(CHALKBEAT INDIANA) — Jen Shipley would have never considered public school for her rising third grader, whom she had homeschooled since kindergarten. In public schools, she said she saw cuts to recess and enrichment, an overreliance on screens, and not enough time to give each student indi vidual attention, she said. But a 2025 meeting with Indiana Microschool Collaborative CEO George Philhower and Nature’s Gift microschool leader Erin Wolski changed her mind. They painted a picture of a public school located in the woods in Hancock County that would emphasize parental involvement and a flexible schedule, while drawing from Montessori and classical education to allow students to move at their own pace. Over the next school year, Shipley’s daughter excelled in math where she had been struggling at home. It was hard to leave their full-time homeschooling community, but Shipley said it was worth it. “I love that she can learn from teachers who love teaching reading and math,” Shipley said. “Sure I could teach my child a science experiment, but not with the same passion behind it.” Nature’s Gift’s, which just wrapped up its first year, is the Indiana Microschool Collaborative’s first microschool. But the collective plans to open five more sites with spots for hundreds more students across eastern central Indiana. Planned sites in Richmond and New Palestine already have waitlists for admission, a sign that parents’ interest in microschools continues to grow. The collaborative’s approach is distinctive — and not just for its education model. In fact, the Indiana Microschool Collaborative, or IMC, could be a harbinger of how emerging models for schooling in the state will increasingly blur traditional lines. It’s a network of microschools, which operate with a degree of independence, but it’s also classified as a single charter school in terms of state funding. And it doesn’t just draw on resources and services from a traditional school district — its CEO, Philhower, is also that district’s superintendent. Eastern Hancock Schools, a rural district serving around 1,200 students across three schools, provides administrative support to Nature’s Gift through a shared services agreement. However, the charter school is an independent entity and authorized by the Indiana Charter School Board. Philhower envisions Indiana microschools working collaboratively with their local districts to offer families an alternative to leaving the public school system altogether. For families, this opens up possibilities like learning at home some days and learning in a classroom on others, while districts still earn some revenue from providing facilities or administrative support. “At a broader level, the goal is not to create separation between schools but to create more connected and flexible public learning opportunities for families,” Philhower said. Not everyone is so taken with the idea. Some Indiana superintendents have spoken to the collaborative about bringing microschools to their districts, said Jeff Butts, of the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents. But the collaborative’s Richmond site has been criticized by the superintendent of the local school district, who said losing students to IMC would lead to district funding cuts and staff reductions. That kind of financial crunch would hit rural districts especially hard, said Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer, president at Indiana Coalition for Public Education. Then there are broader concerns about whether such arrangements are appropriate or fair. Fuentes-Rohwer questioned how Philhower can promote both the district and the collective and serve both well. “Charter schools are based on the idea that the public schools are failing to provide something for kids. Your job as a superintendent is to fix that, and provide what’s needed so that every student can be the best that they can be,” Fuentes-Rowher said. “If it’s about smaller class sizes or individualized attention, why is that not provided to all kids at the district?” Philhower said he believes in school choice, and that all students should get to attend “a school that feels like it was designed for them.” “Nothing is stopping us from providing that. One benefit to Eastern Hancock is we get to learn from these sites,” he said. “And these sites get to learn from us.” Funding and operating microschools throughout the state Indiana’s microschools have operated mostly as small private schools, although in 2023, Purdue Polytechnic High School opened the Lab School, a microschool within a public charter school serving around 20 students The microschools’ approaches share an emphasis on small environments and personalized instruction. But with small staffs, there are some tradeoffs. At Nature’s Gift, parents pick up and drop off every day. The school can incorporate some special education goals into small group instruction, but other services for students with an Individualized Education Program might be offered virtually, school leaders said. That format might not be appropriate for every student. Each IMC site serves between 60 and 100 students, and will have “its own educators and identity that fits the local community,” Philhower said, though there is collaboration with districts “around professional learning, systems, curriculum design, and student experiences.” Under Indiana law, IMC could be eligible to receive local property tax revenue from multiple districts. Philhower said IMC has not discussed participating in a referendum, and would only participate if its partner districts wanted the school to do so. For state funding purposes, IMC is one big charter school, Philhower said. That also means the new locations are not subject to an Indiana law that requires charter authorizers to hold public hearings before granting charters to new schools. That left local education leaders in one county blindsided. Wayne County superintendents were not included in IMC’s plans to open a microschool on the campus of Indiana University East in Richmond this fall, said Mike McCoy, superintendent of the local district, Centerville-Abington Community Schools. Philhower said the school works with its authorizer, the Indiana Charter School Board, on hearings. The board did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, IU spokesman Mark Bode said IU East shared initial information about the new school in late March, followed by a meeting with the superintendents in April. If he had been asked for input, McCoy said he would have suggested a model within a district that would allow students to stay with their peers while also taking classes at the university. His district already sends some students to IU East for a teaching pathway and other college courses. Enrollment in Centerville-Abington, which has about 1,700 students, has fallen in the last several years due in part to local demographic changes, McCoy said. Philhower said it makes sense for districts with declining enrollments to work with IMC schools instead of merely losing those students. After dipping slightly during the pandemic, enrollment in Philhower’s Eastern Hancock district has recovered to where it stood a decade ago. But McCoy said a loss of even 10 students to a microschool could force his district to cut a teaching position. “Schools in Wayne County, we’re working together more than we ever have,” McCoy said. “It’s unfortunate that we’re going to lose students.” What teaching and learning at a microschool is like On a recent Friday, Nature’s Gift students boarded an Eastern Hancock school bus for a field trip to the Conner Prairie museum. The school paid Eastern Hancock schools for the gas and the cost of the driver’s time for the field trip, said Wolski, the school leader. Two Nature’s Gift teachers planned the outing. (Eastern Hancock does not provide daily transportation to and from the school.) Teachers at Nature’s Gift don’t typically spend the whole day with just one group of students; Wolski is the licensed teacher for the middle school, but might also pull aside a group of five second graders for additional reading instruction, she said. “I don’t feel like I’m on an island, and my whole career, I felt like I was on an island,” said Wolski, who previously spent 16 years teaching in both general education and special education roles. Wolski said IMC hopes to add a special education coordinator in the future to be able to offer more services — like identification — in-house, rather than relying on Eastern Hancock. The group instruction at the school is based on skill level, so it’s easier for students to move at their own pace, Wolski said. A first grader recently joined her math group for third to fifth grade students. These learning groups might include approximately a dozen students at a time, though the school comes together in larger cohorts to work on Project Lead The Way curriculum. Some students attend in-person only part-time, and complete the rest of their instruction at home. The flexibility allowed Shipley’s daughter to attend Nature’s Gift in person three days a week, leaving time to attend a wilderness school program while completing schoolwork at home. “We are always thinking about outside the box ideas,” Wolski said. “When you work closely with parents, you have that partnership, and you can problem solve a lot easier.” Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at [email protected]. ...read more read less