We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Traci Schmidley a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Traci , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.

As a new foster parent, I was struggling to juggle the enormous responsibilities of my career in higher education with the needs of the children in my care. I was constantly leaving work to take children to appointments, family visits, and respond to emergent situations. Ultimately I decided to pause my career to focus on my family. At the time, I also had 3 (now 4) biological children. Once I resigned from my job at a local college, I decided to homeschool my children. This would allow me to stay connected to teaching and education which was a passion of mine, and also spend some much-needed time with my children who were also overwhelmed by the sudden addition of many foster siblings.

As a highly collaborative person, I missed the frequent connections with my colleagues at the college, so I began to share tidbits of our new homeschool life online to continue to connect with others. Within a few weeks of sharing tales of our learning journey, a friend reached out and asked me if I could also homeschool her daughter. I quickly realized she was serious. We met for coffee one day, and she told me that she was terrified for her daughter who was undergoing treatment for anxiety. The constant pressures about performing academically, excessive amounts of homework, never-ending tests, and social conflicts resulted in her dreading school each day. She had seen my posts about student-centered education and they had resonated deeply with her.

At that time, my friend was considering enrolling her daughter in a private school, but she realized her daughter may face similar pressures at the private school. She offered to simply pay me the complete cost of the private school tuition she was considering if I would homeschool her daughter along with my children. As I contemplated her proposal, I was excited about the possibility of once again earning some income for my family and I knew my children would enjoy having a friend to play with. My friend ended up being my first client, and her daughter became my first non relative student. This resulted in me opening a microschool before I even knew what microschooling was!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a microschool founder based out of Northwest Louisiana. My microschool, Country Day Montessori School began in 2013. We built a 5,000 sq ft. school on our property, and now serve 70 students from our rural community. Despite our rural location, our students have had exceptional outcomes. Our youngest college graduate was just 13 years old, and a 14-year-old graduate went on to become the youngest-ever graduate of LSU Health Science Center and the youngest ASCP board-certified Medical Laboratory Scientist in the country at just 16 years old.

As a mother of nine children, including 5 who were adopted from foster care, and several children with profound special needs, inclusion is an important aspect of our microschool mission. Over a 1/4 of our students have special learning or developmental needs, and our student body consists of students who are non-ambulatory, on the autism spectrum, hearing impaired, and nonverbal.

In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, when schools around the world closed, I created Microschool America to teach other people how to found their own micro-schools. I help clients learn about the relevant laws and regulations in their home state, explore funding options, and plan an educational model that can meet the needs of their local community and operate as a sustainable business.

I am most proud of equipping passionate individuals with the knowledge and skills they need to be successful founders. Many aspiring micro-school founders mistakenly believe they need to buy into a franchise to be successful and they pay high fees and even give away a percentage of their revenue to a franchise that doesn’t understand the needs of the local community like the founder does. I am proud that we can offer our expertise, training, and ongoing support to founders to empower them to build their own brands. I am also proud of the incredible collaborative, inclusive community we are building at Microschool America. Founders from all walks of life are coming together to share and learn to maximize the impact that each founder can have in their community context.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I think authenticity is number one. People in my community knew me already through my role as an educator and through my work in the foster care/adoption community. Founding my micro-school was an extension of my authentic self, someone who is passionate about learning, and a fierce advocate for vulnerable children. Because I live in alignment with my espoused values, my intentions were never questioned. It made sense.

As the school began to grow I was then able to better articulate my beliefs about education through the examples I shared publically. Photos like a child doing advanced math while holding a chicken, and students crawfish hunting in a flooded pasture showed the community powerful illustrations of how the learning process can be both joyful and highly effective. Now, through Microschool America, people trust my coaching, because I have done it myself.

How’d you meet your business partner?

I initially met Kanesha Barnes when she approached Microschool America as a prospective client. Her passion and courage were palpable. Kanesha was in the process of launching her own microschool in Arkansas. As we worked together, I saw Kanesha’s talent for communication, social media management, and her passion for education access and equity. I drove to Arkansas to see her new school and help her launch her new school management software, and we talked like we had known each other for decades.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.microschoolamerica.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/microschoolamerica/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/microschoolamerica
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/traci-schmidley/

Image Credits

Traci Schmidley