The Public Microschool Playbook

Public microschools are emerging as a transformative strategy for school systems seeking to create student-centered, innovative learning environments better aligned to modern challenges and opportunities. Designed to be small, agile, and adaptable, public microschools enable school systems to pilot new learning models, personalize education, and expand opportunities for students, educators, and communities.

The forthcoming Public Microschool Playbook is a comprehensive, action-oriented guide co-created by Getting Smart Collective, Transcend, and Learner-Centered Collaborative to help system leaders design, launch, and sustain public microschools. Drawing on each organization’s deep experience in reshaping education through personalized, competency-based, and real-world learning, the playbook reflects our shared expertise across the microschool landscape. Recognizing the urgency of this moment, public microschools offer a scalable, flexible strategy for creating small, innovative environments where new instructional models can be tested and refined, ensuring students receive an equitable, personalized education aligned to their individual goals and future workforce demands.

This resource will offer a roadmap specifically made for system leaders to design, launch, and sustain microschools that can make a meaningful impact for the students and communities they serve through practical strategies, policy insights, and real-world examples to help educators and decision-makers bring microschools to life in their public school systems.

About Our Organizations

Getting Smart Collective, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing educational equity and innovation, has been a key force in reimagining learning for over a decade. As a leader in the national conversation on the future of learning, we collaborate with schools, organizations, and community partners to champion learner-centered solutions through impactful advocacy,  storytelling, and initiative building. Our work deepens understanding, inspires change, and drives lasting impact in the field—ultimately contributing to a more equitable future for all learners. Our recent Big Push for Small Schools effort has focused on providing grants, communities of practice and coaching to small schools across the country.

Learner-Centered Collaborative is a non-profit led by educators who envision education ecosystems where all learners know who they are, thrive in community, and actively engage in the world as their best selves. We partner with educators to define whole learner outcomes, design meaningful learning experiences, and create the enabling conditions for learner-centered education. Through deep partnerships with schools and districts across the country, we have supported the design and implementation of public microschools where educators are innovating new models that can scale across the system.

Transcend is made up of a team of educators, innovators, and changemakers with experience as school and system leaders, working toward a vision where every young person can learn in ways that enable them to thrive in and transform the world. The organization is unified in the mission to support school communities to create and spread extraordinary learning for all. We do this through model sharing, professional learning, and community-centered school design with many types of schools, including microschools. In partnership with the University of Tulsa, we have developed guidance for school system leaders who want to create microschools in their communities.