Organizational Structure
Teachers, boards, administration, aides, paid employees, and volunteers. What do you need and where?
There are many options for setting up your daily operations and it helps a lot if you can keep your vision focused on what you want a day to look like. Even more important is where you, as the visionary, see yourself in the picture. You may be able to work backwards from your longer term vision and start pretty close to where you want to end. Or, you might know what you want down the road, but you may need a temporary plan to get you there.
Maybe you want a multi-age science and math group that has 15 kids and one teacher and you are plan on staying that way forever. One room, one group, done, thank you very much. Perhaps you plan on organizing and teaching this yourself because that’s what you love.
Maybe you want an entire graded ‘school’ feel that covers all the core subjects and you plan on starting with 7 classes of K-6 or maybe 3 of K-2 and then growing with your kids. However, you just want to make it happen. You don’t want to teach.
So how do you set up? There are a few things you will want to know.
Board and Administration
If you establish as a nonprofit corporation, you will need a Board to ensure compliance with the law and to establish operations and oversight. Make note that these people will be volunteers. It is a conflict of interest for the Board members of a nonprofit to be on payroll*!
This can be the sticking point because the Board is the legal oversight of the organization, but administrators do the daily hard work (in combination with teachers, who are accountable to them). Where do you want to be? This may seem easy, but the problems arise when the visionary is the Board is the administrator is even the teacher. Volunteers can only do so much before they realize why time is money! A successful program takes a LOT of work! And the people doing the brunt of it should be on payroll so the structure is sustainable and not built on one or two persons’ good will.
A Board may meet monthly or quarterly and talks mostly about upper level decisions. A step closer to daily operations, you may have either committees and/or employees that meet more often and address some of the details that need more discussion and attention.
Someone will need write handbooks and decide policies, create admissions forms and plan open houses; perhaps search for buildings and set up physical space; handle finances, bookkeeping, and payroll; hire and train employees; do some marketing; choose curriculum; and any number of other details. These things can be handled by committees if you have enough willing volunteers, but much of this work is ongoing, especially for a larger program, and, to be done well, should be done by employees.
The best way to handle this tension is to choose one of two options. You and your fellow entrepreneurs may choose to be the Board and hire the administration (probably one or maybe two people). I’ll remind you once again that you should NOT be paid if you are on the Board. So carefully assess how much you can do as a volunteer, how LONG you can sustain it, and how well you can delegate. You may be able to ‘direct’ as the Board and hire and oversee teachers if the program remains small. One or two teachers can likely be answerable to the Board only, however, you must think through the physical logistics of who will be present to deal with any problems, check in with teachers, offer support and training, etc…This is ‘director’ work and very often is a big time commitment. That is why budgeting for a director position is always a good idea!
Another option would be to BE the administration yourself. If you do this, you can be on payroll and run the day-to-day, and the budget is there to replace you if needed, which removes the structure and longevity of the program from one particular person.
If you choose this option, I highly advise that you create a board of supportive people, propose yourself as director and place yourself under them. The Board will approve your job description and pay (although you may be the one telling THEM what is needed, you will not be officially voting on the pay or positions).
In any case, as a nonprofit your Board will be a group of volunteers that oversees legal compliance and high level decisions. A director is on payroll, reports to the Board, and oversees teachers. Teachers do the actual teaching, and any aides provide support. Any program over 1 class will benefit from planning with this structure in place, with number of teachers and aides (and often an administrative assistant) scaling accordingly.
Examples
An example of structure from a program of 2 classes and 25 kids might be 2 teachers hired and trained by 1 director who is on campus. The director oversees the program and answers to the Board. Most daily decisions are made by the director.
The Board and any relevant sub-committees acting as volunteers to help with daily decisions. This may look like monthly Board meetings where the Board helps the director make decisions, or it may look like quarterly Board meetings with sub committees meeting with the director monthly to make decisions. Practically, the director will bring up relevant issues to the Board or committees for votes and oversight, but will do most of the work her/himself.
Another example may be a larger program of 7 classes and teachers. At this size, there should be the paid director, administrative assistant (or perhaps pay the director to work full-time and not just part-time), the teachers, and an aide or two. Every 30-40 kids or so, you may find it helpful to add an extra set of hands, especially if there is a lot of outdoor time and/or younger kids.
Summary
There are several options for structure, but it is key to remember that while a hybrid school runs part-time, for the people launching it, it can be…and sometimes will remain…a full-time job. This is a-okay as long as the budget allows for smart business organizational decisions so that no one gets burned out and the organization isn’t built on one or two people’s good will.
One of the biggest problems a visionary can run into is starting out on enthusiasm and heart, and then crashing into burn-out. This is not good for the health of your program! You likely want your hybrid school to be bigger than you and it is essential to step back and take off your hobby hat (did I just make that up?) and put on a business hat once in a while to be sure you have a sustainable model.
If you leave, is there a structure and job description in place to replace you? A budget for a qualified person? Is there a position description and budget for both teachers and directors?
Start with your vision and work backwards. Don’t shortchange your program or yourself!
*For a wealth of information on legal compliance, Boards, bylaws, and paying employees, check out the blog posts and ebooks from CPA, Carol Topp at homeschoolcpa.com.