#173: When the Right School Didn't Exist, They Built It. Here's How.

What happens when two parents with a 70-acre property, a wedding venue, and a 2% chance of having children decide the local school system just isn't good enough for their girls? They build something better from scratch.

In this episode, Cheryl sits down with Sarah and Greg Holland of Jericho Valley Co-op in Berkshire County, Massachusetts — a homeschool support organization they built on their own property, with a licensed teacher who walked away from 25 years in the public school system because she believed in what they were building.

Sarah and Greg share how they went from never considering homeschooling to launching a thriving co-op that doubled enrollment in less than a year and now has a waitlist. They talk about hiring a teacher, navigating the legal landscape of running a homeschool co-op, mixed-age learning, getting kids outside every day, and why they believe every community has the resources to do something similar if they just look around.

If you've ever thought about starting something like this in your own community — or you're just looking for proof that there's a better way — this episode is for you.

Topics covered:

• Why two self-described "school lovers" chose to leave the system behind
• How they built a co-op using their existing property and business
• Finding and hiring a teacher who left a 25-year public school career
• Mixed-age classrooms and individualized learning plans
• Navigating homeschool co-op laws in Massachusetts, Vermont, and New York
• How running a business from home changes what your kids learn
• Why their shy, isolated daughters transformed after just one year
• How to start your own co-op even without a big property or budget

Resources mentioned:

• Jericho Valley Co-op website: jerichovalley.org
• Jericho Valley Co-op Instagram: @jericho.valley

Get Your Tickets: FARM FOOD FREEDOM Event: https://maxkane.com/events

Resources from Cheryl: 🎓 

New to homeschooling? Grab the free 30-Day Quick Start Guide  

📚 Knowing exactly what to teach is the hard part, so I broke it down for you in plain English! Grab this today — What Do I Actually Teach? ($17) 

💻 Want to Homeschool but still have to work? Check out my course on how to do just that: How to Work and Homeschool course

Transcript

Why Work And Homeschool Collide

SPEAKER_02 0:02

I didn't plan to homeschool. I started asking hard questions, realized how little control parents actually have, and made the hard decision to leave a government job to homeschool my kids. Now I interview other homeschooling parents to learn how this all works. I'm Cheryl, and this is the Homeschool How-To podcast. Let's learn this together. If you've ever wondered how on earth you are supposed to work and homeschool, you are not alone. And today's episode is proof that there are more solutions out there than you think. Sarah and Greg Holland are two parents who figured out how to run a business from home and give their kids an incredible education by building the right community for them. And that is exactly what I dig into in my course, How to Work and Homeschool, how to find resources like what Sarah and Greg have built, how to piece together a life that works for your family without choosing between your income and your kids. For more information on the course, head to thehomeschoolhowto.com or click on the link in the show's description. All right, let's hear about Sarah

Meet Sarah And Greg Holland

SPEAKER_02 0:59

and Greg. Welcome. And with us today, I have Sarah and Greg Holland. Welcome, guys. Thank you both for being here. Thank you for having us. What what state are you calling in from? Massachusetts. So you're in you're well, how far into Mass? Are you like in the water or no?

SPEAKER_01 1:14

We're in Berkshire County. So we're way over the New York line and border Vermont. How come we're not friends?

SPEAKER_00 1:21

She did say you were local to us.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

I am super local to you. Like my husband works in Pittsfield all the time. That's Mass, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:28

We we border Pittsfield. We're in Hancock and we border.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

All right. Well, maybe we'll have to meet up sometime. So,

Choosing Home Education For Values

SPEAKER_02 1:35

all right. What even got you guys into homeschooling in the like how old are your kids? And then what even got you into this arena?

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Yeah, so we have two girls, five and three. And so we were searching for an education option for our girls pretty early on, and nothing was kind of fitting the family values we were trying to hit, and modern politics kept being incorporated in a lot of the schooling options around here, and we just didn't want that. So we started to explore the homeschool route.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

There's different options locally. There's some sort of like the unlearning route, which we think is a little bit too far. We both like structure in our lives, and we think kids sort of need some of that. And then there's also religious-based ones, and we believe, but we don't think that that is part of the reading, writing, and arithmetic. It's you know that's a that's a thing you discuss at home, and that's something that's that's more of a private thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

School's school, kids should be kids in school, and I think that politics and religion should just be at home.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And when I think back to like, because we wa I'd love to say, like, we we read the Little House on the Prairie series with our kids, but like we didn't, we watched it on TV. And but it still gave us so much perspective at like this is what schooling was back in the day. Like, we all as a community decided who the teacher should be, and they taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, and then they came home and like learned their values about work ethic and religion at home with us or at church on Sunday, you know. If you took them there, it was never supposed to be this way. And like, I don't know, is it as bad in I know you're just over the border? Is it as bad in Massachusetts? Like, what even made you think it might be a problem? Your kids are so young.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

We have a phenomenal local elementary school. We really do our high school, and the basic problem is if you're at a government school, you have to follow the basic government guidelines and do that. And while locally our teachers are great and they just focus on the teaching and they there is some inclusion on some of those things, it's not the main focus of things, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

I don't know. We just we just wanted something a little more personalized and tailored to our girls and what their interests are, and to be outside more and not inside. Um, so it really just kind of does something different.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

We were had like a 2% chance of having kids, and so this is like a huge blessing to even have kids, and we they are not an accident, it was years of trying and hard work. We're very happy to have them, and then you see kids are being forced into daycare so mom can go back to work at three months, and I understand that's the reality for people, and it and I view it as unfortunate. And we're in such a great situation here where we run our business from home and we have 70 acres and we have all this property, and how can we not try? Parents, I feel like we wouldn't be giving our best effort to at least not try to get a couple more years with them, not get that interaction, and not do our

COVID, Daycare, And Hard Parenting Calls

SPEAKER_00 4:30

best for them. It might not work, but we had to try.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

And that that's actually so personal for me too, because my son was super easy to have, and I worked for the government, so it was just like, okay, send him to daycare. I I thought I was fortunate to stay home for six months.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Which you are in a way these days, right?

SPEAKER_02 4:49

And as I said, I remember the manager saying to me, What are you gonna do home for six months? You're gonna be so bored. And I was like, Oh, yeah, you might be right. But then, you know, I sent him to daycare, and it was like um in-home daycare, but she still followed all the state rules. And like I thought I was like fortunate, but in between him and my daughter, and I don't really it doesn't come up a lot, but like, yeah, I had a lot of issues getting pregnant again where I was like, wait a minute, this was so easy the first time to where I was it was like, you know, there was one pregnancy where I don't know, I don't know that this is the thing, but like I got evolution, and there are a couple all of a sudden, like there's no heartbeat anymore after a couple days. I'm not saying one caused the other, but I'm saying we don't vaccinate anymore. And you know, and then in even another pregnancy, a lot of issues going through that. And so when I had my daughter, I was just like, maybe healthy kids are a blessing, and I should actually be intentional about how I'm parenting and how their childhood is because like with my son, I didn't think about it because I was just like, Oh, everybody must get pregnant so easily. And you know, you I don't I don't know that we I don't know that I talk about this enough, but people probably do. I just personally haven't until you brought it up, but you're right. It had I had my daughter or another child super easy, healthy, I probably would still be working for the government and not homeschooling today, and that's so unfortunate. So it's like it's sad that those things happened, but at the same time, it brought me to a whole different place, like you guys. So what did I and you mentioned COVID before we started the call and that like they were started masking my three-year-old son in New York? You know, I had I had lovely Andrew Cuomo over here governing our state during COVID, and eventually he was like, three-year-olds have to be masked now in New York. And this was already a year into COVID. And I'm like, well, show me the data of the daycare providers dropping dead of COVID because the kids weren't masked. Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:45

That's like if you That's the final straw, I would not mask our children. That was something that we never we got, we were lucky with Charlie, our oldest daughter. She was born sort of where they never tried, but that was something I I yeah that really bothered me seeing children walking around in masks.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Yeah, she was 2020. Yeah, they tried to ask Charlie to wear a mask during like her one-year-old doctor appointments. I was like, nope, no, we're not doing that. They're like, okay. That was cute. Um, but it's it's also wild how normalized today's standards are. I don't how how schooling has gotten to where it is and how what COVID has done.

SPEAKER_02 7:23

And do you think that you guys would be homeschooling had maybe you've not had the issues getting pregnant or we hadn't gone through COVID? Do you think you would have kind of like me, like fallen into the same trap?

SPEAKER_01 7:34

I think I can speak for both of us, but when we were younger, I would we I would never have considered myself to be homeschooling our children growing up ever.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

We grew up together, we were the same bus in elementary school. I've known this woman my whole entire life, been chasing her for decades. Um, and we loved school, we had so much fun. I had awesome teachers. I love them, and I still remember them, but it's not the same thing anymore. No, I just turned 40 this year, so that ages me, but it's not the same. You have we have family members teaching, we have nieces and nephews in the local schools. It's just not the same.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

So I I still think we would be down the homeschool route.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

I brought it up first, and she said, I was very against it.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

I was like, I don't think so. Um and we started looking at schools, and then it was like, this is not the same.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

We're not doing a traditional homeschool route either. Uh, we both know we're not our I have no patience. I am not a teacher, I'm really bad at it. We did hire a teacher, so we've we've come together and formed a community to to do this where we knew that we can do it at home a little bit, but I I don't know all the lingo. I don't know how to work with children in in certain ways.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

Yes, but I love that because so many well, first most people think like I can't homeschool because like I don't want my kid to be weird. And you guys definitely look like the cool kids. If if you're listening on audio, you look like you would have been the cool kids in school, you know. You're you're both gorgeous, you you are very personable. You were not like the ones sitting in the corner with no friends, staring at some book that nobody's ever heard of before. You know, like you guys could tell.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

We were in a small town, everybody was friends, but we were we were sociable people. We had a lot of fun in high school, and yeah, we knew we knew most of the people.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

Yeah, and I'm I'm 42, so I mean you're not aging yourself at all. Um another reason we should be friends over the border. But um, so I love that too, that you're like, I I know that I'm probably not gonna be as patient with them, but we're gonna hire someone. And like how how hard was that? Like like take me through the process of coming up with like babe, I want them homeschool. I don't want them going to the school. How can we do something different and then coming to the like let's start our own thing?

From Homeschool Doubts To Co-Op Plan

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Yeah. So it actually ended up being probably one of the easiest parts of of the puzzle. It was like stars aligned. There was a mutual friend that puts back step back.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

We started by reaching out to lawyers that have helped us with our other business and and other things. And one of them has a wife who is a teacher at a local private school, he's on the board, like bigger schools than we're doing here, and the experience know their stuff, and a couple other lawyers because I didn't like the answers I was getting. And they basically are like, Look, you we wanted to start a school, we have some property across the street, we're gonna build a building and like raise some money, and we're gonna build a school and like do it. Basically, private schools are struggling, no one's gonna pay and have money to do it, you're not gonna probably be able to do it, and you're gonna get sued by the state for any sort of like non-compliance you're gonna go after for some of this stuff. So the really only way to do it would be to form some sort of co-op homeschool thing. And initially that was a little bit of a turn off to us because there's some stereotypes on those things, and growing up, homeschooling wasn't so mainstreamed, it was a little bit like you are the weird kid. I had friends who homeschooled and they were kind of weird. We liked them, but they were they were my friends, I like them, but yeah. Um, and so we wanted to avoid that and and do it. So from that, it took us a little bit to figure out how can we do it.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

And just the word co-op. All the co-ops around here that I'm aware of, it was the everyone was doing is continuing to do the best that they're able to do, but there's no real structure. They're meeting at different locations throughout the Berkshire, it's different playgrounds, so weather plays a role, and then the winter it falls through, and they're meeting somewhere else, it's 40 minutes away from location previously. So there was no real structure or consistency, and that's something we really wanted to have. Um, and to do that, we needed a teacher and we needed a building.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

So we we have a we so we were thinking about again building a property, uh building on our property across the street, it's a smaller lot. Um, and then we realized you know, maybe this might not work, and then we just sunk all like all of our life savings into this again, and we have no use for it all of a sudden we're in trouble. So, what we did was we have a business on the property, and we built the building that can be used for that, and it can also double as a as a space for the the co-op to get started, and so that filled that role as far as a space. And again, we're we're lucky, like we have such a beautiful property. We have rivers, we have streams, there's a 500-acre campground right next to us. We have access to, we have the mountains, the fields, it's beautiful. How can we not try, right? So we then we got on a place inside for the the rainy days and the snowy days, and then it was find a teacher, find a teacher. But the other thing is, people we knew that people have to work, people want to homeschool, but a lot of people that want to do it or are intrigued by it have to work, and that's the reality of today. And so, how can we make it so it's a little bit of a mix? How can we support those families? How can we make it possible for them to maybe pull their kids and and make a go at this?

SPEAKER_01 12:43

And hiring a teacher and and doing that was part of yeah, and so we had a mutual friend that connected us with Caitlin, who was leaving the public system after just about 25 years in just right over the border in Pownell, Vermont. And it was we everything that she wanted to then do, we were doing it, but she didn't have to do that.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

We were trying to do, but we had no one to do it to lead it for us.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

And so it couldn't have been better. So blessed with that. And we started with 10 kids.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

And Caitlin, I want to credit her. She left, we don't we can't provide her healthcare right now with the with the with the tuition and everything like that. She she left the the the pension system of the the school and all that, and she took a pay cut. She loves what she does, she wants this, and we don't ever want to work with anybody that doesn't want to be there and really love it. She probably loves it more than us, and we you know, like she we are so lucky to have someone who's she's not here for a paycheck. She loves what we are doing here, she loves what she's doing, and we're so lucky she knows that the education system is doing kids wrong, and she wants to change it.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

And the way to change it is to leave and try to start something, and there's so many teachers that are kind of trapped or want to leave, and she actually did it.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

So it's a big risk, and she took it, and we're like, it's I don't know. Yeah, just want to like vlog her a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Very thankful she wanted to be part of this podcast. She sh the it didn't work out, but she deserves a lot of credit.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

And I just it just dawned on me partially because I'm not organized whatsoever, but I also have two little kids that I'm homeschooling and running the business stuff. But the reason I'm connected with you is because my friend sends her kids to you. Yes. Yes, okay. Why didn't you say that before we hit record? No, no, so they love it.

SPEAKER_03 14:29

They love it.

Finding A Teacher And Individual Plans

SPEAKER_00 14:30

The kids can move around, they can they can talk, they can get that energy out, and she can work with them while they're getting their energy out. And like that's the most talent, the the the hardest thing I think she does is working with all the chaos and she can still see through and get it done. Because all the kids, a lot of the kids have been successful educationally in school, but behaviorally, they're bored. They're maybe they're really smart at this and not so smart at that, or maybe they're smart at everything or bad at everything, but like they're not getting that one-on-one that they need, or they're being held back for the other people, and we're really able to address everybody individually.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

So she has kind of an individualized learning plan, um, tailored to every child, and she works with each child's parents back and forth. So they go over what they are struggling with, what the parent is struggling with. The parent can't get through to their child, you know, sounding out their letters or math. So it's a really great partnership back and forth that way.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Um, and we do a lot of our goal is to supplement families and not be a full-on school, but supplement and a couple days a week come in here, get a group of friends, get a community, have guidance from a licensed teacher who knows what she's talking about and and and understands that kids can be a little crazy, and here's how to she'll work with them on behavioral stuff as well as the educational stuff, and get everybody on the same page in a structure, and it's seemed to work out very well so far.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

Yeah, it's just amazing when you think about like these kids, like my son is still crazy, even if he has access to we're only on 14 acres, but it's still I'm like, how are you still a nut? Uh you know, but like then I think about him in the classroom, and I'm like, oh my god, they totally would have told me he needed to be on some sort of medication. And it's not that he really needs to be.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

I mean, there's nothing like I I don't think they Adderalled me up and I ended up turning into a zombie and it was in high school, and I just hang it out, hand it out to your friends, have fun, whatever. And I, you know, ended up getting it taken away from me. But it's like we had kids need to move. Kids that are six or seven, they need to move, they don't need Adderall, they don't need anxiety medication, they don't have those problems. And if they do, they're not things to medicate, they're things to manage at that age. You don't medicate a young child.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

And I think a lot about too, like when my son is like calm, it's when he's working on stuff because like my husband will work on, you know, stuff in the garage, whether it's a car, a tractor, the four-wheeler, the side-by-side, the dirt bike. My son will get right in there and he'll be able to tell me the things about the car. And he's seven. I mean, he'll be eight soon, but like things I've never heard of, never thought about about the carburetor and this and that. And I'm like, all right, so you can focus. Like, it's not an issue of whether you can or can't. You just didn't think that this me teaching you like a says ass sometimes, but if an E and a consonant, you know, like it didn't actually.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

I had it because I could read Harry Potter books start to finish without moving for days, and she's like, There's no way you have ADD, you haven't moved in 24 hours, you're just reading and not, you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

But it's like you need to have the interest, you need to have you need to find the child's interest and you need to hone into that and then go off of that, and that's what also we have mixed ages in our class, which is also great, and I didn't know how that would work, um, but seeing that in action has been amazing. So you have the individual learning with Caitlin one-on-one, and then she breaks it off into partners, and so she'll have some of the older kids helping the younger kids, and they go do that, and then she starts with another group, and it's really sweet and it's beautiful, and then it instills such confidence in the older kids that they are teaching the littles, and then the little things that's so cool.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

It's it's been rewarding. Yeah, it's been rewarding.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

How do your girls respond to it?

SPEAKER_01 18:15

We love it.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

I was talking to the three-year-old, she has her day tomorrow, and she's like, I like school, I love school, and Charlie, they fight and like I want to go an extra day because it's right here on our property. It's like, no, you need to give your sister the space, but they love it. They don't there's no anxiety, they can't wait to go back. They miss their classmates, their teachers, they really you know. But then Sarah gets to teach them in the mornings and on the weekends, and we do things and point out stuff, and it's fun for us at home as we see the progress and and our we're right here watching them read and spell their first words, and I don't know, like we would have never seen most of this stuff. Or they, you know, it would have I don't know. It's fun to be really there.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

Oh, I think about that all the time with my son because now that he's actually starting to read at almost eight, it's like, wow, I get to see like how proud he gets. Yeah. And we actually did get through that paragraph or whatever that he looked at and was like, Oh, I can't do that. And then he gets through it and he's so proud of himself. It's so cute. How I have like four questions.

Running A Wedding Business From Home

SPEAKER_02 19:16

Okay, your business. Can I ask what what do you guys do as your business?

SPEAKER_01 19:20

So the main business is a wedding venue. Um, so we run weddings on the weekends, and then we run the school, the co-op during the days. So Monday and Thursday, we have the co-op, and then on the weekends we have events.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Okay, so but you're still probably doing work all week long because Oh yeah. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Sarah's seven days a week from 6 a.m. to eight or nine p.m.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Yeah, yeah. But I wouldn't change it. It's a nice venue though.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

It's a and it's a lot of email and background and and it's a big mental load, I think. It's more mental load.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Um I'm in control of it, so I'm still able to be with the kids as much as I want and then do what I need to do.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Yeah, and a lot of people that I've talked to on the podcast, because I've been interviewing homeschool families for like three years now, over three years. So a lot of them saying, especially as your kids grow up, they're gonna actually learn parts of the business like from you guys and even take over certain little parts. Like I know this one um lady Natalie was a real estate agent and she had her one daughter take over like thank you letters that she would just mail out to anyone inquiring about a house or that maybe went to go see a house. And I'm thinking of that for like you guys, like, oh, thank you so much for intro. And like they're learning how to write, they're learning how to actually like be a social human being and you know, little phone calls or whatnot or scheduling or just like priming the area or getting like the wedding day ready. They're learning so much. It's not like mom and dad go to work, um, you know, Monday through Friday, seven to five, and then you know, we don't know what they do on their other life.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

One thing Sarah's had to explain is like you don't understand how lucky you are. Like, we're here all day. Some people don't see their parents, and they wake up, they go on a bus, and they don't see their parents until they get home at dinner time, and then they go to bed. Like they're following her around like ducklings while she's setting up for the weddings and talking to vendors and making phone calls.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Hey guys, I just want to let you know about an event coming up. It is called Farm Food Freedom. I attended this last year and am so excited to be going back. Dell Big Tree will be one of the speakers at this event. It is in Hudson, New York, June 27th, 2026. I will put a link in the show's description so that you can grab tickets today.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Okay, so they're learning that, okay, so these people pay you, pay us money to have their big special, beautiful day here. Okay, so that pays for this and this. All of the pieces are coming together with how business works and having to explain that and um is is pretty cool too. And our oldest daughter is really kind of connecting the dots, and she'll kind of be like, Okay, well, how can I make my own money? And she'll come up with her own ideas of how to sell things, and it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

You guys do it four days a week, you said, but not every kid goes every day.

SPEAKER_01 21:59

Like, how does That work. So we have we run four days a week, Monday through Thursday. So Monday and Wednesday are kind of our we call it our academic days. So we have our book work included in those days. And Tuesday we call Club Jericho Day. And so it's really just more child-led outdoor exploring. There's still a lot of learning, but it's more hands-on and outdoor-based. Not to mention we're outdoors most of the time, anyways. But and then Thursdays is for our littles, it's three and four year olds. And that um is just a shorter time period.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

We'd like to expand a little bit and be able to do more days for some of the younger kids or um and whatnot. We just have to get some more space, which we're gonna be working

Weekly Schedule And Scaling Enrollment

SPEAKER_00 22:42

on.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

But um Yeah, so starting in August, we will about double our enrollment, so which is amazing and really rewarding. So we'll have to find some more space soon. Now, what about the teacher? Will you have to add more teachers?

SPEAKER_00 22:54

We're gonna hire a pair this year to help support Caitlin in the classroom and give Sarah a little bit of break during the days so she can do some of her other work then. And then I think we we eventually want to get to the point where we'll have a teacher who focuses on the younger groups, and then uh Caitlin would move with the the olders, middle elementary into we have some kids going that are gonna be more uh middle school age this year, and so work with them, and then we want to expand stuff. Right now, we started more with the younger kids and expand our offer like just like more technology stuff that they can get their hands on, some more serious tools and like just more I don't know, just more we fundraised for uh a workshop and it was fantastic, and the kids love it, and we utilize that pretty regularly.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

And now that we're growing and we're gonna have some older kids and we're gonna have to find another space for them, we wanna expand on the workshop opportunities. And we've been starting to introduce robotics and human kind of learning about that a little bit, and so yeah, we'll say we're okay.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

Now, I I know the laws in New York are super strict because my friend Lindsay started a similar thing, like she rented a building, and it was like you can't call this a school, you have to call this a space who's very particular on what you can and can't, and like you know, um the amount of kids that can be there and like parents, their parents have to be

Nonprofit Setup And Legal Boundaries

SPEAKER_02 24:17

present.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

So we always have a few parents, it's always an optional for parents to stay, and we do regularly have a handful of parents throughout the week stay on the property.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

And that and the the school and the language and stuff is a very real thing. That's part of what we discussed with lawyers. We so we're set up, we're an official 5013 C nonprofit. We are a homeschool support organization, and we support families that want to homeschool but maybe can't do it full-time or need need guidance as far as curriculum or just how to present things to their children and and where they should be and what they should be teaching. So we are we're not a school, our kids say, Oh, they were going to school today, and it's fun to let them say that and stuff. But part of you have to sign a contract as a parent to be part of uh Jericho, and that is you're involved as a parent. This is not a school, this is not just drop your kid and you're you're done. You have no you're at home doing stuff when we're on break, you're doing stuff. Like we're you want to go take off for a month, we'll give you stuff to do, but you have to be participating at home, you have to be helping out a little bit on hand at during the day when we're doing the learning and and meeting up.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

It's a big partnership with Caitlin.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Yeah. She's she's the leader, she's the head, she's the she can get you there, but you need to be involved. And if you're not willing to be involved, and you don't want if if you're just trying to get like a different type of school, we're not gonna we're not a private school for you. You need to have the the want to be involved in your child's education and you want to understand what they're doing and help them go through that journey.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Now, is this technically a PMA? Have you have you guys looked into that? The private membership association.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

I don't know if we would No, because you know if you were in it. So we have quite a bit of insurance and we spend a lot of money on that. That's a big chunk of our uh budget for the year. It's really the only cost outside of paying Caitlin to be the teacher or the lead instructor there. But we have insurance for our our nonprofit board, we have ability insurance for the property, we have insurance for Caitlin as far as being a teacher separately. We have like four or five different policies. Shout out to Bill Robinson amount one. Um but but so and and it was a discussion on what do we insure, what do we not insure. But to we're we're taking a different route than the traditional homeschool route by doing this co-op and really trying to make it an organization that we can be proud of and be publicly aware of. We want we want we're doing some camps in the summer on April break. We want the public school community to feel confident sending their children here. We are insured, we are qualified, we're just as qualified as any other place around. Come check us out. We may be not here all year, but come to camps. Um, so I I understand what you're saying with the the membership association. I think that makes sense for a lot of people, but for where we're trying to take it and develop, we want to just we're we're like a mainstream normal business in a way like that. And it I think it gives we're trying to get a group of parents that are a little bit leery about this, anyways. And the more I can say, hey, I'm a legit business, I'm a legit operation. We have real people here, we have qualified people here, and we have we have plans in place. Um, it it it gives credence to us and it it gives security to the parents to come sign your kids up and send them here, you know?

Sharing The Model Without Selling Out

SPEAKER_02 27:33

Absolutely. So, how hard would it be for other parents to like have you ever thought about putting this model down on paper and like, hey, if you guys want to start exactly what we're doing, here are the steps.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

I we we'd be happy to talk to people. When we first started this, I actually looked at a lot of places online that like do the oh, we'll do this or we'll sell you this book, and it's like it all just turned out to be a scam, and no one actually wanted to help me. I don't want to buy your things. There was supposed to be a community of homeschoolers and like like-minded folk. If you want me to come spend a month with you and do stuff, which I wouldn't do because I can't leave my house for more than two or three days without going crazy. So, but like, but like we're happy to talk to you, Zoom, meet up. You want to come talk to us, you want to come see what we're doing and really get started. Totally come check us out, reach out to us. We're not trying to make money off this, we're trying to better and offer a different alternative form.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

We've had a few, we've had a few families that are interested in kind of starting something, but the distance to us is too far, so they they reached out. How did you even start? What did you have to go through?

SPEAKER_00 28:35

In different states, we're like we have kids from Vermont and New York and Massachusetts in our program, and all the there's all different requirements. Like you're saying, you have a lot. We have uh we have Charlie's got her first year of actually being in she'd be in kindergarten or first grade. I have to fill out a form and get approval, and so like it's sort of strict here too, so it would depend on the state where you want to start it, what are your local rules and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

We could give a general framework on how we approach things, but we don't have like a we're not selling it formula, we'll just give it to I think it's a wonderful thing if people want to homeschool and want to do something a little different and not that we would charge.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

We got lucky because we had the property, we had the business, we had the building. We are eating for this for this first year. We ate a ton of costs and put in a ton of money of our own that not everyone's gonna be able to do, and maybe you need a group of parents willing to put that out together. This coming second year or second sort of run, we are gonna be with the students only, fully self-sustaining, and then any donations and fundraising we can do would be for extra activities and programs and things like that. So, like it's come a long way fast. But that first year, we just said we're gonna suck it up and like you know, you're not contributing to the Roth this year, you're just gonna eat it and you're gonna buy books and tables, and you're gonna, you know. Yeah, but we we had to try it. We had to try this, and we're gonna do it. We just had to do it.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

We were gonna do it. We could and we couldn't not, and it's a success so far. So we've doubled enrollment in less than a year.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

I mean, that is amazing. Yeah, that's truly amazing. And is are you even promoting your or is it just like word of mouth?

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Instagram and word of mouth, and I it's just starting to snore.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

We've done a couple small like we did a thing for images cinema, which will put our logo up for movies this summer. We sponsored a youth basketball team in North Adams with our buttons. It's more just to like put it out there and get people familiar with the logo and the name and and sort of think about it. Instagram does so much, so that's really I also think we we want people to know we're there, but you don't want to chase a family in this situation. You want they want they need to sort of want it. They they you need to want to be involved, you need to want to do this, you need to have an interest. So, like, we hey, we are here and we'll put ourselves out there to be found, but I don't want to do a big recruiting drive and get a bunch of families that aren't really committed and don't well and that's the thing too, because yeah, have you thought about that yet?

SPEAKER_02 31:02

How like okay, we might have doubled the enrollment, but what if a couple kids are a little bit difficult and we don't really want them part of this? Like, are you are you willing to be like, hey, this isn't working out, here's your money back.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

I think Caitlin is very qualified in a lot of different areas of teaching, and she has not given up on a child, and I don't want to say we have anyone very difficult, but we are not in a situation to be able to take on anybody with like special needs, um, or and I and I think like Caitlin's really persevered with kids and worked with parents to like get systems at home that are consistent at school, and the parents set those systems.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

She's not saying you have to do it like this, but just everyone can be on the same page and it can be consistent for the child, but and she's managed a lot of progress, I think, on that type of stuff. It's more like is the parent and the family gonna be difficult. And we've talked we've talked about this. This is our dream, these are our child children. This is something on our property that we've invested in. It's a nonprofit, and we have to all agree. But the the board sort of agrees on our goals and what we want to what our vision is here. And if one family just wants to throw wrenches in and be difficult, you can leave. You have no right to be here. There's and and we do not want to ever reach that point, and we have not, and we're not close with anybody, including ourselves. Our kids are not angels, our kids are not perfect. I want to make that very clear. If anyone from Jericho is watching this, we are our kids are nutters too. But but uh like we it's it's more like just do you want to just come and have your kid learn? And if the answer is no, you'd rather be making drama, then leave, go do that somewhere else. The public, we pay for them to deal with that. You go, you go over there and you do that. We're not here for that.

SPEAKER_02 32:44

Yeah, and I think like part of the beautiful thing about homeschooling is like watching your children interact with the other kids. Cause I know I had a post a long time ago that was like, hey, you know, I could easily say, like, my kids bullied, but when I watch the whole situation, I'm like, well, dude, you were annoying the crap out of them. Like their response to you was I don't know. And it is something to watch all of it unfold and to be there and to correct the situation. Um, that is awesome. So, okay, tell us again what what is your space microscope co-op called? Jericho Valley co-op. Okay. And so where can we find you? Jerichovalley.org is our website. Okay, awesome. And are you still accepting new?

SPEAKER_01 33:34

So we are currently on wait lists. Nice. That's amazing. But once we have our larger space, we will be taking kids off the wait list.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

So amazing. In just one year, that is true, that just shows you there's such a need for this. Such a parents are waking up to this. They're like, Yes.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

And they're driving, we have kids driving 30, 40 minutes every morning. Like their needs, like, if you're watching this thinking about it, and you have a property that it can be done, know a teacher that might want to give it a try, give it a try. It's worth it.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

And okay, so I guess I just want to bring it back to like your kids specifically.

The Kids’ Academic And Social Growth

SPEAKER_02 34:08

How have you seen them change since the beginning of the year to now?

SPEAKER_01 34:12

I mean, I'll say didn't know how to sound out letters or read, and she is reading, she is writing, she is not being held back. So she's technically not even in kindergarten based on her birthday, and she's doing first grade level things.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

So I like kids will learn at different rates, they'll do stuff at different rates. I don't like I I'm proud of her, she's doing great, but like I don't want to like but she's not bored. She's she when she went there the first day. We live in Hancock. If people know, there's there's more cows than people type town. Like, we're we don't socialize, we don't go out much. These kids were isolated, shy little girls, nice but shy. And she's just so much more open and and talkative and willing to speak to a stranger and articulate with things, and like seeing her copy actions of other kids or pick up things, and it's just the for me, it's like the personal, the emotional, like the growth that she's had as a person is really cool to see. I'm really proud of her academically, but like I don't I don't want to stress that she's little. I want her to like but make it fun and and hey, good job, that's really cool. You learned that, and I don't care if you didn't learn it today, you can learn it the next day. But just seeing her grow as an individual and like be a little person and and the younger one and copying and and wanting to do what big sister's doing, just the part of being like that has been really cool for me.

SPEAKER_02 35:33

Yeah, I would agree with that. Oh, I love that, guys. Thank you so much for being here today. And yeah, if anyone's listening and thinking, you know, I don't I don't have anywhere like this near me to send my kid to, like, think about setting it up. It doesn't even have to be anything, you know.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

Anything crazy, right?

SPEAKER_02 35:50

You can take baby steps, just like let's make it a couple of things.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

We utilize our community so much, people, professionals coming in and showing things and doing hand-on things. You don't need to maybe hire a teacher right away if you can't, but your community has more than you might think if you look around and people are still willing to help.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

So true.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Like, yes, like can the mechanic down the road take a couple hours off to just be honored that you want him to teach your children and value his trade and his skills. There's value, everybody has value somewhere. They'll share it if you ask.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

I love that. That is so great. Wait, you had a quote that you said before we even recorded. What was it? Can you people?

SPEAKER_00 36:30

We our our town council guy, when we were talking about doing this for a few years, is always telling me, just get on the school board and you can change it and you can do all this and this. I don't have time for that. Our children are on an experiment. We just like we know they have limited time, we know what we want to do with them, and we're not willing to do phonics this year and then not this year, and and do that. They were it's like it like it's not an experiment. This is our children, this is a limited time thing. You can't go back and fix this.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

So these kids are our future, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I think we saw during COVID what they're willing to sacrifice with our children.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

That was so nope. I we were even like homeschooling's maybe a little bit much. We really want to get involved in this. We're pretty busy already, and then it's just like, no, I can't. I figured I can't, anyways.

SPEAKER_02 37:16

Sarah, Greg, thank you so much for being here today. I will link your Instagram and your website in the show's description. So check that out if you're listening or you know, if this is something you can do in your hometown, but even just to follow and see what beautiful things are actually going on in education, how it doesn't have to replicate the school system. We don't all have to sit in like 30 to a classroom of everybody the same age learning from a boring textbook and a and a blackboard. I don't even know. There it's probably computerized nowadays, but I mean it just doesn't have to be that way. It can be full of fresh air, full of energy, and a lot more fun than that. So thank you guys for shedding a little bit of light and inspiration on that for us. Thank you very much. Thank you for having us.

Final Takeaways And Support The Show

SPEAKER_02 37:59

Thank you for listening to the Homeschool How-Two podcast. If today's episode helped you, please be sure to follow the show and leave a review. It's the best way to support the podcast. And if you're just getting started or need a reset, head to thehomeschoolhow2.com and grab my free 30-day homeschool quick start guide. Until next time, keep learning, keep questioning, and thank you for your love of the next generation.