Hiring Teachers and Creating Culture

Teachers in a hybrid school are your most valuable resource. Just like in any school, these are the people implementing the vision and spending time with the kids on the front lines. Teachers should be trained well, supported throughout the year, and paid fairly. Applications should be thorough and interviews long enough to get a feel for the applicant’s strengths, experience, and personality.

What should you look for in a teacher?

• Loves kids and have the emotional and physical energy for them.

• Has experience teaching the age or subject in some capacity.

• Has managed groups of children.

• A willingness to learn new things and be part of a team.

If these things are in place, nearly everything else can be trained. So, what is less essential?

• Familiarity with exact curricula or philosophy

• Certification (unless you are following Education law. In a home-school supplement model, there is usually no regulation on teachers).

What to avoid?

• A sense of burn-out.

• A very independent personality that is not willing to implement your vision.

You are the one setting the culture of your program. You will do this with clear expectations, clear curriculum and schedule guidelines, support for easy communication, trainings (before school starts and during the year), staff meetings, and plenty of supportive presence. Your teachers should see you as the director, at the door, in the hallways, at recess, peeking into their schoolroom…and always with a sense of you being their helper/leader. You are setting them up for success by troubleshooting with them and communicating the goals of your program effectively, and you know what is going on because you are present!

Do these things and your hybrid school will be a place of camradarie and high standards, and your teachers will be happy to bring your vision to life!

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.

Do you have what it takes?

Pretty much any American has the option to homeschool if they want to, public school if they want to, and probably has a private school of some sort at least within driving distance. But most Americans probably are not geographically close enough to a part-time school model to make it a viable option.

So guess what that means?! It means the fields are ripe for harvest and if you can find an entrepreneurial bone in your little toe, YOU may be able to bring this model to your community. 

Exciting right?  Except a hybrid school is a business. Legal structure and the accompanying paperwork, bank accounts, insurances, employees, payroll, supplies, customers, revenue, expenses, bookkeeping. All the pieces that make up most service businesses are there.

Scary, right? Depends on where you are coming from, I’m sure, but yeah…sort of scary.S

Starting a business is a LOT of work! But don’t be scared (actually, you CAN be scared, just don’t be too scared to keep going), because if you have the vision, you probably can do it.

Know Thyself

What sort of work do you really love? What are your strengths? What do you bring to the workplace or your family? Are you a planner, a visionary, a go-with-the-flow, a dreamer, a checklist person, a people person, a detail person,  an introvert, an extrovert? 

 What are your weaknesses?   If you look at your home and work life and think about what you feel alive doing and what drains you, you will have made the first step and the good news is:

It really doesn’t matter what KIND of person you are. All you really need is a vision for what you want this to look like in the end with ONE KEY QUALIFICATION ….drumroll ….

Surround yourself with the right people!

You need to fill your gaps. I can’t tell you how important this is for success that lasts. 

That’s not to say you can’t do this all by your lonesome self on a wing and a prayer.  You certainly CAN get something started all by yourself. But EVEN if you start this way, (and I would say passion will propel you far on momentum),  research and preparation and a good team will keep you from falling, so you need…eventually… people to fill  your gaps.

Let’s say you are a parent who really, REALLY wants a nature-based school that is affordable. You know a few other people who would love this too. You can see it now…happy children dropped off 3 mornings a week with their rain boots and butterfly nets as cheerful teachers welcome them in and  weary parents go to work or the grocery store in blessed peace.

 You have the vision, but it doesn’t exist yet.  Now hold up,  where are you in this dreamy vision?

 Are you the cheerful teacher because you love those little kids and you love the outdoors?

 Are you the administrator keeping things running in an office? 

Are you ‘just’ the parent who wants to drop the little darlings and go? 

 Why are you in that place in the picture? Do you belong there? 

Once you do the organizing and find the right people to fill whatever roles you don’t want to fill, your vision can exist and you can have whatever place in it you want to have. But somebody has to get it started and stick it out until it can run itself with all the pieces in place.

 So DO you have what it takes?

What kind of person are you? Did you answer those questions a few paragraphs ago? 

Maybe you get excited about projects and big ideas,  but you tend to forget to pay the bills or water the plants and bathe the children. Great. Not a problem. You are going to be wonderful at thinking big and not letting obstacles stop you….BUT, you need people, as soon as you can find them, who can pay the bills and water the plants. I mean, not literally water the plants (although actually maybe?! A nature program would be nice with plants). You get my point, right? 

At the risk of stating the obvious. Again. You have to know what your gaps ARE, and then you need to fill them. 

If you are excellent at bathing the children and watering the plants because you write the whole month down in detail ahead of time in your perfectly synced calendars, have a planner in every room, and never forget to go to an appointment; bathe the children at 7 pm every other day and never forget to water your plants on Wednesdays,   but you get overwhelmed by last minute changes or obstacles, you might need someone alongside you who can see possibilities in the face of difficulties and can go with the flow when things don’t go as planned at the last minute.

Get the point? This applies to many other areas besides how organized you are (areas you can learn about in my course…shameless plug), but the point is, you can do it with vision. Just make sure you fill gaps.

One last bit of advice?

 Do it scared and prepared. 

Prepared is why I’m here!, but it’s okay to do it scared and figure it out as you go. Do it nevertheless. 

You may panic when you think you just totally messed up the budget numbers and nobody seems to care but you. . 

You may want to cry on the state business website that wants you to jump through seventy-three hoops to find the paperwork you need and then you  do it but lay awake that night pretty sure you might get arrested for noncompliance or some other criminal act, quite innocently committed. 

 You might panic again  when a teacher quits on Open House day, or be quite sure NO one saw your advertisement that you worked SO hard on making.

(Not that I have ever been in any or all of these situations or anything, but I digress…)

If you quit, or never start, you never will see your vision take form. That’s a certainty.

But if you don’t quit and you just prepare, be a little scared, and plow ahead anyway? You may have a beautiful community, a business, a job, or whatever it is you want in a year or two. 

So know yourself, fill your gaps, and then do it scared. You probably have, or can get…what it takes.

A Matter of Philosophy

“The question is not, -- how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education -- but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?- Charlotte Mason

The hybrid model is unique all by itself, but a  hybrid school with a focused philosophy of education is a double-edged sword. Reaching not just the people who want the benefits of part-time private schooling and of homeschooling, but also those looking for alternative methods of actual learning, a hybrid school with an articulated philosophy can cut into multiple niches of the market at the same time. 

Can most schools really tell learning philosophy guides their schedules, books, relationships, and curricula?  Can they tell you exactly why they use each book and method of learning? Some can, but many cannot. An answer may be something about literacy and benchmarks, high graduation rates or test scores… and some schools can even show data as to how they have achieved these goals (or plan to). However, there are usually some parents out there, who have an inkling that something is amiss in this definition of education.

A child who finishes school and is inspired by his heroes to higher character and action, can grapple with truth and falsehood with his own sound mind, can relate to the men and women of history and really care about their lives and stories, can enjoy truly lovely music and art, can revel in nature and remember his place in it, may be the kind of adult parents are looking for at the end of the schooling journey. Test scores are a window into the knowledge of facts. But what a narrow window, and what a small world!

Having a program that focuses heavily on what is lacking in traditional education, can quickly attract those discontent with the status quo.

Not everyone may want the particular method that you care about, but some will! The beauty of adding to the choices in a free market in education is that it allows each to bring his own vision to a niche of the market place.

Which philosophy?

Our program uses the methods of Charlotte Mason to guide our school days. We prioritize time outdoors and Nature Study as a subject, excellent living books for history and literature, systematic study and enjoyment  of 3 artists and composers per year, and a Christian worldview, among other things. This philosophy guides our curricula choices, and because it is such a prominent part of what we do, attracts those who are either homeschooling because that was the only way to get such an education, or those who prefer school but cannot find a method such as this anywhere else in the area.

Charlotte Mason is one method (that I am particularly fond of, obviously!),  but Classical schools or those influenced by Montessori or Steiner (Waldorf) would also find a niche. Schools following a particular religious practice or that specialize in something such as the arts, the sciences, delayed academics (more play in early years), history, logic, etc…can almost certainly find a market of people eager for a very defined methodology.

You need not follow a particular label either, but, if not, be sure you can clearly articulate what you do and why. Creating schedules and choosing curricula is not an easy task if you want to do it differently than the status quo. You must understand your vision and philosophy well to keep from being distracted and remain true to sound practice.

A good number of families who come to our program know little or nothing about Charlotte Mason, and that is okay, because we know. They DO know they want a low-pressure environment, they want their child to be able to develop at his own pace, they want time outside and they want good books. They want something different…they know that much! This is why it is so important for the program itself to have a solid grasp of why. It establishes trust when parents know just what they are getting when they come.