How New Microschool Accreditation Pathways Are Opening Doors for Founders and Families

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As a mother of nine in Tennessee, Sarah Fagerburg tried a variety of different schooling types, from public schools to homeschooling, but she always felt there had to be something better. In the spring of 2023, she discovered Acton Academy from listening to a podcast, and knew that this was the educational model she had been seeking. 

“My mind was blown,” said Fagerburg. “I had no idea education could be this good.”

She applied to open her own Acton Academy, and was accepted into the fast-growing network of approximately 300 independently-operated schools, emphasizing learner-driven education. Fagerburg launched Acton Academy Johnson City last fall with 13 students, including four of her own children. Today, she has 26 K-6 students enrolled in her secular microschool, with plans to add a middle school and high school program in the coming years. “Parents want this. They love it,” said Fagerburg, adding that some families drive up to 45 minutes each way for their children to attend her program. 

She says she sees enormous demand for the Acton Academy model, and hopes to open more locations in Tennessee, but access is a key concern. “I grew up poor,” said Fagerburg. “I never would have been able to attend a school like this.” 

With the current expansion of school choice programs, such as Tennessee’s new universal education savings accounts (ESA), many more families are able to access innovative schools and learning models. “It’s a complete game changer,” said Fagerburg, explaining how the ESA program enables Tennessee families who previously had limited education choices to now use a portion of state-allocated education funding to select the school or learning space that is best for their child. 

But there’s a catch. In order to participate in Tennessee’s ESA program, Fagerburg’s school must be accredited, and its current accreditation by the International Association of Learner Driven Schools, isn’t recognized by the state. 

That is why Fagerburg jumped at the opportunity to participate in a fledgling program offered through the Middle States Association (MSA), one of the four major K-12 accreditation entities, with 3,200 member schools worldwide. In partnership with Stand Together Trust, MSA’s Next Generation Accreditation pilot program seeks to offer a faster, more affordable, and more flexible route toward accreditation for today’s emerging schools. 

“We created this flexible protocol around how a school actually works,” said Christian Talbot, President and CEO of MSA. “That gives mostly microschools, but really any innovative school, the opportunity to tell their story with the production of evidence that makes the most sense to them.” 

Talbot offered the example of a hypothetical urban “place-based” learning environment, with no designated school building and students taking classes at various museums, public parks, and historic sites throughout a city. “That school is going to have the opportunity to describe the learning environment in ways that existing accreditation protocols really don’t allow because you have to have a certificate of occupancy, or a lease, or some other thing that is tied to this mental model we have that school has to be in a building,” said Talbot. 

He emphasized that these innovative schools are “meeting all of the exact same standards of accreditation” as conventional schools, but they are able to demonstrate these standards in ways that reflect the ingenuity of their models. 

MSA is the world’s second-oldest accrediting agency. It launched more than a century ago, as interest grew from schools and colleges for independent, third-party verifiers of quality. For higher education, accreditation eventually became a requirement for U.S. colleges and universities to participate in federal student financial aid programs, but at the K-12 level, mandatory accreditation is less common. 

Most states don’t require schools — public or private — to be accredited, but some schools choose to become accredited to earn an external “seal of approval,” which may help them to attract and retain students and educators. With the expansion of school-choice programs nationwide in recent years, certain states, such as Tennessee and Texas, require accreditation in order for a school to participate in these programs.

Cammy Herrera had been exploring the possibility of accreditation for her secular microschool MCP Academy, in Mansfield, Texas, well before the state introduced a new universal school-choice program this spring. A former public school teacher, Herrera had been running a licensed in-home preschool for more than a decade when she decided in 2021 to add a Montessori-inspired school-age program. She now serves over 50 students through middle school, with plans to open a high school if she can find a larger space to accommodate more students.

For Herrera, accreditation was appealing as a signal of quality, but she felt that most existing accrediting organizations took a traditional view of education that didn’t reflect her personalized, flexible approach. 

“Our school is so different. We are not trying to fit into a one-size-fits-all box when it comes to schooling,” said Herrera, whose students are technically considered homeschoolers. They can attend her school full-time at an annual tuition of $10,250, or customize their enrollment based on their own learning needs. Tuition for Herrera’s two-day-a-week option is about $4,000 annually. “Whoever we get accredited through has to believe in our vision and has to be on board with what makes our school special because we don’t want our school to lose that special part that makes us different from a traditional school,” she said. 

When Herrera learned about the MSA’s pilot accreditation program for microschools, she eagerly applied. Next Generation Accreditation would offer Herrera that third-party validation she has been seeking while retaining her program’s originality. It would also enable her to participate in Texas’s new school choice program, should she choose. 

MSA hopes to run the Next Generation Accreditation pilot with 10 to 15 innovative schools over the next several months to learn more about these schools’ distinct needs and structures, and then iterate and adapt protocols to provide a valuable accreditation pathway for today’s creative schooling models. 

As the creator of the Texas Microschools Facebook group, Herrera sees mounting interest in microschooling and the diverse educational models and methods that the movement fosters. She thinks that accreditation options that reflect this diversity can be beneficial to founders and families who value that credential, or who need it to participate in certain school-choice programs. But she also warns of potential drawbacks: “There are all these special schools, and if everybody has to follow the same standards to be accredited, then I think they’ll be more alike than different. That’s the only thing I could see being a downfall.”

Disclosure: Stand Together Trust provides financial support to The 74.

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