Can Your Church Start a School? (It’s Easier Than You Think.)

Nathan Sanders: Welcome back everyone to Sunday School Choice. My name is Nathan Sanders with EdChoice. And today I’m super excited to have on my friend Dalena Wallace.

Dalena, welcome to the podcast.

Dalena Wallace: Hi, Nathan. Thanks for having me.

Nathan Sanders: Of course. So Dalena, for listeners who don’t know you, who are you? What is HERO?

And tell us a little bit about yourself.

Dalena Wallace: Yeah, first of all, I want to tell you how much I love the name of your podcast, Sunday School Choice. It makes me think of church. And I love the church.

I grew up in the church. And I’m passionate about helping churches to understand that they can be engaged and active in education outside of Sunday mornings. They can be involved in the mission field of K-12 education Monday through Friday.

So that’s what HERO is about. HERO stands for Heartland Education Reformation Organization. It’s a network of private, innovative Christian schools here in Kansas.

And yeah, I’m just excited to just be talking with you and sharing. It seems like we have a lot of alignment in the way we’re thinking about education and the church’s role.

Nathan Sanders: Yeah. No, well, thank you for spending time with me. And thank you for the compliments of the title of the podcast.

I actually, for those of you like listening, thinking, oh, he just used AI to come up with this title. I did it. I was out of my own noggin.

So thanks for the compliments. And thanks for the work that you do as a mom and as a co-founder, I believe, of Hero. So I want to roll into the why, your why specifically.

So you set out just a few years ago to homeschool your own kids. So what pushed you from being a typical homeschool mom to then starting a co-op and to then building an entire organization, Hero, to help others like churches, pastors, other parents do the same exact thing?

Dalena Wallace: Yeah. So behind all of it is my faith. I have a strong Christian faith and really believe very much in training my children in the Lord and trying to pass on my faith to them.

I know a lot of, probably a lot of your listeners might feel the same way and wonder, okay, well, we’ve got education and we’ve got our faith and religion and church times and all that, but how do those two things work together and do they work together? I felt called early on to homeschool. I appreciate you thinking I’ve only been in it for a few years, but it’s been like over a decade.

So it’s been a while, 13 years now, and it’s wonderful. I love it. It’s such a gift, but I know that there is a lot that comes with it.

And so understanding that homeschool families need support, whether or not you’re homeschooling as a parent, you need support as you’re looking for educational options for your kids. And so often as parents, we’re looking for an educational option that aligns with our faith. And that’s where I feel like there’s just tremendous opportunity for the church to see that they have a role to play.

So, yeah, HERO is the organization that really is a mission in supporting those that are out on the mission field. So these would be school founders and Christian educators who are in K-12 education, and they see that as an opportunity to have an impact in kids’ lives. And so I’m trying to support them and surround them.

And yeah, it’s about empowering churches to transform communities through faith-based education.

Nathan Sanders: Yeah. And look, I’m a big fan of the type of work that your organization does just because that is like the number one question I get from church leaders or pastors who want to jump into this space, but they just don’t really have the time to figure it out or they don’t know how. And so it seems like there is a huge need for advocates such as yourself to be able to kind of hold some hands sometimes and say, you know, here’s how you get started with this and here’s why you should do this.

So that leads me into my next question, Dalena, which is the how. So you’ve built a few things, right? You’ve built this co-op.

You’ve built this organization HERO. So when you talk to parents or others that you’re helping, what looks simple on paper, but it’s actually pretty hard to navigate? And how would you go about doing things differently?

Or what is your advice to those folks you’re helping?

Dalena Wallace: Yeah, so I have started at a very small scale, and I really recommend that. Like to me, you know, this whole movement of micro schools, it’s like the coolest thing ever. I really believe in small, intimate, community-focused gatherings and learning environments.

And so I think sometimes we overcomplicate things unnecessarily. And when people think of schools, we’re just kind of getting back in our head like this traditional brick and mortar school with multiple classrooms, multiple teachers for every subject or every grade level. And not only does that, like, restrict as a parent what you can do when you’re thinking of education, but it also restricts, like, say, a pastor who might consider opening a Christian school or just using their space for education.

If we get stuck in this mindset of what school should look like, that it has to be a large group, we’re serving, you know, everybody in the area, then maybe we’re just going to miss out on a great opportunity. So I like to encourage people starting at just with families, just let’s start at the basic structure, you know, the family unit. What do you need for your kids?

Who do you know in your area, whether it’s another mom or dad or a teacher in the community? Who do you know who’s mission aligned and believes in educating kids and you feel like you could do something together? Then just start there and connect with a handful of families and begin to put your heads together and say, what do our kids need?

Okay, well, we need a few, you know, we need to teach these core subjects. Maybe we hire a tutor. Like, where do kids need to learn?

Do they have, do we have to rent a space somewhere? Not necessarily. You can open your doors.

Just do it in your home and host some families. So just really encouraging people to think outside of the box from the beginning. Okay, so starting there with a simplified model keeps things more affordable and more accessible.

And so I like to take that into, that’s my mission and my message to churches as well. If you want to serve the families in your congregation, or if you want to do this as an outreach opportunity in your community, you don’t have to look like that big Christian school, you know, across town that’s serving hundreds of kids and has this big facility. Like, look at what you have.

You’ve got your Sunday school classrooms, right? Like the name of your podcast. Okay, we’ve got Sunday schools and they don’t have to just happen on Sunday mornings.

And so I, you know, everything has evolved from homeschooling my own kids to reaching out to a couple of friends and inviting them in my home to where we homeschool our kids together. And from that, it grew into like, hey, let’s include 10 more families. Let’s make this a co-op.

Okay. And so then we’re serving these 10 families. And then I, I, my heart has been very much into like encouraging churches because I feel like they have, they’ve stepped outside of this whole arena of education and they, they’ve like given up a wonderful opportunity for mission and support in the community.

So I like to encourage churches to be involved and engaged. I mean, I think just keeping it simplified and maybe utilizing online courses, online services, hiring one tutor who can facilitate a type of a one-room schoolhouse, again, it’s just creative thinking. And so I’m pretty good at that.

And so I start with encouraging people to do that and then offer the resources and support once they get started.

Nathan Sanders: Yeah. Look, I love that mantra being keep it simple, but significant as well. I think it’s like anything.

I mean, even if you think of it in terms of like a church plant in a new city that has a need for a new church, most likely you’re probably not going to start with 300 members in a huge building that looks like a church that’s been active for 20, 30 years, right? Most likely you’re going to start in somebody’s living room with a few families in your neighborhood. And that’s kind of, that’s the need you’re serving.

And so I’m a huge fan of small, innovative, creative models because I think that we live in a world where that’s so much more attainable these days with technology and flexible schedules in terms of an adult’s schedule, work schedule. I think we live in such a time that these innovative, flexible models are so much easier and attractive to young parents. So I love that.

That really does offer a great segue to my next question for you, though, is in terms of your hero work, when you talk to pastors, what is that conversation like? Because you’re basically, you’re pitching from what you just said, your pitch is, hey, your building’s empty many days of the week. What if that became a school?

You know, what is their follow up? Is it no? Is it yes?

Is it what type of schools? Like what are those conversations like for you guys?

Dalena Wallace: Yeah, there’s something that I would try to be really mindful of and sensitive to for pastors that they are in a unique position because most of the time churches are made up of families and they are making choices that are unique to their own family, and they’re not all educating their kids the same way. So not every family in the congregation is sending their kids to a Christian school, and not every family is sending them to a public school, and not every family is homeschooling. There’s always this wide variety and this mix.

And so as a pastor, they’re kind of stuck. Oftentimes, like I’m understanding, they feel stuck about maybe getting too supportive of one particular model over another because they don’t really want to like step on anyone’s toes. And so it’s just something that’s unique to their position that I have to be sensitive to and understanding, but I’ve heard it so many times that it really is a thing.

So when I’m asking pastors to consider hosting something in their church, I have to also be mindful of like, well, how’s that going to look for them? Because these other families might get upset that this pastor is like becoming a homeschool advocate and supporting only the homeschool families or whatever. And this is just a little side note here, but I also encourage churches, the mission of our ministry is empowering churches to transform communities through faith-based education that doesn’t always have to look like opening a school.

That’s definitely one of the options, and I want to show them how they can do that. But another option is that they can have afterschool programs or they can support their educators. Like a lot of them have teachers who are teaching in the public school system.

So how can you be involved in supporting them? Because they’re out there in the mission field of education. Maybe encourage your congregants to serve on the school board or, you know, all these ways to just be involved and be engaged in education.

So you kind of have to navigate starting out like how to help them find that balance because it’s something they need. But then from there, it’s also helping them to understand that education is an extension. So the Monday through Friday, what we consider K-12 education truly is an extension of discipleship.

And discipleship is like the number one mission of the church. So as long as you help them, you know, see that and understand that they’re like, right. Oh, yes.

And when you see and you explain it’s missions and every church typically has like a mission board and a missions fund and you say missions doesn’t have to be in Africa or overseas or in the Middle East. Missions can look like your own backyard and serving the families around you. So just making those connections and being sensitive to what they have to juggle with the different families in their congregation.

But then other barriers might be like, well, OK, what does that mean? Who do I hire? Like, I’m busy as a pastor.

I can’t run a school. I have run into a handful of pastors that are also like the headmaster and the founder of their school. And I think that’s amazing, but that’s really not the case for a lot of pastors.

So helping them understand, you know, they have to identify someone in the congregation that would be the one who could lead the school, finding the teachers and the supporters, helping them think again, think creatively that it doesn’t have to mean you’re hiring a full staff. It can be like, hey, the kids are meeting in this one room, the fellowship hall, and you’ve got 10 students of multiple ages. But these are the kids that are looking for, I call it a creative Christian learning environment.

And then, you know, these kids have their online courses or they’re enrolled here or there or they have a tutor come in. But you’re facilitating and you’re offering to be involved in education in that way.

Nathan Sanders: Right. And then there’s also the cost factor. I think that a lot of leaders grow weary about, particularly in the perspective of ministry, because if there’s a cost associated that then falls on to parents, then I think that makes people nervous.

I think obviously my first inclination when I talk to pastors and churches about this stuff is, well, what state do you live in? Because if you guys have a pretty, if the state has a robust school choice program where a lot of their kids are eligible and the allowable expenses of that program allow for you to use it for homeschooling services and co-ops, hybrids and afterschool services, then you’re, you know, utilize that. But like I know you guys are in Kansas where your options are limited.

And so what are those conversations like? Because I think that is a big barrier, but that’s also a huge upside of the innovative models is that they keep costs significantly low relative to your traditional private schooling. And so what are those conversations like for you?

And also as a practitioner, how has that experience been for you?

Dalena Wallace: Yeah, so one of the things for keeping costs low would be, you know, those hybrid styles of schools, which are the part-time models. And that’s, again, that’s not going to be the right fit for a lot of families, especially if they have both parents needing to work, so they wouldn’t be able to do part-time school. But that is an option for a lot of families that would say, oh, I would love to homeschool if I could, but I want the support.

So if they have two or three days of support, that’s way more affordable than a five-day a week full-time program. So that’s one way to help minimize cost. And then again, just not hiring teachers for every single subject and grade level.

We’re kind of going back to that one-room schoolhouse model, utilizing free resources and curriculum. And I’m not opposed to, I know that this happens in other states and in other situations, and I’m kind of, like, exploring this option myself. But if families were partnering, say, with a church, and the church was hosting the families to come, but these families were enrolled, say that they were enrolled in the virtual public school, okay?

So their curriculum is provided, and it’s free, and they’ve got all the support they need, they’ve got the classes, they’ve got tutors, but they don’t have a place. Like, where are these kids meeting? So a lot of kids, if they’re in a virtual program, they’re just at home.

They’re alone, which is okay. That’s kind of a homeschool thing, too. But why not just bring them all together, and they’re learning together?

Then they have hands-on things that you can do. And I know it’s possible to do these wraparound programs. And so you could have your faith-based and faith-infused lessons or a chapel time at the start of the day.

You can have some electives and specials in the afternoons. And you can have your class hours and your academic hours be from, like, say, nine to noon, and you’re utilizing that free curriculum through the public school system. But then you’re building out a more robust program that serves your kids in what I would call a creative Christian learning environment.

So there’s lots of things to explore there. And I think we just can’t be closed-minded about it. Just kind of see what works for your community.

Nathan Sanders: I think that also kind of addresses a lot of the fears that many folks have about homeschooling, which is the socialization aspect. Now, I don’t necessarily agree with that view. And there are plenty of studies that show the contrary, that homeschoolers are actually extremely socialized and prepared for the world.

But even then, that helps address some of the fears that parents may have in that traditional homeschooling provides little socialization for other kids similar to their ages. But when you subscribe to some type of hybrid model where they’re socializing and taking courses here and there with other kids, then that helps address that. So, Dalena, we’re coming up on time here.

This has been a great conversation. Thank you for all that you do and all that you’ve contributed to this podcast. So if someone’s ready to start this month, if you’re talking to a pastor or a church leader or just a parent in the community who’s ready to tackle on some type of innovative model, what’s one to two things that you would tell them to nail down first?

And then also, what’s something that you would tell them to encourage them to keep going?

Dalena Wallace: Okay. So again, when we talk about starting out simply, the simple thing to do would just be to host a meeting, an informational meeting with your congregation, inviting any family that might be willing to explore an education option, and then just making it a feedback session, a brainstorming session, throwing out ideas, looking for inspiration. Vela is a wonderful network and you can kind of explore on their different founders and school models.

And so you could also go to HERO. Our website is heartlandhero.org. We have a school directory on there and it’s 20 something schools and they’re all like diverse models and methods of how you do things.

So maybe like inspiration with that. And then a couple of great resources would be the Stand Together has an education or entrepreneur resource center and they can help as you want to navigate and consider some of the legal things. I also highly recommend connecting with Becky Abrams Wilmoth.

She is with Nonprofit Ed Solutions and she’s really great at helping you to get startup from scratch. I would just say inviting families, starting the conversation, and then looking into some of those resources and going from there.

Nathan Sanders: Well, those are all great resources. Dalena, thank you for what you do at HERO and being an advocate and a practitioner. Dalena, where can people find you and your work?

I know you mentioned HERO, where to find them online, but any other online resources that you want to plug for yourself?

Dalena Wallace: Yeah, I mean, you can reach out to me directly through my email. It’s Dalena, D-A-L-E-N-A. So Dalena at heartlandhero.org.

And I’d be happy to start the conversation and help you explore your options.

Nathan Sanders: Fantastic. Thank you, Dalena. This has been a fantastic episode of Sunday School Choice.

And as always, there’s more to come. So stay tuned. Thanks, Dalena.

Dalena Wallace: All right. Thank you, Nathan.