About SchoolHouse
What's a microschool?
The microschool is the reinvention of the one-room schoolhouse, where class sizes are small groups of 5-8 students and there are mixed-age level groupings.
What is SchoolHouse?
SchoolHouse brings the best parts of education to your home with excellent teachers, small class sizes, and a personalized curriculum. We provide all the tools you need to ensure that your children receive an enriching experience with greater flexibility and more personalized attention than traditional schools can offer - all in a safe and inspiring home learning environment.
Why does the teacher matter so much?
Think back to the best education experiences you've had, chances are you're thinking of a teacher. Research supports that teachers have the largest impact on student satisfaction and educational outcomes. SchoolHouse enables parents to choose the teacher that is right for them.
Who are the teachers?
We hire only the best teachers using a rigorous screening process. For every 1 teacher that we hire, we interview approximately 20 candidates. Our teachers have on average 8.5 years of teaching experience, often have advanced degrees, and come highly recommended by colleagues.
Where is the school located?
Learning can happen anywhere there is enough space for the students and the teachers. So far, our pods have taken place in backyards, around kitchen tables, in playrooms, and in community spaces.
What curriculum do we use?
Each class is uniquely responsive and learns to match the learning style, pace, and interest of each student. We support for every type of curriculum and certified learning method. We work with families to help them find what method best suits them, whether that's a Montessori approach, project-based learning, or STEM focused.
Health and Safety
Safety is our highest priority, for your family, the students we work with, and the teacher. We ask all teachers to follow all CDC, state, and local guidelines as it relates to COVID. Beyond that, each pod creates its own health agreement prior to starting, which we have all students, families, and teachers sign-off on.
Alice E.
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Grades K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8
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Near West Roxbury, Massachusetts
Alice E.
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Grades K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8
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Near West Roxbury, Massachusetts
Briefly: I was born in Boston. With a tooth. Attended Catholic school until 8th grade. High school was Girls’ Latin School. Graduated with a degree in Elementary Education from Boston State College. Taught 7th and 8th grade for 5 years in low-income, racially and ethnically diverse private school. Moved to Vermont and taught 2nd graders for 5 years in far less diverse public school. Spent 4 years engaged in a doctoral program at Boston College. Graduated with a Ph.D. in Developmental and Educational Psychology. Directed a graduate program in elementary education for 5 years at a university in Connecticut. Moved back to Boston. Directed an undergraduate program in elementary education for 17 years. Left higher education in August 2020 due to college's financial hardship and need to eliminate programs and positions. Over the past 30 years, have worked with youth of Color living in urban settings and attending inner-city schools; women and children living with the effects of war in the North of Ireland; incarcerated women and those who have been released from prison; white students facing whiteness and racism; and folks living in recovery communities. Author of 5 books, most recently Elementary Students Practicing Mindfulness: A Meeting of the Minds (2019), as well as dozens of peer-reviewed articles.
Qualifications
- I am an experienced, enthusiastic educator who has been developing, expanding, and mastering a range of skill-sets for over 40 years.
Teaching Philosophy
For the twelve years that I was a classroom teacher - prior to attending graduate school - I had the good fortune to work with and among colleagues who brought diverse interests and concerns to the teaching and learning environment. In both urban and rural educational communities, I had the opportunity to work with educators who shared my commitment to finding connections between theory, practice, and the students' personal and collective histories. Together, we forged relationships with community members, parents and caregivers, administrators and students, focusing our efforts on creating learning environments that moved beyond the borders of the classroom and the school building. These learning environments were grounded in principles of shared knowledge construction, individual and collective empowerment, and teaching and learning as emancipatory processes. Overall, we wanted to provide students with opportunities to share their knowledge with one another thus, capitalizing on their strengths and positioning them as contributing members to the school and the community. My classes (in elementary, middle, undergraduate, or graduate school) are designed so that students can “see what’s there” and once seen, question and explore what is presented, as well as what might “not be there.” Engaging in discussions about what is known, what we need to know, how we know, etc. offers students, no matter what age they are, entry points into how they learn and construct knowledge - key factors in one’s educational experiences. I encourage students to formulate questions that require critical thinking and a seriousness of study that is also threaded with humor, curiosity, a willingness to be wrong sometimes, and a hearty commitment to be a contributing member of the learning community. My teaching also reflects my desire to position students as intentional agents of change within the learning environment who come to school (wherever that may be) with life experiences, thoughts, feelings, and perspectives. There is room for all of that - and more - in my classroom. Simply put, students bring what they know, I bring what I know, and together, we create a whole new knowing. And we engage in that process with compassion, service to one another, and a wholehearted sense of appreciation for the magical, messy, magnificent opportunity we have to learn together. I recently left higher education, yet have not lost my enthusiasm for teaching. I remain eager to engage in the teaching-learning process. In the midst of today’s uncertainty, one thing remains constant: the importance of teachers who create places of hope, where students and teachers gain glimpses of the kind of society we could live in and where students learn the academic and critical skills needed to make it a reality.
How it works
What is Schoolhouse?
We started SchoolHouse with the intention of helping people start microschools because we saw that it was a better way to learn. That’s been our focus from the beginning and we’ve built the team with that purpose.
We are a team of teachers, school leaders and parents who are simply school nerds. We want to build the best schools in the world, only smaller and in your home..
Teacher Screening Process
We screen and vet every teacher thoroughly and accept between 5-7% of applicants. This is to ensure a high quality education across every SchoolHouse school.
We recruit teachers from a variety of backgrounds including private, public, and charter schools. We interview and offer competitive packages and small class sizes to attract top professionals.
Regarding Covid-19
Safety is our highest priority, for your family, the students we work with, and the teacher. We ask all teachers to follow all CDC, state, and local guidelines as it relates to COVID. Beyond that, we have all families and teacher in a pod agree on certain health guidelines and COVID protocols at the beginning of the pod so that there is not any ambiguity about what is expected.