**Ela Richmond (00:00)** Welcome back to the OpenEd podcast. I'm your sometimes host, Ela, and today I'm joined by Kristin and Ginger of the Scola Microschool. I'm so excited to have this conversation and shed light on the microschool side of open education—what is happening in this world, how Scola was started, and what it has done for your community. Welcome to the podcast. **Kristin & Ginger (00:22)** Thanks, Ela, for having us. We appreciate it. **Ela Richmond (00:26)** Okay, so just dive straight in. What is your story? How did you even get started with microschools? Were you an educator ahead of time? Were you a mom? Where did you start? **Kristin (00:36)** Yeah, good question. Both Ginger and I are moms. We also were educators, mostly in a private school conventional classroom. We worked together really closely, and I think that matters as part of our story. We knew each other's giftings. We're pretty opposite people who are just really appreciative of the other person's skill set and learned how to work together that way. When we started Scola in 2022, if I'm being really honest, it's probably a seed that started in my master's program, possibly even a little bit longer than that. I tend to be a creative thinker, engineer, inventor, big-picture type of personality—like, let's blow it up and just see what happens. And Ginger is practical, like, "What's the next step?" and, "Okay, let's just try to get one thing done today." Together, our skill set was really powerful and important in getting Scola started. I got my master's degree in educational leadership before I had my two kids. I was a middle school teacher. I loved middle school. I loved the creativity I got to have in my classroom. And then I think there were two motivations for me. One was my own children, just seeing how my daughter and my son were different and probably needed different things from schooling. But second was obviously teaching through COVID and just knowing that there were some constraints in the conventional classroom that I had always felt, but those were put under fire. It was a ridiculously hard but also very fruitful time to teach. I was the optimist that was like, "Something good can come out of this." And it was just the right time to let the seed of Scola actually start to take root. So we put legs on it and a framework around it in the fall of 2021 and opened our doors in September of 2022. **Ela Richmond (03:08)** How many students did you start with? **Kristin (03:10)** Yeah, that's a good question. When we originally started to shape our school, we wanted 24. We both really wanted to stay teaching, and effective teaching was a common big theme for us. With effective teaching, you always have to talk about student-to-teacher ratios, right? So we thought 24 was the right number. We didn't start with that. We started with 16. It grew to 18, then it grew to 23, and now we have between 30 and 35 students, but with three teachers involved. I think we found a good sweet spot. **Ela Richmond (04:00)** Wow. Paint the picture of how it started. I mean, it seems easy to teach a lot of kids, especially if you're a teacher, but then you get into the weeds and I bet there were a lot of challenges you didn't expect. **Ginger (04:18)** Ella, that's a great question. I'm just going to go back a little bit. Kristin and I were teaching together for years, and there was a moment before Scola was a dream that I put on a post-it—I don't even know if Kristin remembers this—I put, "Kristin, you need to start a school and I'll come work for you." Fast forward years later, post-COVID, and COVID was a catalyst for something different. I am someone who actually does not love change. I really feel comfortable in the knowing, in what to expect. And after COVID, when I went back into a classroom for a few years, there was definitely a shift in me. I was really exhausted. COVID, with the technology and all the things involved, just took a lot out of me. Going back into the classroom, I recognized our students have shifted. They are not the same. I think there was just some exhaustion and I was close to burnout. I'm like, "Okay, something needs to change," because I still loved teaching. I got my master's in educational leadership and I hit this point of, "Okay, something's gotta change. I wanna stay in education." Kristin and I would meet and go on walks, and that's when she started sharing the idea of Scola with me. And I'm like, "That's a great idea for you. Yes, you could totally do this." And slowly but surely, it just came to be that I would come alongside and help start Scola. It was that exhaustion that led me to the "yes." Like, "Okay, something's gotta change. I think this is it." So I just embraced it. We were both working full time, so to get Scola off the ground, we would meet on Saturdays and make a checklist. The first question was, "What type of a school are we going to be? Private? Charter? Homeschool?" **Kristin (06:50)** On our Saturday morning meetings, we had to come up with those big questions. Who do we want to be? What's going to rise to the top? You realize quickly you can't be all the things. In fact, that was part of why we were leaving. The demands of our current situation were just piling up and there wasn't any meaningful subtraction. So we were like, "Okay, let's start with a clean slate." That was way more vulnerable than it sounds. You're giving up pieces of your identity, pieces of what you prided yourself in. I even tear up just thinking about how much courage it took to be like, "Okay, all the measuring sticks I had about being a good teacher? I'm actually going to lay these down." Now, they might be good, we might pick them back up again, but let's just at least try to start with a clean slate. What's actually important to us? It was so nice to have space to let the important things rise to the top. 1. We knew that we wanted to be **outside more often**. We wanted movement. And outside is more than just outside; it's kids connected to their space, it's part of teacher health, it's natural, good things happening. 2. We really wanted to **meet students where they were at**. We wanted to take the pace pressure off. We had to take words like "gifted," "talented," "accelerated," "behind," "ahead"... and I still catch myself sometimes, those things are really embedded. But meeting students where they're at, giving them an authentic learning sweet spot. 3. Third, we really wanted a **social-emotional component**. To us, that means community. Friendship, relationship skills. How do we interact with our neighbor? We want to be part of a neighborhood. We want that veil between school and community to mesh a little bit more. Those were the three things that floated to the top. And then every choice after that... this sounds super clear in retrospect, but in the middle of it, we just had a commitment to let these things be our North Star. That led to how many students we want, what type of organizational structure we'd be. Technically, we are a nonprofit that serves homeschool families. That is satisfying the law in Minnesota right now. It may change, and we'll learn to pivot. So we sound like a school, we breathe like a school, but technically we are a nonprofit that serves homeschool families. All those basic decisions—budget, materials, calendar—we made on these Saturday mornings, but these three things were always leading the way. **Ela Richmond (11:51)** That makes sense. It's fascinating that it started with the sentiment question: How do we increase and better the sentiment of teachers and students? Were you all ever afraid? You said that you let go of all these measuring sticks you had used for so long. Was it hard in the beginning to be like, "Okay, but what if we let them go outside more often? Are we still serving the purpose that we are hoping to serve?" **Ginger (12:38)** Absolutely. I think there was some apprehension on my end. Part of it was having each other. I trust that between the two of us, what's going to happen is actually best for students. And research backs that up. Research backs up that play is so important, that kids need to feel safe, seen, and connected in order to learn. So I think there was some fear, but all of those other things outweighed the fear. Also, the first time we got paid, our first paycheck was reassuring to myself and my husband. It's like, "Okay, yes, we are getting paid for this." This is my 26th year of teaching, so I've had touchpoints with pretty much K through 8th grade. I know where kids need to be when they leave first grade, when they leave eighth grade. I feel confident in knowing where kids need to be and supporting them to get there. So there was a level of confidence and excitement that outweighed the fear. That first day... part of me wishes we would have recorded it for our sake. We really did start with bare bones. What does it look like to really see kids and build a program around what they need? We started without a lot of the structure we typically have in the classroom. And slowly but surely, we started adding components back. So if you come in on a typical morning, you'll see three different small groups, and you'll see components of a typical classroom, except kids are working independently and you have multi-age students working on different things. You still see that structure. **Ela Richmond (15:32)** That's so fascinating. Have you seen a sentiment change in your students? What has the reaction been to this more flexible type of learning? **Kristin (15:49)** Well, we have two types of students. You have students that have been in different institutions that come to Scola, and you have students that have been here since kindergarten, for whom Scola is their only framework for education. For our kids who have been in other institutions, just like there had to be some undoing for us, there is this undoing process for them. Our admissions process tries to honor that it's going to take some time to shed the old in order to try on the new thing. Early on, we listened to a lot of podcasts, trying to fill our backpack with inspiration. We heard this quote: "For however many years you're in a system, it's going to take that many months to actually shed everything off before you can rebuild." I was coming out with 18 years of teaching, so I needed to give myself 18 months. That's like two years of undoing these things. Again, the unique group here is the kids who start in Scola and that's all they know. They're going to walk into a traditional school building for a sports practice and *that's* going to feel weird. Then we have students coming from a homeschool situation, and this is actually *more* structured than what they're used to, so they have a different learning curve. The hard part is usually the shift in where the pressure points are, or where all the measuring sticks went. **Ela Richmond (18:51)** Is there a sentiment difference between the students you used to teach and the students at Scola? I'm curious, because all the research says play and flexibility are so important. When you do that, what does it look like in the classroom? **Ginger (19:18)** Absolutely. As educators, we've always had the philosophy of seeing the whole child. But in typical classical education, academics gets the majority of the focus. In this space, academics is important, but kids are confident because we've shed the old ways. We understand, "Okay, this is important, but who you are as an image-bearer of God is *most* important." This is how we're going to see each other. When kids learn that, and they start to see each other in their unique giftings, there's a confidence that allows them to be vulnerable and make mistakes in ways that I couldn't tap into when I had 26 students and was being evaluated on getting them from point A to point B. The pressure for our students is off, and the pressure for us is off to fully see them. We have progress reports, but we don't do letter grades, even in middle school. We look at where students should be for their grade level, and then we have a narrative side that gets into social skills and play. The narrative is most important because we're small. We get to really know students and come alongside them in a way I've never had the ability to do before. And that correlates with getting to know the families. Families are our number one. Mom and dad are in the driver's seat. It is a partnership. In real-time, if a question comes up, I can give mom and dad a call or a quick text. To have this real-time understanding of what's going on socially and emotionally with a child—I cannot overemphasize the value of that. When it comes to academics, our students will face challenging moments. There is a grit that's required. And I think our students are able to tap into that grit because these other things, which are actually more important, have been checked. **Ela Richmond (23:38)** Has the way that Scola is structured, versus a traditional approach, changed the way that students and parents think about education? Has it changed their relationship with learning? **Kristin (24:32)** Yeah, that's really interesting. For so many families, mine included at one point, the relationship with school was actually about the outcome and the grades. That's where everyone—teachers, learners, parents—was prioritizing. Everyone was *trying* not to. There were huge efforts to say, "It's not about the grade," but the current was so strong that no matter how hard you tried, it still was so much time, so much money, so much emphasis put on the grade. So I think we're still trying to find the right words for what shifts. Outcomes will happen, but when you put more time and investment in the process, there's just a different posture towards outcomes. And a different posture towards what learning can look like. **Ela Richmond (25:56)** I find that fascinating because in every other aspect of our lives, we understand that's true. In something as simple as working out or our marital relationships, we understand that everything becomes true in the moment. The habit of choosing your husband, the habit of showing up to the gym—all of that matters so much more than a physique or a weight. It will come. But it's funny because from a school perspective, we all just focus on the outcome as opposed to nurturing the moment. It's unreasonable to assume that if we do that consistently for five-plus years, the outcome won't be good. **Kristin (26:56)** I mean, Ella, now you're getting into a philosophy podcast here. The *telos*, the main component of why we educate, has shifted. And we all kind of see the historical benefit of that. I don't want to get too deep into that, because I want everyone to have access to this. And that might mean we have to shift some things or create schools that as many people as possible have access to. That's where our dream is. We love Scola, but we do get frustrated. How could every kid have this opportunity? We see the limitations in what we've built. **Ginger (28:00)** Just tapping a little bit on access. Our heart's desire is that every kid has access to a meaningful education where they are taught by healthy educators, their needs are being met, and they're learning. Thankfully, in the Twin Cities, we have access to lots of different choices. There are thriving public schools, great charter schools, wonderful private schools, and microschools popping up. But again, being a tuition-driven school, not everybody has access. So access is really important. We don't have a solution to that, but we are thankful to live in a place where there are options. And this ties back to your question of how this changes people's posture. When we speak about teacher health, our families have started really caring about it. We talk about it a lot. Our school is better when we stay healthy and effective. And we encourage people—some of our families have students in more than one school model—how can you help the health of teachers in other schools? Effective, healthy teachers make a significant impact on the education of your neighborhood, of your city. The reach of an effective teacher can go a long, long way. We are pro-education. We don't plan to be in competition with anyone. We want more healthy options, more sustainable schools, more healthy teachers. We're doing our little micro part here, but we want to be in a positive relationship with school districts, learn from them, and help this whole thing grow. **Ela Richmond (31:22)** I fully agree. That's the whole concept of open education. Every student needs something a little bit different. How do you find exactly what a student needs? And how do we increase options for families? You mentioned some families do lots of different models of education at once. What does that look like? And how would you recommend people find the approach that works for their kids? **Kristin & Ginger (32:09)** Good question. For parents doing different models, there is a cost. These parents are keeping track of different calendars, different start times, different end times. There is a frazzled approach. We try to support them, but they are leading in the posture of being less concerned with an outcome and more concerned about the wellbeing and growth of their kid. It really is the privilege of being able to see each child as an individual and recognize, "This kid is thriving in this institution, but this kid is not. What are some other options?" As for how to pick the right model, convenience is a really strong factor. We had some good school years where our top value was just picking the convenient option. My kids were okay, and we supplemented. I do think it's about tapping into your kids' motivation. What gets them motivated? One thing that has been really cool, but has taken time, is that student motivation in my previous classrooms was really dependent on me. In the way we've structured Scola, it has shifted the motivation onto students a lot more. They still need us for an on-ramp, for direct instruction, for feedback. But there are many times, several times a week, where suddenly there are 32 different things going on in this room, and we just stare at each other and go fill up our coffee. We bask in it, because this is the teacher's dream. This is us doing our job in the way we love doing our job. It's this level of student independence, student motivation. They have the right resources and they get to drive it. Now, those moments don't last the whole day, but it's a lot more like gardening. It's a tending job, more than a "drive the train" type of job. **Ginger (36:00)** Going back to what we'd say to parents trying to pick the right fit... when we meet with parents of kids going into kindergarten, we just try to put them at ease. There's this pressure: "I have to get it right." So, especially for kindergarten parents, just putting that pressure off. We say, "Here's what you can expect at Scola." When you're looking at institutions, try to get physically in the building during a typical school day. You can get a sense of the culture. Can you see your child in the hallways? In this classroom? I recommend parents get in for a tour and trust their gut. When it comes to standardized tests, I recommend looking at that, but it should not be the driving factor. There are so many things behind the scenes. I would put that lower on the list. **Ela Richmond (38:02)** That makes sense. I wonder about student motivation. There's natural motivation, but then there's motivation by osmosis, where a student is around other students or a family member they look up to. How do you help a kid foster those motivations? **Kristin (39:00)** I think Ginger's so good at this. I've learned a lot from her about how to ask kids what they're proud of. There is something about specific praise, really helping kids feel internally proud. A lot of this comes from teaching kids about emotions, about the way they feel, even frustration. Having them aware of those things is a huge part of motivation. Students have to recognize what "proud" even feels like—not because someone else told them it was good, but because *they* feel proud. **Ginger (40:35)** My mind goes to teaching kids that intrinsic motivation. It's not about them making me proud; it's about them feeling accomplished for the work they've done. In my small group, a kid might finish ten math problems in 20 minutes, and another kid might finish one. We've set up a culture where, whether it's one or ten, you get to feel proud. I'll notice that kiddo who finished one problem, but he focused and stuck with it. I'll say, "Hey, how does that make you feel? Look at what you did on your own." Working in a multi-age group, they get to bring that out in each other. They're not in a hurry. There isn't one student getting the gold star. They learn to coach each other, not just give an answer. It's really special. I can just picture that kid who comes up to me, so excited because they did X, Y, Z, and just turning that around with a big smile on my face and saying, "How does that make you feel?" "I feel so excited! Look what I did!" "Why don't you go share that with your teammate at your table?" It takes intentional reframing. The teacher is not the center. They're not doing this for me. It's about establishing the habit, the process, the learning, and feeling that feeling so that when they try something new tomorrow, they remember what it felt like. **Ela Richmond (43:08)** That is huge. It is so easy as a parent or a teacher to be the person they turn to for validation. But it's so important for it not to be the end of it, for it to be, "I am so happy for you, you should also be happy for you." Creating that line between "this is not just about pleasing me" and "this is about doing something inherently good." I've never heard that before, but it's a subtle thing that's so important. **Kristin (44:11)** Yeah, well, it's the adult paycheck world, too. We do this for the paycheck, but also because of the good work that's done in me and that I can do for other people. There's a lot of research on motivation. We're probably more the labs, hands-on, experiencing these things. We may not have all the scientific words, but you can see that kids go in and out of different types of motivations. When you know a student, when you are known and belong, there's a lot of space to take risks and grow. That's what's so nice about narrative reporting, not just grades. This is the character development people talk about. Motivation is a vulnerable place for students. Many have learned to hide or cope or only be motivated by the prize or the bribe. I have been the prize and bribing teacher, so I'm not exempt. But to start to see that shift is something we love writing about in reports to parents. **Ela Richmond (47:02)** I absolutely love that. So, a question about play. As adults, we recognize that being in a hurry is not great. When kids play, it feels as an onlooker that they're not being productive. We ask ourselves, "What else could I be doing?" Why do you all say yes to play? What is in play that makes it so useful? **Kristin (48:31)** Observing play... there's so much research here. Again, we want to honor that there are real scientists who have language around this. We just haven't found their book yet. This was a vulnerable shift for us. As a conventional teacher, you're taught that efficiency drives the system, and play isn't efficient. **Ginger (49:15)** If I took my kids outside for an extra recess, I felt like I'd be judged. "My kids are not working enough." Just shedding that. **Kristin (49:25)** Yeah, earning and deserving. There's such a currency required in play, and that's not honoring that play is actually the heavy hitter when it comes to skills. Peter Gray says it: play is the job of children. On average, we do about three hours outside. We're Minnesotan, so sometimes that's difficult. At different ages, that time looks different. We'll hold classes out there, we'll hike, but we also want to honor that unstructured outside time is important. My job changed when we made this a priority. At recess duty, I know where my eyes are, but this felt different. I'm actually watching students and all these skills emerge. I'm not just managing conflict. It was in one of my times outside as a researcher. I saw pockets of kids, all 100% engaged. I noticed the projects they were doing and came up with four categories: 1. **Imagination:** They were playing store, playing city, using walnuts as currency. A lot of times, the stories we're reading in books get played out here. 2. **Competitive Structured Games:** Games with rules, like hide-and-seek or football. 3. **Civil Engineering:** Digging holes, gathering branches, making a path for water in a dam. One time, they gathered every dead branch in the entire woods. I had to call the city office like, "I don't know if you wanted this project done, but we gathered all the dead sticks for you." 4. **Social:** Just the hangout. Talking, telling jokes, bantering. We've used these four categories to help students see their time management, their skill set, their communication. What's interesting is, when we talk about kids... we don't really have staff meetings. Ginger and I are outside, getting fresh air, standing back-to-back, and we have the time and space to name every kid we see and make observations. This is what you dreamt about in teacher meetings. "Okay, I'm a little concerned, it feels like anxiety is present here," or, "They're in conflict a lot with this person." We can also observe what category of play they prefer and which ones are challenging. We have students begging for an organized game—they want the rules, the winner, the loser. Challenging them to join the imaginary group stretches them. This is what we'd write a book about. **Ginger (57:05)** It also gives students an opportunity to think about what they want to engage in. We might notice a student off by themselves, and we'll go over and say, "Hey, I noticed you're spending time by yourself. Can you tell me about that? Is this a choice? Do you just need some quiet alone time? If so, that's okay. Or is there a game you'd like to join? Would you like some help?" It's about getting to know them as individuals and helping them understand their own wiring. If you want to be by yourself, that's okay. But if there's a conflict, let's talk about it and work through it in real-time. In other settings, after recess, I'd spend half an hour trying to get to the bottom of all the social things. Here, we can help students gain the skills to work through it themselves. **Ela Richmond (01:03:29)** That's the perfect note to wrap up on. A practical question: most children tend to over-watch screens. It's high dopamine. It's hard to get that 45-plus minutes of, "I'm bored, what do I do?" You're saying you don't discover these things until after that time. How do you recommend a parent instill this as a habit? **Ginger (01:05:11)** First, as a parent, if you're trying to grow a child's stamina, think about where you're at. You don't go from zero to 50. If you typically get outside 10 minutes a day, make a goal of 20 and build from there. I've gotten comfortable with my son saying, "I'm bored." Actually, that's okay. The best stuff comes from boredom. I'll give him a few ideas, but he has very limited screens during the day. It takes about five, ten minutes, and then he has his Legos out, or he's on his bike, or taking his fishing pole to the lake. I guarantee if screens were an option, he wouldn't be doing those things. So I'm okay with him being bored. As educators, we didn't start with three hours a day outside. The kids had to grow their stamina. We had to grow our ability to trust the research. And as we walked through it, we're like, "My goodness, the research is right." We have validation that this is really important. We have tech in Scola, too. We'll have math games, even brainless games. We have carved-out times for it. They know when it's coming. Every Thursday, we end the day with laptop time. We put boundaries around it, but we honor that screens are here to stay. **Kristin (01:08:15)** Also, we had some interesting supplies that are just helpful. But hold off on purchasing stuff right away. See what shapes up. Do you need to buy the nice shovel because digging holes is the thing? All of our jump ropes are rarely used for jump-roping. They're used for slingshots, for measuring. A lot of natural materials. Our kids know how to collect sticks and make things out of them. And some kids will increase their stamina faster if they have people to do it with. So for a family, pair up with another family. Bring them to a creek or a climbing place. **Ela Richmond (01:09:54)** My last question: you're talking about going over to a student who is alone. It sounds like you've done a very good job of building trust. But a lot of parents wonder, how much should I be stepping in versus giving them space to figure it out? How do you determine when to step in? **Kristin (01:13:51)** That's such a good question. It really comes from knowing the student and what skills they have. It can be the same age child, but one student understands how to confront another, express their feelings, and come to a compromise, and another needs help. It comes from knowing the student. And that trust starts with the families. In this style of learning, there has to be a level of trust established with families. It's okay if families aren't feeling that from us or want something different. We're not offended by that. The trust starts with the parents, and then it takes time to build with students. But students can see right past it when you, as a teacher, just want to get onto the next thing and put a band-aid on it. That band-aid doesn't last. It's going to be torn off and show up as a disruptive behavior later. Teaching is so formational. We use that word, and we are a faith-based school, but even a friend who isn't would probably agree. There's such forming and shaping in a school setting, no matter the model. Formation takes time, care, and seeing. We're going to be shaped whether we're intentional about it or not. That's how powerful classroom settings can be. We take that seriously. And this is why teacher health is so important. When we're healthy, we're going to approach the formation of students as whole people we care about. We have patience and trust for your family. **Ela Richmond (01:17:58)** This was an incredible episode. I'm so happy for Minnesotan families that they get to go to your school. Is there anything else you want to leave our listeners off with? **Kristin & Ginger (01:18:26)** I would just say if there are any other educators out there who are getting this idea of, "What if? Could I?" We would love to hear from you. We have a model school, so other educators reach out to us and are curious about how we did this. We would just encourage them to reach out. We'd love to chat with them. **Ela Richmond (01:18:59)** I love it. Okay, we'll leave all of your links in the description. Thank you all so much for coming on the episode. **Kristin & Ginger (01:19:15)** Thank you, Ela.