I Started My Microschool With Just 2 Students. Here’s What I Learned.

When I pictured starting my own microschool, I'm pretty sure there were more than two students in the picture. But when Tuckahoe Learning Grove first opened its doors, that's exactly how many there were.

I remember having two very different feelings at the same time. There was a real fear in the back of my mind: What if we don't grow? I believed deeply in what I was building, but believing in an idea and having enough families enroll to actually sustain a school are two different things. I didn't know yet whether two students would become five, or ten, or whether we'd still be sitting at two by the end of the year.

At the exact same time, though, I felt incredibly grateful. Two families had looked at something brand new—with no long track record, no years of testimonials, and no guarantee of exactly what this would become—and said yes. They trusted me with their children. When I think back on that first day, I don't think I'll ever forget what that meant to me.

And underneath both the fear and the gratitude was something else: excitement.

Because once I stopped looking at two students as only two students, I started realizing what I could actually do with two students.

Small gave me possibilities I hadn't had before.

Coming from public education, I was used to thinking about teaching within the constraints of a much larger group. Suddenly, I didn't have to.

With two students, we could follow an interest. We could spend longer on something because they were fascinated by it, or move on because they weren't. We could go outside. We could change the plan. I could pay attention to what each child needed instead of constantly trying to figure out how to make one lesson work for an entire classroom.

There was an intimacy to learning that I hadn't really been able to plan for before we opened. It started showing me what a microschool could actually be—not just a smaller version of school, but a different experience altogether.

Starting small gave me room to build the school.

Before you open, you make a lot of decisions based on what you think your school will need. Then actual children arrive and you discover which of those decisions were brilliant, which need adjusting, and which things you spent entirely too much time worrying about.

Because we were small, I had room to figure that out.

I could experiment. I could pay attention. I could change something that wasn't working without having to overhaul a giant system. Instead of needing every piece of TLG figured out before we opened, I was able to build some of it alongside the children and families who were actually there.

Looking back, I think that's something new founders underestimate. You don't have to build the final version of your school before you open the first version.

But yes, I still wanted more students.

I don't want to romanticize starting small so much that I pretend I wasn't concerned about enrollment, because I was.

A microschool still has to be sustainable. There are expenses to pay, and if you're building something you hope will eventually provide an income, enrollment matters. I wanted TLG to grow, and there were absolutely moments when I wondered whether it would.

But I learned that there is a difference between starting small and staying unsustainably small.

Starting with two gave me an opportunity I probably wouldn't have had if I'd opened immediately with a full roster. I got to learn how I wanted the school to operate before it grew. And as more families came, they weren't joining an idea anymore. They were joining something that had already begun to develop its own rhythm, culture and identity.

Those first families will always be part of the story.

There's something particularly meaningful about the families who say yes before there is much proof that your idea is going to work.

They're taking a chance on you.

Those first families gave TLG the opportunity to become real. They gave me students to teach, yes, but they also gave me the chance to test the ideas I'd been carrying around in my head and see what happened when they became an actual school day.

When you're focused on reaching a sustainable enrollment number, it can be easy to overlook just how significant the families who are already there really are.

Two wasn't the number I ultimately wanted.

But those two mattered enormously.

If you're starting with “only” a few students...

You are allowed to want your school to grow. You are allowed to worry about whether the numbers will work. You should think about sustainability, tuition and enrollment, because passion alone doesn't keep a school open.

But don't let the number keep you from seeing the opportunity in front of you.

A tiny first cohort gives you something that becomes harder to find as you grow: room. Room to experiment, room to change your mind, room to get to know your families, and room to discover what the school you're building actually wants to become.

If I could go back and talk to myself, I don't think I'd tell myself to stop worrying about enrollment. Some of that concern was warranted.

I'd tell myself something simpler:

Don't be so worried about the students who haven't come yet that you miss what you get to build with the ones who already have.