The West Virginia mom paid the operator a $2,200 advance from her — an education savings account that gives families state funds for tuition or homeschooling expenses.

But events at The Hive Learning Academy quickly unraveled. Instead of structured meal times, children just grabbed lunch from the refrigerator when they got hungry. Her son “would come home starving because he was too shy to just go into someone else’s fridge,” Romanishan said. 

Kathy Dailey, who enrolled her 13-year-old son there, had a similar experience. When she visited the school in the eastern panhandle town of Martinsburg, students were just “hanging out,” buried in their phones. 

An exasperated Romanishan said she “soon realized that The Hive was actually just a glorified babysitter.”

By Christmas, they’d joined several parents demanding their money back and scrambling to find other arrangements — inquiries that prompted Republican state Treasurer Riley Moore to include the school in an “ongoing audit and investigation,” an official said. 

The probe is believed to be the first government investigation anywhere into a self-identified microschool, providing an awkward milestone for a movement that mushroomed during the pandemic and now includes 125,000 schools nationwide, according to the .

Hailed by Republicans, and fueled by the spread of ESAs, microschools operate out of homes, storefronts and churches with a degree of freedom from government oversight. But the West Virginia episode shows that managing that freedom while maintaining public accountability can be a tricky balancing act, even for the movement’s fiercest advocates.

“We’re in a transitional market,” said Jamie Buckland, who runs , a nonprofit that advises both parents and vendors in the sector. She thinks states with ESAs should do a better job preparing school founders and helping families navigate their options. 

“If we don’t want the government to provide the guardrails and the parameters,” she asked, “what is our movement doing to provide our own guardrails?”

Acknowledging they’d received “allegations of specific Hope Scholarship violations,” the treasurer’s office, which runs the ESA program, would not comment on the scope of the investigation or when it would be completed. In a November email shared with Âé¶čŸ«Æ·, an assistant treasurer told Romanishan the office was considering the “potential involvement of law enforcement if appropriate,” but has yet to bring charges.

In an interview with Âé¶čŸ«Æ·, Hive founder Kaela Zimmerman explained that she lacked the cash flow to make the venture work and struggled to get answers from the state when the program collapsed. She said she has since repaid the state over $15,000 in Hope funds.

Romanishan called the experience “not only painful, but disruptive.” 

“It makes it hard to trust anyone else, which is sad because the area needs a good microschool,” she said.

‘We tried our best’

Zimmerman thought so, too. The homeschooling mother opened The Hive with co-founder Kristin Volpe to give her own three children more opportunities to make friends. She rented the space, hung maps on the walls and culled curriculum materials from her favorite homeschooling programs. 

When 30 families registered last summer, she had high expectations. To help get started, she asked parents in August to pay the bulk of their tuition up front  — roughly $2,000 to $4,000 per student. But she had to dip into her own money to pay for furniture and supplies, and when fall came, only eight students showed up. 

She said she and Volpe never intended to “avoid our responsibilities.” With far less revenue than expected, they didn’t have enough to cover costs and pay themselves. To save money, Zimmerman moved out of the home she was renting and into the second floor of the microschool location. She and Volpe took jobs at a Macy’s warehouse to pay bills and Zimmerman began bartending a few nights a week.

But juggling multiple jobs made for a “hit or miss schedule” for students, Dailey said. 

“It was a fun environment,” she added. “But there wasn’t any homework or a set curriculum.” 

The state doesn’t ask potential vendors to submit a business or education plan up front. Anyone who wants to be an authorized Hope “service provider,” including a microschool, must sign a contract agreeing to get criminal background checks on staff working with students and to notify districts when they enroll. To receive funds, vendors need only submit a W-9, a tax form for an independent contractor, and document the Hope funds they receive from parents. 

Their downfall, Zimmerman said, was a lack of startup cash. She applied for a grant from the , a foundation-funded initiative that has helped launch and expand microschools and other alternative education programs. But they turned her down, saying that they had received more applications than they could fund. 

When she realized she couldn’t keep the program going, Zimmerman said she asked state officials how to return the ESA funds, but didn’t receive a lot of guidance. That’s why a November certified letter threatening criminal charges caught her off guard. She said she has since returned over $15,000, covering all of the scholarship funds she received minus payment for days students attended.

“It was very stressful and upsetting for us,” she said. “We are just two working class mothers with a great idea, but no means to make it happen. We tried our best.” 

But it takes more than good intentions to run a quality program, said Rachelle Noble, founder of Microschool Solutions, an Arizona-based consulting firm that advises aspiring school leaders. 

Formerly with Prenda, a microschool network, Noble was in charge of the model’s growth. Two years ago, she made what she describes as a tough decision to close two programs that operated with a Kansas school district’s virtual program. Both schools served families in low-income neighborhoods near Wichita.

“We did it way too late,” she said. The environment wasn’t dangerous, she said, but “it got to the point where it was clear that it was educational neglect.” The schools, she said, lacked an “emphasis on academics.” 

The reality is that many new microschools don’t last beyond the first year, said Amar Kumar, CEO of KaiPod Learning, another microschool network. Before he accepts prospective founders into the organization’s “catalyst” program, he ensures they have a solid financial plan. 

“It’s the same as with any small business or startup — the chances of failure are very high,” he said. “Even with the best of intentions, if your microschool can’t make ends meet, then you’ll end up disappointing families, and no one wants that.”

The involvement of public money in the form of ESAs raises the stakes. While most microschools don’t take ESA funds, Don Soifer, CEO of the National Microschooling Center, said his group’s upcoming report will show that 32% of microschools now accept , up from 18% . 

After The Hive ordeal, Zimmerman said she still loves the concept of microschools. But she doubts she’ll try to open another one.

“They require more resources and business knowledge than most regular working class people [and] parents have,” she said.

Doing ‘due diligence’

That’s why don’t think public funds should support them. 

Chris Stewart, CEO of Brightbeam, an education advocacy network, once considered himself an ESA “evangelist,” and hoped they’d provide better educational options for marginalized children. But now he thinks the laws lack accountability and create potential for and “a huckster market of vultures who see ESAs as a business opportunity.”

Last year, for example, a grand jury in Maricopa County, Arizona, accused of fraud and theft of over $87,000 in connection with that state’s ESA program. 

While it’s unclear if any of their businesses operated as microschools, the women allegedly created educational receipts and claimed reimbursements for “bogus services,” according to a prosecution report. Investigators’ examination of one woman’s account showed she used ESA funds for “day-to-day living at retail stores and restaurants” and spent money at Amazon, Uber and Airbnb.

For many in the movement, the attitude toward bad actors is, “Let the buyer beware.” They say it’s up to parents to do their homework before choosing a school.

“Some parents do an inordinate amount of due diligence,” said Noble, with Microschool Solutions. But others, she said, “sign kids up and haven’t even seen the space.” 

Advocates believe the market will eventually fraud and low-quality options.

But that’s no consolation for parents like Romanishan, who eventually received a $1,340 refund for the days her son didn’t attend. While waiting for scholarship refunds to appear in her account, she subscribed to an and enrolled her son in a cooking class. In the meantime, she said, he lost his friends and had to adjust to a new routine. 

“I feel like I failed my son,” Romanishan said. “I should have seen the red flags.”

Disclosure: Stand Together Trust provides financial support to and Âé¶čŸ«Æ·.

Social distancing, masks and confining students to their classrooms caused an “explosive amount of mental health needs,” from lack of focus to outright aggression, said Heather Long, a former counselor in the Orange East Supervisory Union district.

“I started to watch as more and more restrictions were being placed on kids,” she said. “I felt like I couldn’t reach the needs.”

That feeling of helplessness is one reason Long left her job in December — joining others who’ve stepped away from traditional schools and transitioned to alternative education models during the pandemic. Now she’s running a microschool out of her New Hampshire home as part of Prenda, a network of tuition-free, small-group programs in six states. Teachers making the leap into such programs are finding parents willing to join them. 

“For the first time in their lives, they have options,” said Jennifer Carolan, a former teacher in the Chicago area and now a partner with Reach Capital. The investment firm supports online programs and ed tech ventures, such as , with thousands of online classes, and , a tutoring platform that states and districts have adopted using federal relief funds.

Traditional schools, Carolan said, haven’t kept pace with what teachers want in the workplace, particularly flexible schedules. And after a “hellish two years,” some are gravitating toward positions that personalize learning for students while offering a better work-life balance.

Prior to the pandemic, schools lost about 16% of their teachers each year, according to . This year, point to scores of burned-out teachers who say they are planning to leave the field and anecdotal reports of mid-year departures. Rand Corp. data from last year showed that long hours, child care responsibilities and COVID-related health concerns were the main factors.

Traditionally, about two-thirds of teachers have moved into other jobs in K-12. Staying at home to care for a child or other family member is the second most common reason. But since the pandemic, many are also finding positions — often related to education.

With no hard national data yet available on teacher departures this year, experts say there’s no evidence of a mass exodus.

But there are signs in some states and districts that predictions of increased turnover are well-grounded. , for example, turnover rates were 17% higher in the fall of 2021 than in 2020, and in the Clark County School District in Las Vegas, of teachers and other licensed staff are well above pre-pandemic levels. 

The question is whether microschools and similar models will continue to be a viable alternative for those leaving district schools. Chad Alderman, a policy director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University who follows trends in the teacher workforce, is skeptical they are sustainable. 

“If even a few kids age out or move or just opt for a different placement, that would put the microschool at risk,” he said. “Absent some sort of consistent funding stream, they would face economic pressure to either grow into a more traditional school or else cease operations.” 

Data last year from , a consulting organization, showed that many families who left districts for pods and microschools were sticking with the model. At the start of the pandemic, some experts warned that pods and microschools would only , drawing well-off families who could afford the cost. States such as Arizona and New Hampshire have since provided public funding to increase equity. And some networks focus on diversity, such as — a platform that matches families with microschool teachers and attracted $8 million from investors last year.

‘A second shot’

Some teachers searching for new options have applied for jobs with Sora Schools, a private, online program now in its third year and serving 150 students, mostly on the East Coast. The school’s founders plan to expand in the fall of 2023 and eventually add in-person sites.

“The ground is fertile,” said Garrett Smiley, the company’s co-founder. 

Several of the school’s teachers — called “experts” — joined the program during the pandemic and he gets a few hundred applications for each open position. The application of Angela Anskis, who learned about Sora on LinkedIn last summer, stood out. 

She was teaching in a Philadelphia charter school, Boys Latin, when she began weighing a move. The school — and other public schools where she worked — didn’t offer students the choice to study what interested them, she said. After the school reopened, she found herself writing the same lesson plans for history, civics and geography that she always had.

“Once you’re teaching the same thing over and over and over again it’s hard to be passionate,” she said. “I would dread going into school. I thought that was part of being an adult.”

Anskis always wanted to be a teacher. As a kindergartner, she drew pictures of her future classroom. But returning to school after remote learning, she felt boxed in and considered leaving education completely. Sora, she said, gave her a “second shot.”

Sora educators are allowed to either focus full time on curriculum design or work directly with students — one difference that attracts teachers tired of spending nights and weekends on lesson plans, Smiley said. Experts teach six-week “expeditions” — deep dives into topics in multiple subject areas. 

A humanities expert, Anskis has taught a unit on fashion history and blended English and current events into an expedition on . Class discussions focused on “And Tango Makes Three,” about two male penguins raising a chick, and “Maus,” a graphic novel on the Holocast that was recently . Students researched why some groups might be opposed to the books and read the banned titles with their parents’ permission. 

Class sizes are small — 10 to 12 students — and Anskis said she can take a walk when she wants. 

“I have so much more control over my life,” she said.

But not every teacher who has left the classroom during the pandemic set out to pursue new opportunities. Some felt pushed out.

Shatera Weaver was the dean of culture at Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School, a New York City public school in Queens, where worked as an adviser for middle and high school students.

Originally granted an exemption from the city’s vaccine mandate because she has sickle cell anemia, Weaver learned in October that her accommodation would not be renewed. She was among the 1,400 New York City employees without pay because they were unvaccinated. 

Now she’s designing curriculum for EL Education, a nonprofit that provides English language arts materials and teacher training. She also teaches yoga for a nonprofit, and strangely finds herself leading movement classes for young children in a public school. 

“I have been quite unhappy. I miss my purpose-fulfilling job, and feel guilt for leaving — though it was out of my control,” she said. “I do not enjoy working from home. I miss the in-person connection and collaboration.”

Weaver hopes to join those who have launched new schools and wants to design either a public or private program for Black students — “much like an HBCU, but the grade school version.”

Teachers in alternative models said they appreciate the freedom to bring their own interests and personality to instruction. Long, in New Hampshire, took her six students — including her own two children — on a ski trip during the winter. Her program includes outdoor excursions for science and nature writing.

“I feel passionate about the ability to try new things and not be shot down,” she said. 

This fall, she’s joining a former middle school science teacher to expand the program to 15 children. And she refers other teachers to informational sessions on Prenda, which the state supports through . 

“I don’t want to turn families away,” she said, “and I don’t want to be the Prenda monopoly in town.”

Join Âé¶čŸ«Æ· and VELA Education Fund for a virtual conversation about why teachers leave the classroom to launch nontraditional education programs Wednesday, June 15, at 1 p.m. ET. .

Disclosure: The Walton Family Foundation provides funding to the 74 and the VELA Education Fund, which has supported Prenda.