able to think of practical details and not be too idealistic and to be a team player… is the answer simple? Not really…

What you do need is to believe in the vision and mission. Then you need to take the time to inventory what you do well and what gaps you might have.

You need to have the discipline to stick it out through the hard parts, the humility to understand you might need others, and the willingness to learn what you need to learn to manage the organization (which doesn’t mean doing it all yourself. In fact the best leaders will surround themselves with gap-fillers!).

Educational entrepreneurs need to start with a heart vision. You need to know why you are doing this!

Then you need to come up with a strategic plan. Next you need to fill your gaps. If you are great at finances, but panic in a room of kids (ahem…guilty), or you are an excellent team player, but struggle with delegation, or you love to work with kids, but aren’t so great at seeing the big picture of the business…all of those things matter far less than does taking an honest inventory of yourself and then fitting yourself in where you will thrive.

Know why you are doing this, have humility, be strategic, and you can do it!

How Much Does it Cost to Start a Hybrid School?

There are now a handful of organizations that will help the budding entrepreneur get started establishing a microschool and few, (besides me!) specialize in hybrid besides NAUMS. They range in price from a few to tens of thousands of dollars. These can be excellent resources, but for some of us, there just isn’t much money to work with…or we just aren’t sure how all this will play out …or we are a bit averse to investing too much…just in case it doesn’t!

When I started out in 2016, the hybrid school idea seemed very much a new one. There were no resources to help that I came across and I’m not sure I would have even considered pouring more than a few hundred into them if there had been. I wasn’t even sure where exactly this experiment was going to go, after all! How blissfully naive I was!

The first thing I did was pay about $60 for a one-hour call to a CPA. Then I paid $125 to PA State to file the Articles of Incorporation and filled those out myself. After that, it was pretty much sweat equity until it was time to purchase some books and some furnishings. I personally paid those first two fees out of pocket. That year, we were running a small cooperative model (one afternoon a week) to try out the books and schedule. We collected a few ($30 a term if I recall correctly) from the families (seven families, I believe it was) and purchased a few books and paid a small rent to the church host.

Once spring rolled around and we were having our informational meeting for the two-class, drop-off program we planned for fall, we pitched together a few hundred to purchase some curricula. Then we asked for donations from our handful of families and purchased used tables and chairs and a couple bookshelves over the summer (our husbands and some willing friends and new families pitched in with trucks and minivans to get those first rooms set up). We collected the first tuition payments in August, which allowed us to pay the church rent in September, set up the payroll system and purchase insurance, and finish purchasing some supplies and books. Once tuition was coming in monthly, we were able to reimburse ourselves the few hundred we had invested.. By the second year, we were able to fundraise just enough to cover the one-time expense of filing for 501c3 status (about $1600 total for CPA and IRS), and while there were certainly some nights I laid awake in a panic those first couple years, we always managed to have tuition cover all expenses.

The filing fee can’t be gotten around and many people may choose to pay someone to help actually fill out the paperwork as well. Getting some initial books and furnishing is also pretty important, (did I mention the rooms were empty 6 weeks before class opened?!). Depending on size, these expenses probably add to about $800-$1200 minimally, before tuition starts coming in. Certainly, more would be really nice, but it CAN be done for roughly a $1000 or less with lots of hard work!

If I had it to do over, I’d still do most of that the same way, but there was, truly, a tremendous amount of time put into figuring stuff out…researching, trial and error, researching…hoping I did it right…and I would DEFINITELY have paid a little more if I could have had someone tell me more about the business structure, organizational structure, budgeting, and Board/nonprofit training! I hope I would have, anyway… Looking back, those are the things that took the longest to learn and were hardest to ‘fix’ and ‘adjust’ when I realized I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

Advising someone new now, I would say, pay the filing fee, talk to either a professional CPA or someone who has done it before, and then learn what you can. Make sure you budget to pay yourself and enough staff so your organization isn’t riding on ‘heart’ for too long, and, assuming you’ve validated your market, your organization should be ready to launch for success!

Shameless plug: Make sure you check out my Strategic Planning Course if you are just thinking about getting started. In it, is pretty much all the stuff I wish I’d known in 2016!

Can I make any money as an educational entrepreneur?

If you are thinking about starting a program of any sort, you probably want to know if you can make a living at it.

Obviously, the answer is going to depend on which sort of program you start and, to an extent, how successful/large it is. But there are some guidelines.

Cooperatives for homeschoolers, by definition, are a cooperative group of volunteers. They are a lot of work for someone to organize and plan, but the whole group is committed to volunteering so the work is generally one of collaboration and exchange. Unless organized as a business with fees or tuition sufficient to pay the director, this model is not one to start if you want an income.

Microschools, on the other hand, can be a very viable option for income. Starting an LLC is pretty simple and with just you and yourself as the staff, you can provide a service just like any childcare provider or tutor does in exchange for payment. A class of ten kids paying 4k per year will bring in $40,000 (minuses expenses such as books, supplies, insurance, and taxes) and a class that size can often be very well-taught in just 20 or so hours per week. Twenty hours with only 10 kids as your own boss isn’t so bad!

Hybrid schools have more complex staffing but look a lot like a private school. As an entrepreneur you may very well end up as the director with plenty to keep you busy without even being a teacher. For example, a well-planned budget for a four-class, two-day program may include a director working about 25 hours per week and teachers working 14 hours. Depending on the length of year and school day, the teachers may make 13k-15k (for 60-70 days) of contractual work and the director may make around 30k. Of course, this depends on the number of classes, size of classes, and tuition, as well as if they continue to grow such that more planning is needed, etc...

These are just very general numbers and there are many other variables to take into account. In short, the answer is that, while you may never make 6 figures as a small program director or teacher, is not at all out of the question to make a reasonable part-time to full-time salary while doing work you love as your own boss. And that counts for something!

Update for 2025

I’m Back!

Hello, everyone! 👋

It’s been a while, but I’m happy to say that Changing Childhoods is officially making a comeback in 2025! After working sporadically on this site for two years while also working two other part-time jobs on top of hybrid schooling my own three kids and …the rest of life… it was time to make a change in one of my other jobs. I am now able to put much more time into this site and my course.

I’ve got big plans for the future, including a brand-new course coming out this spring. It will have much more content and will be specifically geared toward a four-class Mason-inspired hybrid program. I’ll be walking you through not just guidance on starting a general hybrid program, but specific steps toward a specific model (with modifications as options to fit your situation best!)

Stay tuned for more details – I’m truly excited about it!

Be sure to keep in touch – if you are even a little bit interested, check out the free resources on the home page. I’ve got a whole new packet of resources including a Market Validation Guide, to help you take the first steps.

Stay tuned and talk soon! 🌟