Church-based learning centers share rapid growth at national conference hosted at Herzog Foundation

Forty people from 20 states gathered for the two-day National Reclaiming Education Conference in Kansas City this week to share best practices for growing church-based learning centers – small schools that meet in churches.

“These are schools that are church-based, volunteer-based and parent-directed,” said Michael King, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, which hosted the second annual event with the Herzog Foundation, publisher of The Lion, at the foundation’s Smithville, Missouri, headquarters.

Highlights included testimonies from Massachusetts, a high-cost blue state that lacks school choice, yet King and others have helped establish schools that are teaching students for as little as $100 per month – or less.

The church-based learning centers, which King said are an extension of homeschooling, meet one to five days per week and rely heavily on volunteers to serve their communities.

“We need to get back to volunteerism. That is how we are also going to drive the price of K-12 education down,” he said, explaining that 70% of students in the Worcester public school district live under the poverty line. “If we’re going to reach them, we have to be at $100 a month or less – and we’ve done that. If we’ve gotten there in Massachusetts, it can be done anywhere.”

A learning center in Westfield meets three days per week and charges families $500 per year, although families must volunteer six hours per week at the school. That center and the family institute have seen the number of small, church-based schools grow from 19 last year to 27, with four more in the works.

“You can start these in one to three months,” King said, emphasizing the simplicity of the microschool or homeschool co-op model.

My Father’s World, a homeschool curriculum company, has launched more than 175 “discipleship academies” in the last three years, said Leah Brooks, who works as a school mentor.

“One of the reasons that we are seeing such growth is because so many people are opting out of the public education system, and they are saying, ‘We need something and we’re going to start a school,’” she said, adding that the curriculum works for multiple age levels. “We’re able to handle a school of 10. We’re also able to handle a school of 150 that separates five grades per class. Our heart is multi-level.”

Other presenters at the conference shared about technology, public policy issues and generosity.

Two entrepreneurs from California are planning to roll out their “Uber for homeschool moms” next year; the Illinois Family Institute is hosting a conference in August to “pull the fire alarm on America’s burning schools,” calling pastors and churches to get involved, and a Kentucky church has started a tuition-free school.

“The first thing that the Lord put on our heart is that if you really want to reach people, and this really is a mission, then you can’t charge them for it,” said Justin Walker of Salt & Light Church in La Grange, Kentucky.

The school holds several fundraisers throughout the year to meet its $650,000 budget. It’s now in its second year and has grown from 65 to 105 students. It doesn’t require students to sign a statement of faith to enter and baptized 12 pupils its first year.

Walker said he believes it will soon be normal for churches everywhere to host schools.

“I believe that 25 years from now, if you enter into a church and that church does not have a school, you will think it as strange as if you went into a church today and they didn’t have any music,” he said.

The gathering ended in prayer and a hymn led by Darrell Jones, Herzog Foundation president.

“It was so exciting hearing from Christian education entrepreneurs from around the country,” Jones told The Lion after the event. “God is doing something big in education.”

King praised Herzog’s hospitality and said the gathering was significant both for convening leaders and for allowing plenty of networking.

“I really feel like all the ideas were so well fleshed out, and then people were able to effectively pick the ideas that were appropriate for them,” he said. “We had everything from after-school literacy programs with the Bible as literature, to generosity programs where kids are given $5,000 actual dollars to give them the opportunity to learn what it is to give. 

“I think everybody left not just encouraged, but empowered,” he added.