Education ‘HERO’ calls on churches to support microschools

Dalena Wallace isn’t one to sit still – especially when it comes to education.

The Wichita-area mom has an impressive resume of homeschooling her own six kids, starting a homeschool co-op that serves about 40 more, and founding not one but three associations to boost micro schools.

“She had vision for me before I did,” says Devan Dellenbach, a former Kansas public school teacher who launched a microschool called Re*Wild Family Academy with Wallace’s encouragement. The school is now thriving.

Wallace’s latest endeavor, launched in May, seeks to link churches to micro schools – or ‘creative Christian learning environments,’ as she calls them. Her goal is for churches to support, partner with and help send students to micro and hybrid schools. 

“There’s no reason for churches not to do this,” Wallace says. “We’re bridging the gap between the church and the Christian school founders and raising support there for them.” 

Heartland Education Reformation Organization, or HERO, serves 15 faith-based microschools in the Wichita area. Wallace got to know these schools through Wichita Innovative Schools and Educators, or WISE, a network she founded that includes both religious and non-religious schools. 

“I’ve been working with other (microschool) founders for three years, but in my work with visiting them and learning their story, I just realized so many of them were Christians and they were starting this because it was their ministry and they felt called to it,” Wallace says. “They were stepping out in faith, just walking in obedience to what the Lord asked them to do, but they didn’t know that anyone else was doing it.  

“A lot of them were just feeling so alone, like ‘I’m just being faithful. I’m just trying to do what God wants me to do.’ And most of them didn’t even have the support of their church or their pastor or their congregation. I mean, that’s a shame. ‘What on earth?’ you know. We can do better. We can get behind them and support them.” 

Hosting or starting a school is a primary way churches can get involved, but it’s not limited to that. School startups often need help with supplies, volunteers or direct financial support. Churches can also sponsor scholarships for students to maintain or boost enrollment. 

Randy Williams, pastor of Refuge Church in Wichita, knew it would be challenging to host a microschool, but he also sensed it was in God’s will. 

“There was an entire half of our building that went essentially unused all week and was barely used on Sunday,” he says. But hosting would require a cultural shift in the church, which hadn’t had any kids in the congregation “for a significant amount of time” when Williams came onboard. 

Two things ultimately moved him and swayed the church to rent space to Freedom Prep, which houses its elementary school at the church: concern about the next generation and clear legal and insurance boundaries. 

“I was reading Deuteronomy 6, and I saw how in the Shema, it was all about discipling the next generation,” Williams says. “And then you jump ahead two generations to Judges 2 and it says, ‘This generation arose that knew not the Lord nor the things that he had done.’ 

“I’ve always been compelled that if we’re not passing on the faith to the next generation and determining in our hearts that we’re actually going to lay ourselves down for the next generation then we’re missing it in discipleship.” 

The legal and insurance questions proved simpler than expected. The church consulted with experts in real estate and commercial space to structure the lease in mutually agreeable ways. And insurance turned out to be “much ado about nothing.” 

“When we have kids ministry on site or when we have youth ministry, we have to be insured for anything that can go wrong on site anyways,” Williams says, adding that the church’s premium increase was negligible. “The school had to carry the same insurance. They had to work with their insurance company, but from our end it really didn’t impact much at all.” 

Activities on the campus such as a youth rally or school function require a liability waiver, regardless of who is hosting them. 

Since the agreement, the church has dealt with inconveniences such as packing up and unpacking Sunday school classrooms the school uses during the week. There are also “trivial” things such as kids tracking in rocks from the playground which “our vacuum can’t pick up,” Williams says.  

How did they solve it? By walking in grace and humility, and “a lot of communication.” 

“When kids are involved, nothing goes perfectly. You’ve got to get rid of some of the idealism,” Williams says. 

He tells other pastors that while the church and school are separate entities, “This is a partnership for the kingdom. If there’s going to be an ‘us and them’ mentality and it’s not viewed as a partnership, be prepared for heartache. That will make it difficult.” 

Now his church is solidly on board, and even loving it. 

Williams says a congregant who has been there since its founding in 1989 as Northwest Christian comes up to him weekly saying, “It’s just so beautiful to see kids all over this building again.” 

Even churches that can’t host are partnering to meet a school’s specific needs. For instance, a group of churches is sponsoring health insurance for the teacher at Legacy Learning Academy in Wetmore, Kansas, Wallace says, at a cost of $500 per month. 

“I’m just looking at it like ‘what are the needs of this school? What’s going to help in the sustainability of these Christian schools?’” she says. 

HERO’s mission is focused on Kansas, and the Wichita area specifically, but Wallace wouldn’t rule out expansion. She’s heard of similar organizations in states such as Massachusetts, California and North Carolina, and the Florida Citizens Alliance is trying to start microschools in churches across the Sunshine State. 

Her organization is also filming a documentary about microschools to raise awareness. A donor who has funded traditional Christian schools is sponsoring it. 

“When I went to him and told him about all these small, little grassroots schools, he was like, ‘Wait a minute. What? I never knew about this. I would support this if I knew more about it.’ We’ve got to tell this story about what’s happening,” she says. 

With microschools expanding rapidly – a recent survey estimates that as many as one in 10 school age children in America are attending a microschool – the opportunity is there for churches to step up. 

“A lot of times churches may think that to start a private Christian school it has to be a traditional ‘brick and mortar’ school and really expensive, but it doesn’t have to be,” Wallace says. “You can have a one-room schoolhouse. You can open your fellowship hall. You can use your Sunday school rooms. There are so many ways to do it. 

“There’s a church on every corner. This just needs to spread more.”