Episode 90: Microschools for Texas Families. A Conversation with Colleen Dippel.

We dig into what parents actually want from schools: strong reading and math, safety and belonging, and communication that treats families like partners. Texas’s EFA, new accreditation pathways for microschools, and the rise of homeschooling point toward a more plural system grounded in trust and transparency.

• basics as survival skills in modern life
• safety, belonging, and being seen
• the black box problem and real-time updates
• drop-off and pickup as engagement signals
• growth of homeschooling, hybrid, and microschools
• Texas EFA scale, caps, and prioritization
• accreditation as a quality floor, not a barrier
• building a TEA-aligned microschool accreditor
• vision for plural, calm, human-scale schools
• gratitude for mentors who spark learning

About our guest
Colleen Dippel began her career as a public-school teacher. Colleen is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Families Empowered, a Texas based not for profit parent service organization. Families Empowered has provided K-12 school navigation services to over 105K low-income families in Texas. Colleen was a 2013 LEE Emerging Political Leadership Fellow and a 2017 Pahara-Aspen Fellowship recipient. She served on the Advisory Board of the Rice Educational Entrepreneurship Program at the Jones School of Business. She is a member of the John Cooper School Booster Club Board and the Dyslexia School of Houston Board. Additionally, she serves on the Advisory Board of the Thrive with Autism Charter School. She and her daughter are active participants in The Woodlands TX chapter of the National Charity League. She considers being a mother to her two children her greatest accomplishment. 

Connect with Colleen
Families Empowered
Texas Education Freedom Accounts Program
TX Microschool Accreditation Service

About the podcast
The KindlED Podcast explores the science of nurturing children's potential and creating empowering learning environments.

Powered by Prenda Microschools, each episode offers actionable insights to help you ignite your child's love of learning. We'll dive into evidence-based tools and techniques that kindle young learners' curiosity, motivation, and well-being.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Okay, so let's talk a little bit about parents. I mean, you've worked with so many, Pauline, and they have a passion for their kids, obviously. There's frustrations that they experience. What are you hearing? What are if you have if you had to summarize or bullet point what parents want these days, how would you paint that picture?

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Well, I think there's some eternal truths. So that's the good news, right? I mean, I've never ever heard a parent say, I don't want my child to learn how to read.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Yeah.

Basics As Survival Skills

SPEAKER_01 0:30

It's just a thing. And it doesn't matter, you know, who that child is, who that parent is. So I think, you know, fundamental basics, like schools that actually aren't delivering on literacy and numeracy. Um, and like, you know, these are survival skills in our world, right? Just like hunting and gathering and like skinning rabbits and like dressing a deer used to be really survival kind of skill. These are survival skills. So um parents want their children to have uh a life of meaning, right? And so I think so the fundamental academics are important, they really matter. Um, and then there's um belonging and safety, right? So I think there's safety, and everyone says, oh, they want safe schools, but it's a little more than that, right? They want to know that their child is seen and valued, um, and they want to be valued. So I also think some of this stuff is not rocket science, right? And that, but um, and then I think the other thing is in today's world, which is sort of different from even when I was a teacher, I mean, I'm embarrassed like 25 years ago. I don't feel that old. And then you say something like that, you're like, oh there is, I think, um, a need for uh uh transparency and communication at a level that probably didn't exist in sort of the old fashioned standard world, largely because everyone is on a phone. And, you know, you think about younger parents, people in their 20s and their 30s, um, you know, they're getting SMS updates from doctors. I mean, it will tell you when you're delivering something, your Uber Eats driver is getting close. I mean, so this idea um that the child's just gonna sort of go into a black box and you'll get a newsletter once a week, I think is something that is oh, sorry. You yeah, it's just not what parents want, they want to be right communicated with proactively.

Safety, Belonging, And Being Seen

SPEAKER_02 2:40

I mean, you go back to like John Quincy Adams, right? And he had access to all the best schools and they would ship him off to boarding school. In fact, he spent time in Europe traveling around and going to Russia with ambassadors, and that's a pretty black box. You have no way to know what's happening with your kid. But you're just kind of saying, Hey, here's an education we think is a good path for you. And fingers crossed, you know, good luck. I I think over time, you know, we we got the report card, and you get to see the work that your your kid brings home. And so we've gotten little bits of that. Um, but it's interesting that you make this point and you hold up your phone as an example of this. We just have real-time information on. I mean, if you have an Amazon order that's coming your way, you have a lot of data about that order, and you know exactly when it's coming and how you know where it is right now and which station.

The Black Box Of Schooling

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Yeah, and and I also think it's important. I had we hadn't thought about this until we started working with um, there's pre-K's and um, we have pre-K partnerships in the state of Texas where private pre-K's can partner with public schools. It's super interesting. And there are charters, and particularly um responsive ed charters have done a really great job of work making, you know, the working on those partnerships. Those pre-K's, though, it's interesting. Most of them use something like pro-care. It's a it's a real-time device. So any child who's been in a pre-K that is, you know, that they're paying for, and now you have lots of two parent, you know, working parent houses or single parent, lots of kids go to daycare pre-K. So it's interesting until your child's four, what you're getting is daily updates on like this is what your child you when you potty train, you know, when they're diapering them, when no, but really, and they send updates using, and it's an app. So then you go into schools and it's a black box. It's like it was in the 80s when I went to school, you know. So that that's I think it's better, and teacher, and there's a fine line between clever and stupid on that, right? And reason what is reasonable and what's not reasonable.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Um, and there's a little bit of like parents have to there might be some learned helplessness and over-engaging. But the bottom line is parents do want they want to be communicated with because most parents do feel like, you know, they're the primary caregiver and the person who loves their child the most.

unknown 5:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

And they want to feel valued. And finding out stuff on the back end, never good.

unknown 5:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

So we always tell schools like one of the biggest reasons beyond academics and safety that parents say they're leaving is they're like, I never hear from this school. I don't know what's going on.

Pre‑K Apps And Parent Expectations

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Well, this is a great list. I mean, I think parents out there can uh resonate with it, right? I want my kid to learn reading and writing and math and hopefully science and maybe entrepreneurship and coding and robotics and all of those things that you learn, but even maybe before that, in the hierarchy of needs, is this question of are they okay physically? Are they safe from you know the terrible things that have happened in schools? But also are they okay emotionally, psychologically? I don't I don't want my child to be uh subject to maybe some of the things that I was subject to. And I I think about you know getting punched in the head in in the locker room in seventh grade. And you know, it was like I guess that was just back then, but did that have to be true? I mean, I don't know where the gym teacher was at that moment in time, you know. And I I think you can just think about so you know, parents are are reasonable in thinking that, but I agree with you. There's a sense of this can't go too far. But I I love your third point, which is I just I need to see this, I need to know that this is happening. That that I just any indication that are they learning stuff? Are they excited and engaged? Are they safe? Are they feeling happy? I mean, one of the data points we look at, I've been surprised by this, is the drop-off, right? Like the kids coming to school and and now reverse uh leaving school at the end of the day. Because what used to happen for a lot of the kids that come to uh to apprentice microschools is you know, they didn't want to go in. It's like they're they made a big issue around just don't send me into that school. And the parents are kind of like, is that because you're weak or I'm not uh giving you enough you know muscle? Um but I think as they uh drilled in a little bit and got curious, it was like it's a reasonable response. And they switched to a micro school, all of a sudden the kids start leaping out of the car before it's even done moving. I mean, they're running up to the school and they're sad at the other end, they don't want to go home at the end of the day, they don't want Saturdays because they want to be in school.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Yeah, I mean, so so that's what's what's been interesting for us, because we we've been actually fortunate. We've been serving families and partners in schools, as I said, for 16 years. Yeah, and that's actually they're like these five-year cycles. So I feel like it's been sort of these three three. We started really focusing on charter school wait lists because 15 years ago that was sort of right what was happening, right? There were these massive wait lists, and then curious people would say, hmm, what's happening there, right? And then and then we have have we have lots of magnet schools in Texas in 1971. It was actually a deseg order in East, and that was deseg it was a strategy related to a desegregation order. It's really interesting. So we've had school choice in Texas since the 70s. Um, and so you know, we've seen a lot of growth in different and diverse magnet schools. Um, but what's been really interesting over the last, I would say, last sort of seven five to seven years has been just a massive increase, especially since the pandemic in homeschooling, hybrid homeschooling, and micro schooling, right? So, like that's there are more people homeschooling in the state of Texas than there are in charter schools and private schools combined. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

That's a huge number.

Communicate Early, Not After

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Right. And so what does that mean? Like so a curious person would say, What's going on? Right, what's happening? Right. And we know the data on homeschooling is really good for kids who do homeschool. I mean, it's just a fact, right? I think it's an inconvenient truth, but for people who don't like school shows.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Yeah, their outcomes are so the question the qu the outcomes are generally pretty good, relatively speaking, right? Like I'm just so there are lots of interesting questions, like, so who's doing this, right? Who's homeschooling, who's microschooling, who's hybrid homeschooling, what uh you know, um potting, whatever you want to call, right? I we're always interested in what motivates parents, right? So in we just in 2020, we were just hearing from parents, I'm really liking this, and I don't think I'm going back. And then we had districts that were sort of just not in the early part of the pandemic, right, engaging with parents and to sort of said, well, they're just all gonna come back. And we were by by that summer, we were on these calls with district superintendents, and I'm talking like the big districts. Right. H I C is the fourth largest district in the country. We were like, they're not coming. A bunch of these kids are not coming back. And you can't say they're all charter school. Like, this is this is a this is this is the the wave is coming, and you can put your blinders on, but we were we were like betting people. We've just heard from we heard from too many parents that they after they got past the sort of shock and awe of being home, they used technology to find like-minded people. And then they started saying, Wow, this is a lot more sane for our family, for my kids. And I now have visibility into what my kids are learning, but we're also not learning in these big 500 kid elementary schools.

unknown 10:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

And they were like, it's not rational to put my kid back into that setting. So the question, right, is where do you go from here? And I think Texas is at a really interesting.

Engagement Signals Kids Are Thriving

SPEAKER_02 10:34

Well, let's talk about that because yeah, I think that's the next chapter. You've really brought us there well. Texas, as you know, passed a huge school choice bill. In uh this was last year. It had been in the works, multiple legislations, legislative sessions. It didn't get passed with some political muscle, it gets through. And like everything Texas, it comes out of the shoot with the biggest uh year one goal, uh, billion dollars in scholarship to Texas kids. We think it's gonna reach maybe a hundred thousand students, which is roughly just you know, I'm in Arizona. Arizona's ESA has existed for since 2011, maybe it it went universal in 2022. We're at about a hundred thousand students. So you guys are catching up to that number in absolute terms.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Now, percentage-wise, that's still we yeah, we do have six, to be fair, we have six million kids in the state of Texas. And like I said, we have somewhere between six and seven hundred thousand of those homeschooling right now.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Already homeschooling, already homeschooling already. So let's talk about EFA and just give us like I think people kind of know what it is. If you give kind of your picture of what's happening in Texas and how is this going to affect things?

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Yeah, so as you said, I mean, it's been a very long, interesting uh journey to get to uh this place where you know parents now have more what you call edu some would call educational freedom, but they have the ability to have funds follow children to schools that they choose. And so um, you know, our legislators wanted a universal program, but also some guardrails, right? So they also, you know, their mixed views on this, but they made the decision to prioritize children with special education needs and who are low income. Um, and so there are tiers. So this is a universal bill. Anyone and everyone who wants to either sort of attend a private school or home school should apply. Um, and they're eligible, but there are prioritizations, right? So, unlike other states where it's a first come, first serve or it's a random lottery, we've got a prioritization based on your special education status and um and then couple that with some income requirements, and all of that is on you know the state website. So that's that's where we are. Um the program passed in March, it's very quickly being implemented. And I think given the time, the condensed time frame, I have to say, like it's you know, they're doing a pretty good job. Like I think there are, yeah, and and that's maybe the nice thing about not being first to the party, right? The the like not being first, we like to pride ourselves on being the biggest and the the best, you know, Texas is a little braggadocious in that way. I, you know, I I love Texas, so I'm all I'm all in on that. But I think we have the ability to learn from sort of other states in terms of what not to do and what what to do. So so far, knock on wood, you know, the application process going pretty smoothly.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Um, I think as of yesterday, they had over 70,000 applicants. So you're right. Yeah. Um, and I think that that's a lot of there, there's a lot of pent-up demand. Um the supply side is gonna be interesting over time because I don't think the demand is gonna go down.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Yeah.

Rise Of Homeschooling And Microschools

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Um and and there are some other constraints that our legislature put on our program that don't exist in, say, places like Arizona and Florida, having to do with um, you know, eligible schools and eligible vendors. And I think that's just to make some guardrails around just sort of accountability, um, quality assurances, and you know, the politicians have to vote for this. They had to sit so they made the trade-offs that they thought were reasonable, right? Um, and now the program is being implemented with those. So, you know, I love it. There are mixed opinions about all of that. Um, we're on the grassroots to saying, okay, is this gonna work for families? And moreover, are we gonna see the schools that parents want and deserve and our kids deserve emerge as a result of this? You know.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Yeah, it's it's interesting because uh, you know, one of the things we look at is we monitor school choice programs across the country. And like you say, there's there's been now some experience, people have seen this happen. Um we look for universal eligibility, which Texas absolutely has, any kid can apply. Um we look also at sort of a cap, right? A budget cap, because what happens when the the allocated budget is not enough to pay for all of the scholarships is now you're in a sort of a prioritization uh scenario, which doesn't exist by the way, in some states, right? There's states that just will allow, they will fund it at every time. Uh usually the trade-off is we'll fund it at less than what the the districts get, right? So so that way anybody who wants to do it, great, but the state saves money every time because we're actually spending less on ESA than we would in in school districts. But that being said, you know, Texas said we're gonna do a high funding level, pretty close to what I mean, it's not all of what the districts get, but it's a it's a healthy level. And um and we're gonna cap. I mean, unfortunately, we're only giving a billion dollars to it. Only sounds crazy, right? That's so much money. But that is like if we're at 70,000, we are basically gonna hit that. I mean, this thing's been open for six days, so yeah, uh the chances are pretty good that that that application will be hit, um, or that cap will be hit, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:14

I I think so. Yeah. I think, you know, you always have in the first, it's it's like a movie premiere. Like on the first day that something opens, you have sort of your low-hanging fruit, right? These are the folks who already decided. Um, and it is a new program, right? So they're adding schools to the platform every day. Um, those schools are being added on a rolling basis because they're really trying to um, you know, make sure that the schools that are on the platform meet the state's criteria, right? So um and there's some very specific criteria that they want. And so um, and then they'll be adding, I think, vendors to the platform now that the application is open. And I think that will be more appealing as homeschoolers consider this, right? But anytime you have a new platform, you have early adopters who are excited, and then you have skeptical people, right? Who are not early. I mean, that's with any product or service, if you just think about it. And this is a new service, but it is really a financial service being provided to families, if you think about it, right? That that the state is essentially saying, we're gonna allow you to have the flexibility to decide how your educational funds can be spent. We're gonna put some guardrails on that because this is a public good, right? And you're using public funds, but we hear you. I mean, I think kudos to the legislature and to our governor or lieutenant governor, we hear you. This is this is the trends are not moving away from choice. The trends are moving toward parental choice and and you know, yeah, we believe in families, we believe in parents, we're gonna facilitate this, but we're gonna do this in a sort of more methodical, thoughtful way. And yes, a hundred that serving 100,000 kids out of the gate is not small.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

Not small at all.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

It's not small, it's not a small program. And and I'm I'm pretty optimistic that we'll get there.

Pandemic Shifts And Parent Agency

SPEAKER_02 18:14

Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about, you know, you mentioned uh some of these specific to Texas requirements that the legislature added to this. Yeah, um, one of them is accreditation. So this is um accreditation as you know, people will recognize that word. You think of maybe some private school somewhere or something that really came about with universities and higher ed, but it's found its way into high school and even younger. And it's meant maybe something for some families around quality and communicating what they're all about. There's old institutions that have been doing this a long time that look at your school operation, look at your pedagogy, and they say you you are accredited. I I just learned this because Prenda itself just went through accreditation this last year. And so learning how that all works and what that means to put that stamp on your website. It's different now, and I will say this is a big shift in the the world, right? No other uh school choice program requires accreditation to participate. And so here's Texas. Now there are some that are are coming on, but it's it's not the norm. Um here's Texas saying, okay, you need to be accredited. Um tell me a little bit about yeah, what you see there, and you guys uh have have stepped in if you're comfortable sharing about some of the work you've been involved in. Yeah.

Texas ESA Scale And Cap

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Yeah. I mean, so first what I'll say is um, you know, um Texas has there are thousands of of accredited private schools that exist in Texas, right? And um, and those accredited schools are proud of their accreditation. Um and you know, they've gone through the a process to become accredited. Um, and I think for the state, the real I I can't speak for every legislator, but this was about sort of addressing a floor of quality requirement, right? So we were early adopters in the charter world, and I think our some of our legislators have some battles guys, uh, some concern based on really in that early adoption of charters. We were proud to be out in front, but we had some phenomenal ones that really changed the national conversation that came out of that. And then we had some that really were problematic in the sense that they didn't deliver to parents and kids on what they were supposed to deliver on. So I think that the the accreditation requirement was really acknowledgement of where we've been and not wanting that heartburn of saying, well, wait a minute, are we just gonna allow sort of fly by night schools to open up? And I'm using words that that people would say about a an open system, whatever your opinion is of that. I mean, I I have a little more faith that parents don't put their children in schools that are dangerous and not gonna deliver on those things, on core values. But but I understand what they're saying is like we have a responsibility as fiduciaries of state money to make sure that we have to the best of our ability. And by the way, we can make the argument well, we have public schools that aren't serving kids well, that our kids are getting stabbed. I mean, we've got kids who are there's all kinds of craziness that happens when you bring people together. But the state has to say, but we have some checks and balances. So let's try to put this in there. So I think the accreditation uh requirement was included in there for responsible as a reaction as a concern about having kind of this flyby night. Anyone opens Jimmy Bob opens the school for his like, you know, whatever. So there's that. And then and then there's also some other just a requirement that they're operating for two years, that the entity be operating for at least two years, right? So, like, so there's that. Um Now, accreditation, what's interesting, as you said, is that we we've been working with schools for years. There are some schools that have been institutions that we found out were not accredited, right? And then we had met people who started schools who had worked at some of our most elite private schools, but in 2020 decided to start their own sort of private schools. They were not accredited. And we started saying that, and they were panicking like, wait a minute, we're not accredited, but we're serving low-income kids or we're serving working class families who want this program. And there was one school in particular. I remember this was for me when the light bulb went off. This is a school that's been serving kids for, I don't know, 20 years. Amazing. Um, it's a classical Christian school that serves low-income kids. Phenomenal. Kids learn Latin, the Socratic method, they read the great book. It's a great school. Um and I was like, you're not a talk me through why you're not accredited. And then they started giving me these very rational reasons, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Um and then we had a couple other schools that said, well, we're not accredited and we want to figure this out. And it's not that we didn't care about it, but it was expensive. It takes a long time. We're raising philanthropy to cover tuition for low-income kids. Parents have not asked about accreditation and full disclosure, my daughter goes to private school. I have no idea who's accredited that school. Like I've we've never in 16 years had a parent ask us about accreditation for schools, right? It's not a parent driver. Like I never, we have never had a ever a parent say, well, who's accrediting you know, our lady of Guadalupe? Like no one's ever said anything like that. So then we were like, huh, this is gonna be interesting. And then we started talking with micro schools.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

And we visited probably, I don't know, 30 amazing micro schools doing phenomenal work. And we knew about, you know, you all and some other folks. And it really occurred to us, you know, that accreditation it should be a valuable experience for the school. And it should mean something, right? But it also a lot of the pre-existing accreditors are sort of legacy accreditors from a from a time where schools were very standardized and they were not these kind of more flexible, community-based, educator-driven, smaller schools.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Right? They were they were meant to be kind of the 300 kid elementary school or the three, you know, the to the middle school. That there are these private school models.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

And and we owe them to just note that several of them have seen that and have tried to move in the direction of more flexibility for smaller schools too. Oh, totally. Yeah. So I think it, yeah.

Priorities And Guardrails In Texas

SPEAKER_01 24:55

And the other, the other thing, the other thing is these the legacy accreditors, to be fair, they have an installed base, right? Like they have a model that they've that has worked, and it has a hundred percent worked for the schools. I like this is not a knock on them. It's like nobody has said to them, hey, you need this doesn't, this is not gonna work, right? So, so you have accreditors who are like, okay, wait, our process isn't quite right, but or it's too expensive, or it's too, you know, it's we're we've got a lot of kind of busy work that people have to do. But if we say we're gonna lower our price, how does that actually work for the people who've been paying that price for 15 years? Like, so they really do have a structural business challenge.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

And I applaud those that have said they're trying to figure it out. But we basically, as folks who so we got together with some folks who have run schools, led schools, founded schools, and just said, we we've visited a bunch of schools, we think we can build a better mousetrap.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

And what is interesting is our legislate, the legislation allows so the accredited schools either have to be through TEPSAC, which is a Texas private school association, accredited member schools. So those are like your blue, kind of like your old school accreditors are members of TEPSAC. And so they have to be approved by TEPSAC or the agency. And so the agency is the Texas Education Agency and so TEA. So the Texas Education Agency can accredit private schools, and that makes a lot of sense because they authorize charters and they reauthorize charters. We also have public-private partnerships with districts, and we have programs like Texas Rising Star. We have ways in which the state already manages quality control for pre-K childcare and K-12. And so that provided an avenue for another form of accreditation in Texas that I think would provide us with the flexibility to start thinking about accreditation differently. And, you know, our commissioner is really an interesting guy who I think cares a lot about schools and has supported school choice, um, public school choice. Um, and so he was very open to considering how uh that might work. Now, I will say he cares also a lot about standards and accountability. Sure. So they're as a yeah, so we started engaging with um with TEA kind of in the early summer, late spring, about this and wanted to find out if they were interested in um accrediting private schools and particularly micro schools. And what we heard was, yeah, we are. Um so that that's that that's been very encouraging.

Accreditation As Quality Floor

SPEAKER_02 28:12

So great. Um depending on your comfort level with us, we can share a little bit more information in the show notes and let people know. Um Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So we we basically um I'll just so we proposed um we put together a group um and proposed the Texas Microschool Accreditation Service. Um and and so if people go to txms.org, um that kind of outlines the project we put together. So it was a collaborative project. So the Texas School Venture Fund said, look, we'll house this. They work with a bunch of different schools. They're they're they're not running those schools, but they're kind of overseeing and supporting a series of schools, partnering mostly in the charter school space. Um and they have a very diverse board, very interesting folks who have been either in the business space or community or then school, like really credible school people. Um, and we said to them, we think that there's an opportunity here and we're gonna need it because we just have heard from so many families and so many great educators, honestly, lots of public school educators who want to start really kind of like child-focused, high-quality schools in their communities. Um they sort of said, okay, well, what do you propose? And we put this proposal together and we we we basically worked through a business proposal and then said we've we've heard loud and clear from the schools and from the school leaders, and we've looked at the accrediting process. Um, and we proposed the Texas Microschool accreditation service. And I would say TEA has been very um thoughtful and responsive, and we've been very transparent that we plan to launch this and we intend to launch it. And and Don Seuffer from the National Microschooling Association helped us get the word out. But we haven't, you know, we we so we proposed it, we've been waiting for TEA to um approve our process. They were very clear it had to be a rigorous process, it could not be a rubber stamp. Um, there had to be it had to be rigorous enough such that like not everyone would get through it. Um, and they had the right to audit um the process. And and so it has not been a small project. It has been a big project. And I am actually kind of unbelievably blown away by the fact that we've had to date 35 schools that have uh filled out uh an intake form. So they've sort of said, look, we want to start this process.

SPEAKER_02 31:00

Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

Yeah, it is amazing.

SPEAKER_02 31:02

There's a huge opportunity here. I know every time I talk to you, you're in the middle of meetings and working through details with this. I know a lot of care has gone into it. The hope, of course, just to you know remind everyone why this even exists, is to bridge a gap and really open up this world of Texas to um, you know, new models, new educators, new things that maybe don't fit exactly into the old mold. So I I want to celebrate that and just shout you guys out in this world. Yeah, thank you. I wish you the very best. Let's wrap this up on the back. Thank you. I would love your your vision. You've been in this, you know the state, you know these families, yeah, you're watching education. Can you just paint a picture for our listeners about what success really looks like in Texas as as we sort of enter this new phase?

Legacy Models vs New School Designs

SPEAKER_01 31:49

Yeah, I mean, I so from my this is my point of view. So just disclaimer. My point of view, I what I think success looks like is that every parent in Texas has the opportunity to choose a school that's right for their child, um, and that we have a diverse plurality of school options that parents can choose from. What I also really hope we see is that educators, whether they're in public schools, um, like our traditional ISDs, we call them, you know, um independent school districts. That's what that stands for. Um charter schools or uh, you know, private micro schools, um, that educators feel like they have the support that they need to do their job. I mean, that that honestly, the most amazing thing about visiting the micro schools that we've been to, and I have been to like literally over 30, and I'm going to one um on Thursday up in Fort Worth. Every time I go, I feel like I'm letting pardon?

SPEAKER_02 32:48

I have more for you. We'll uh we'll have to take you out to visit some more.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Every every time I leave, first off, I meet amazing educators. Almost all have been public educators. Um it's like a calm feeling. Like I have not been to one school where it's felt chaotic or crazy um or dangerous. It's a calm place. Almost all of them have been places where children are seen and educators feel valued. And almost all of them say, I love teaching, but I hated my job. I loved teaching, but I felt like I couldn't do it, right? And and they are thoughtfully implementing both pedagogically and curriculum on a curriculum basis, and for a lot of them for their values, right? Like some of those schools are religious, right? They they are faith-based, they take a more moral and value position. So, what I hope the future holds is that every educator and every parent finds a school where they can provide an educational opportunity where children will flourish, right? That's what I hope. And that we all agree as Texans to support and fund, you know, the flourishing of students, and that we just stop sort of picking tribes and sides and stop sort of defending, you know, these kind of institutional status quo, and we really say, like, what is working for kids? And let's let's do more of that, right? Let's let's free up our resources and our space so that our kids are flourishing. It's beautiful. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

Colleen, thank you so much. I I'm inspired. Yeah, thank you. I love the focus. Last, last thing we ask everybody on the Kindled Podcast is somebody in your life that's kindled a love of learning for you. It could be early in your life or or recent more recently. Um, but can you think of somebody you'd like to shout out as somebody who's helped kindled kindle a love of learning?

Building A Microschool Accreditor

SPEAKER_01 34:54

Yeah. Uh my dad. Oh my construction worker dad, who is a conservationist, he's um, he's an outdoorsman, um, he's an avid reader. He likes weird books like books about coins and history. Um and he's, you know, he's a construction worker. He's like this guy who would not say, he'll say things like, Well, I'm not the smartest guy. I'm like, Dad, here. He but he but he's just a thought, he he he's he's uh he's sort of my hero. So yeah, my dad.

SPEAKER_02 35:27

Thank you. Shout out to Colleen's dad. Okay, well, thank you again for joining, and thank you for your your thoughtful work and your effort in Texas and really nationally supporting parents and helping create that future. So appreciate you and wish you all the best in your endeavors.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

Kelly, thank you, and thanks for taking so much time even with all the tech issues. I love Prenda, love what you all do. So come to Texas. We're coming. I'm gonna hit.