Indiana expands education options with microschools
Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
The charter school movement in Indiana is growing with a new option designed for rural families called microschools – each tailored to the community it serves.
This fall, Eastern Hancock Schools in partnership with the Indiana Microschool Collaborative, will open Nature’s Gift Microschool — a small school located in the woods of Nameless Creek Youth Camp, about 30 miles east of Indianapolis.
Collaborative board member Scott Bess, who is president and CEO of the Indiana Charter Innovation Center, said urban areas in Indiana have almost every option available for schools – traditional schools, charter schools or private schools. But suburbs and rural regions face limited choices, often forcing families to drive long distances or homeschool children, which is not always an option for everyone.
“You can set up microschools in areas where you don’t need a 100,000 square foot building and all of the infrastructure,” Bess said. “You don’t need 400 students in places where the population wouldn’t support that.”
Nature’s Gift Microschool, in development for 18 months, welcomes K-12 students on a first-come, first-served application process. The school will operate as a public charter school, meaning it receives state and federal funding like any other public school. However, its small size and administration model allows more funding to go directly into the classroom, Bess said.
Indiana lawmakers passed more than two dozen K-12 education laws and funding changes in the state’s next two-year budget.
Despite a statewide teacher shortage, Bess said teachers have been eager to join microschools and shown strong interest. He said many are drawn to the increased flexibility and the opportunity to work more closely with students.
According to Bess, microschool teachers are not asked to prepare lesson plans every day and sit down with a group of 25 or more kids. Each classroom is multi-age, making the teacher more of a coach or facilitator.
Eastern Hancock Superintendent George Philhower helped launch the microschool after speaking with local parents who opted out of sending their children to district schools.
“The Indiana Microschool Collaborative is designed to give families more flexibility while ensuring students are still connected to a supportive school community. It’s one way we’re working to make education more personal, relevant, and responsive to the needs of students and families. We believe models like this can help Indiana better serve those who may not thrive in a traditional setting.” Philhower said.
Bess said the goal of the IMC is to make all of the microschools hyper-local, driven by community demand.
“This isn’t something where we’re going to say, hey, we’re going to open a new school in this community, and like no one asked for it, this is going to be more community, parent, student driven asking us, hey, we’d love to have you here,” Bess said.
He said that in the next 10 years, they are expecting hundreds of microschools to open across the state. They are still collaborating with districts to find ways for students to participate in clubs or athletic programs since microschools will not have their own.
This is not the first of its kind in Indiana. The Purdue Polytechnic High School Lab School opened in the fall 2023 in Indianapolis with about 20 students, and is among the dozen microschools across the state.
“There’s no ‘this is exactly what a microschool is,’” Bess said. “In the following years under Indiana Microschool Collaborative they will all be different because the community they are serving is different. The students they are serving are different and the parents certainly are different.”
The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, not-for-profit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.