By Contributor Kerry McDonald
Tom Dowell (right) with his microschool students on one of their regular community excursions
When Tom Dowell opened Moreana Boys Academy just outside of Phoenix, Arizona last fall, he almost immediately outgrew his learning space. There was high demand from local parents for an educational environment that catered to the distinct learning needs of tween and teen boys, with an individualized, hands-on curriculum focus. Dowell, a former public school teacher, recognized this rising demand and launched his microschool in his home with six boys—all of whom attended nearly tuition-free through Arizona’s universal school-choice program.
Dowell now has 12 students enrolled for this fall. Most of them have special learning needs, such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, and ADHD, and weren’t thriving in a conventional classroom. He knocked down a wall in his home to accommodate his microschool’s growth, and hired two teachers. Increased square footage and staffing solved some of his capacity issues, but one constraint remained: the size of his car.
At Moreana, the students receive direct instruction in core academic areas while enjoying frequent community excursions. Weekly trips range from classes on blacksmithing to bushcraft to Brazilian jiu-jitsu. These active, immersive experiences keep the boys engaged and enthusiastic about learning. “The kids are excited to come to school,” said Dowell. “I had kids show up sick because they wanted to be here.”
Over the past year, Dowell’s family Ford Explorer could comfortably fit all the students as they traveled around town to meet community mentors and visit various learning sites. Now, he needs a larger van. He was researching loan possibilities when he heard about a new Microschool Loan Program offering affordable, agile lending options to today’s innovative school founders.
This new loan program, made possible with philanthropic support from Stand Together Trust and the Beth and Ravenel Curry Foundation, and in partnership with Building Hope, enables entrepreneurial parents and teachers to gain access to low-interest loans to help them launch or grow their innovative schools and learning spaces. “We have a real commitment to being able to help entrepreneurs get access to the capital they need,” said Allison Serafin, Chief of Strategy and Development at Building Hope, the nonprofit that is administering the loans. Building Hope began more than 20 years ago to provide charter schools with access to below-market capital so that those schools, which are tuition-free public schools that are privately run, could start and scale successfully.
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“Many of the challenges microschools are facing now, charter schools faced in their infancy,” said Serafin. “Given that our DNA was really about removing barriers to capital and facility access, it made sense when we learned about this opportunity from Stand Together Trust to really lean into that expertise, honoring the ingenuity of K-12 entrepreneurs to help build a product that could identify underwritable enterprises to be able to fund.”
Applications for the new $675,000 Microschool Loan Program open to the public on July 7, but founders who complete Building Hope’s early interest form can access the application this week. Serafin says that more than 200 founders from 37 states have completed the early interest form, with Arizona and Florida overrepresented among the applicants. These states, in particular, have seen a burst of new microschools in recent years due, at least in part, to universal school-choice programs that enable all K-12 students to be eligible to access a portion of state-allocated education funding to use toward their preferred learning setting—including microschools. According to Serafin, most founders are seeking the maximum $50,000 loan amount at the fixed 3% interest rate, payable over three to five years, depending on the amount borrowed.
Dowell is only seeking a loan for $20,000 to purchase a used van, and the 3% rate is much more attractive to him than the double-digit market rates he sees on standard car loans. Unfortunately, he isn’t currently eligible for the new loan program because he runs his microschool out of his home, not a commercial space. “It’s a bummer that it’s not available, but I totally understand why. Their underwriters have to figure out how to make things work,” said Dowell, adding that he was invited to participate in a focus group with the Building Hope team to help them and their underwriters learn more about how today’s microschools operate.
Students at The Ferguson School
Tiffany Blassingame
For Tiffany Blassingame, a $15,000 loan for her microschool would be just enough to give her a bit of breathing room as her Georgia microschool enters its fifth year with 21 K-5 students. Blassingame worked as a public school teacher for 13 years before spending eight years as an administrator in a traditional private school. It was that latter role that got her thinking about becoming a school founder. “I noticed as a private school that we continued to have to turn away families that could not pay the $27,000 tuition, and these were families that could really benefit from the small class sizes and more personalized attention in class. I wondered: what are some models that would make the overhead a little bit less? Later, I found out it was called a microschool,” said Blassingame, who opened The Ferguson School in Decatur in 2021.
Blassingame’s school is an accredited, state-recognized private school that operates out of a leased space within a church building. Hers is one of four microschools currently running there, and is the only one that is faith-based. Some microschool founders report having difficulty accessing traditional loans because their educational programs are often unconventional, but Blassingame encountered more structural challenges. “Particularly as a founder of color, it is very difficult to get capital funding loans here in Georgia,” she said. The Microschool Loan Program offers an ideal solution. “When I first saw it, it was almost like a sigh of relief,” she said. “There is so much financial anxiety that a founder takes on. Most of us have been educators, and not necessarily business people,” she said.
When determining loan awards to microschool applicants, Building Hope will consider several key criteria, including the school’s current and expected operational and financial health, level of local demand for the program, and the leadership profile. Founders can be at the pre-launch stage or early in their startup process, but they must be a registered business entity—either for-profit or nonprofit—with an active business bank account. They must also show proof of general liability insurance coverage for their microschool space, and share a copy of their signed commercial lease, among other requirements.
Blassingame is looking forward to applying for the microschool loan this month, while Dowell looks ahead to the future. He plans to run his microschool out of his home for the next two years and then move to a large commercial space to enable significant growth. The microschool loan program would make that shift much easier, he says, explaining that he hopes this nascent loan program grows over time and that more lenders gain familiarity with microschooling.
Dowell plans to eventually operate several microschools-within-a-school, fostering small, personalized learning experiences while expanding to serve more students. He also hopes to someday launch an academy for girls alongside his boys’ school—an idea that has heightened urgency as his daughter approaches middle school.
“I’m excited about the microschool movement, both as a parent and as an educator,” said Dowell.
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