Across America, a quiet revolution in education is unfolding. Microschool founders are building something extraordinary: small, agile learning environments where students are known, supported and inspired.
These founders aren’t just teachers. They are entrepreneurs, administrators and innovators rolled into one. They design curriculum, recruit families, manage compliance, balance budgets, and still show up in the classroom with energy and heart. It’s one of the most demanding, and most meaningful, professions in our time.
When we talk about microschools, we often use the language of sacrifice. We celebrate the creativity and compassion of microschools but rarely recognize them as the professional enterprises they truly are.
Yet microschool leaders are running full-fledged organizations, establishing miniature school districts with the agility of startups and the soul of educators. They deserve not just applause, but the financial stability allowing them to focus on their mission: delivering exceptional education tailored to every child.
Running a microschool is far more than teaching. It’s compliance, marketing, finance, leadership and design, all under one roof. Founders meet fire codes, manage facilities, handle enrollment, communicate with parents, and guide students across multiple grades and subjects. The teaching profession has ratcheted up a notch, and our funding models need to catch up.
Here’s the number nobody likes to say out loud: founder pay is not optional. It belongs in the budget the same way rent and insurance do, because without a paid professional leading the work, there is no school. When tuition or funding sits below the true cost to educate, those missing dollars don’t vanish, they come out of the founder’s paycheck and the quality of programming. A model that depends on unpaid labor is not sustainable. It’s pretending.
In Alabama, the CHOOSE Act represents an important step toward funding flexibility. Under this new program, families participating in a microschool or private school may receive up to $7,000 per student, while those enrolled in home education or tutoring programs may receive $2,000 per student.
A microschool may qualify as either type, depending on how it’s structured, but in practice, qualifying as a school is much more difficult. As a result, many microschools will receive only the $2,000 per-student amount, even though they operate full-time learning environments with all the responsibilities of a school.
This is especially concerning because microschools frequently serve a high percentage of special needs and neurodivergent students, learners who require more specialized support, smaller ratios, adaptive curricula, and therapeutic services. Two thousand dollars per student is simply not enough to deliver that level of individualized care. It leaves rent, teacher pay, and a lot of other important things out of the school budget.
The CHOOSE Act gives Alabama families new choices, but without a weighted funding formula that recognizes the additional cost of serving diverse learners, microschools will remain under-resourced. State leaders have an opportunity to strengthen this program by expanding funding tiers for students with special needs and recognizing the full professional value of microschool founders.
Florida offers an example of what weighted funding can look like. Through the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities, families of students with disabilities can receive individualized awards based on the intensity of services required.
Amounts vary by grade level, county, and the student’s service matrix score, with average awards around $10,000, while high-needs students receive up to $22,000–$34,000 for specialized programs and supports. This approach acknowledges a simple truth: individualized education costs more because it delivers more. It’s not charity, it’s equity in action.
Alabama could follow a similar model, ensuring that the most specialized learners, and the professionals who serve them, receive the resources they need to thrive. Weighted funding isn’t about spending more; it’s about spending smarter to reflect real costs.
If we truly want microschools to thrive, we must start funding them as serious enterprises, not side projects. That means real working capital tied to enrollment growth, recoverable grants and revenue-share notes instead of one-time checks, paid partnerships that cover training and staff time, and public funding that follows the learner without burying founders in paperwork.
Microschool founders are not only teachers, they’re producers. They’re building admissions systems, marketing systems, compliance systems, training programs, and entire educational models. They are redefining what it means to lead a school. And when we give them the financial runway to operate sustainably, their students and our communities flourish.
Alabama has laid the foundation for innovation with the CHOOSE Act. Now it’s time to strengthen it. Legislators should:
- Increase ESA funding for special needs learners, ensuring that per-student allocations reflect the real cost of individualized education.
- Recognize microschools as vital small businesses, allowing equitable access to the $7,000 tier.
- Resolve that founder pay and rent are standard, protected budget lines, just like curriculum and insurance.
- Develop bridging grants to help microschools cover startup and ramp-up costs while they grow enrollment. (Create a microgrant program within Alabama for microschools like what VELA does.)
- Add technology like laptops and internet to Alabama microschool funding programs if they are given to public school students. No child should be without a laptop today.
Florida has already proven what can happen when a state backs its microschool founders. Their programs are thriving, families have real choice, and teachers-turned-founders are finally able to sustain their work without burning out.
If Alabama wants to catch up in education quickly, this is the magic-wand move, fund the founders who are already doing the work. By increasing CHOOSE Act funding and adopting a weighted model for diverse learners, Alabama can leapfrog years of reform and give its students access to the most personalized, future-ready education in the nation.
The future of education won’t arrive through another app or platform. It will arrive because founders, visionary, relentless and creative, keep showing up, building schools in the cracks of a system that wasn’t designed for them. They built anyway. If we fund them, they’ll finish the job. And education, finally, will belong to the people who deliver it.
Jennifer Wolverton is Founder and CEO of the Microcollective for AI, Robotics, and the Sciences (MARS Microschools) living in Madison County. You can read the story of the founding of MARS Microschools HERE.
To connect with the author of this story, email [email protected].
