From 18 Students to Over 100: Why One New Waldorf- and Montessori-Inspired School Is So Sought After

I'm Carrie McDonald and this is Deliberated Podcast.

My guest today is May Jewel, the founder and director of Jewel School in Queen Creek,

Arizona, just outside of Phoenix.

Jewel is an accredited project-based K-12 school that may launched in the fall of 2021

with 18 students and now she has 116 students.

May Jewel, welcome to the Deliberated Podcast.

Thank you for having me.

So great to have you.

What phenomenal growth you've seen in just a short period of time.

I'm really excited to get into the story of Jewel School, how it came to be,

why it came to be, what you're working on now at the program.

But I'd love to start if we could may with a little bit of your background because you

have an undergraduate degree in education from Arizona State University.

What drew you to education to begin with?

Well, I got married young.

I became a mom at a young age and I really went into education because I wanted something

that would be compatible with my desire for motherhood.

I started out my college degree in business and then I switched to education, which the

irony, like not a lot of scenarios, do you have a business in education?

But I went into education just because I loved kids and I put all my education, I finished

my undergraduate and then I was a mom and my kiddos had a very atypical learning journey

and I had been taught how all of our mainstream educators are taught on how education should

look and feel.

And my oldest was failing school from kindergarten through third grade and he was being pulled

out for every resource, IEPs, I even tried medicating him.

I was so desperate for him to learn and I finally took him to neuropsychologist and I found

out he was gifted in two of the three areas of giftedness.

So he's in the 99th percentile for nonverbal and quantitative and I ended up pulling all

of my kiddos.

I have four kids out of school and I traveled the country all of North America for two years

in a motor home and in those two years my kids went from failing to above grade level

in every subject area and I was like, well that's weird, how did I pull them out of school

and just by experiences and geography and history and going to the capital buildings and

all the different states and national parks and they got to experience culture, they were

reading above grade level, they were performing in math above grade level and I mean we were

road schooling but it was not, you know what you would expect is the the bar of what education

should be.

So it really flipped my perspective of what education should feel like and you know

the idea of unschooling our kids had an opportunity to unschool and in the road trip they were

able to just breathe and be who they were and in the opportunity they were open for education

and so when we came back I was like, well I would be silly to put them back in school.

So we tried, I tried homeschooling then private school and I did everything and nothing seemed

to fit their needs and in our world we have a typical learning environment, however I

am Christian and I have a very conservative value system and in order for my kids to learn

the way that I felt was most appropriate I had to compromise my value system.

So I had a conservative traditional style of learning like classical Christian education

but that's not how my kids learned is very linear, you know kids sit in the seats and

the teachers teach and that's just not how my kids learn the best.

So anyways I just felt like there was a big dichotomy between what I felt was the most

meaningful robust style of education while still upholding my Christian value system.

So that is how I designed dual school, dual is actually an acronym, I know it's my last

name but dual is it's for Jesus experiences, whole child evolving, livable and learning.

So just the idea is I like to say it's like a modern one room school house meets Montessori

meets Waldor style education all on a Christian foundation.

I love it.

Oh what an interesting fusion of educational philosophies and approaches and shows what's

possible in today's innovative educational landscape with founders like you who are

able to put together the kind of educational experience that works in your case for your

kids and then obviously more than a hundred other kids in your community.

So there's a clear demand for this creative schooling option.

So what happened in those early stages may of kind of pre-launch, you know you launched

in the fall of 2021, what was that pre-launch process like for you in those few months leading

up to opening?

Well, we took about six months of just due diligence so we bought a farm, the agricultural,

I like to call it crunchy Christian component of this school and we really were trying

to cultivate a unique learning experience that you typically don't find.

So my role in those six months was really curriculum, teacher development, I wouldn't

say a ton of marketing, most of our growth has been by word of mouth but really just ironing

out like what are we going to offer, how are we going to do this and it's like logistics

too, right?

Like the little things like I wanted to get a website but in order to get a website

you have to get a phone number for your school and so in order to get a phone number you

have to go get like phones, like it's like all these little things you don't like think

about.

So it's just a lot of an enrollment forms, like I created everything, like everything

that we did I created from the ground up.

So it was a lot of just of those detailed nuances, getting STO partners, getting set up

with ESA as a ESA vendor, so that was a lot of the groundwork prior to opening.

And you said ESA, so Arizona was one of the first states to implement or the first state

to implement universal education savings accounts, universal school choice that enables all

K-12 students in the state to have access to a portion of state allocated education funding

to apply to whatever educational setting works well for them.

And you're an approved provider for those programs, for the school choice program.

So how did you go about securing those initial students?

Because to open your doors with 18 students, I think some of the aspiring founders who

are listening to this episode might say, wow, I would love to open with 18 students.

How did you go about having that success right off the bat?

Well, it's an interesting story.

So I really felt like it was put on my heart to start the school years before I did it.

And I was referred to this teacher who was essentially running a school out of her home.

And I recruited her to come bring her base of students over to my school and essentially

run the program at the property that I was providing.

And so it was a really good security for me because I did, it was justified to teach

her salary and I had my base of students.

However, the idea as great as it may have sounded, this first day of our second quarter

of the very first year she left and took 10 of her students with her.

So I had three school-age kids, my school dropped down to eight kids, the second quarter

of the very first year.

And I just remember like standing in the drive-through of the school and nobody was there.

And I'm like, what am I doing?

This is so crazy, there's nobody here.

And it's like I just felt so convicted that yes, I was supposed to do this.

And yes, there's a demand for it.

And I'm standing in an empty drive-through lane at drop-off time and fast forward at the

end of that year, the very first school year, I had 30 kids.

So I regained what I lost and added more, I had 40 the next year, 70 the year after

that, 100 the fourth year.

And then we're at over 100 this year.

And actually acquiring another small private Christian school in our community that has

another 40 students and nine staff members.

So yeah, it's been a wild ride.

Wow, well congratulations, well done.

Clearly families are satisfied with what you're building and are attracted to it.

What do you find is leading families to you?

What do they find most compelling?

I think there are two things, I think mostly families are, they've lost a lot of confidence

and trust in the public school systems.

Just mainstream education feels outdated and I think there's a big wave of people that

are awakening to the idea that what we grew up with isn't the way of the future.

And it might be potentially stifling a lot of children's abilities.

I like to say that I think the kids that have the great, this struggle in traditional schools

are the ones that typically have the greatest capacity for change in the world.

They're the ones that think outside of the box and they're the hardest time sitting

in chair.

So I also think our model is very attractive to, to people.

We do so much project-based learning in mainstream education and project-based learning

is mostly specific to gifted education and so if you don't have gifted scores, you don't

get in the club and you can't do project-based learning, which I love and I think it's the

most meaningful style.

So that and then our conservative value system, I think people love that they can come to

school and we can pray and we worship every morning and then we get to do fun learning,

our older kids, middle school and high school, they go on field trips two to four times

a week.

So and they're learning outside of the class and they love it, their PEs, rock climbing

and surfing and jujitsu, you know, it's not four-square, which I love four-square, I'm not

kidding.

But there is not so many other opportunities.

Yeah.

So I think that's really what the draw is.

So you run a four-day academic week and then an enrichment, a fifth enrichment day for

families that want that day and a lot of public schools now go on a four-day week in parts

of the country too.

So this is kind of part of what your model is as well.

Tell us a little bit more about the curriculum and the structure of your week.

You said the day starts with worship, there's lots of project-based learning, lots of

field trips.

But take us a little more deeply into the kind of curriculum and structure and flow of

the week.

Yeah.

And I will say that it has evolved in the five years that I had this school.

So I didn't even have curriculum at the beginning of our school because I wanted to give a lot

of autonomy to the teachers and I wanted this, you know, really meaningful learning environment

and I found that a lot of teachers, as much as they like freedom, they also need parameters

too.

So we've changed as we've gone, but so every day we start, we worship together as an

entire school.

So everybody comes together and it's like that modern one room school house vibe where

it's like the older kids are with the younger kids and there's like those, it feels like

almost at homeschool community where it's like everybody just feels like a family together.

We pray we say the pledge of allegiance and then they break up into their separate group

being.

So we don't do grade level.

So we have group zero through seven and every grade is essentially a different group,

but it allows us to differentiate to every student specific needs.

So if they have a strength or weakness, all academics are offered at the same time.

So ELA is at the same time, math is at the same time, science, social studies.

So if you have a strength in math, you can go up to a group in math and then go to your

you know, same age peers at a different time of the day and or if you have, we have a

lot of dyslexic students.

We offer bartender remediation.

So if they need to go down for ELA because they struggle, everybody's multi age, nobody

feels like they are out of place.

So we care really well to gifted students and any kiddos that have special needs.

ELA math, all those core subjects are done in the morning.

We spend a lot of time outside.

We have brain breaks between the core subjects and then we have an hour of exploration time

after lunch.

We don't have any structure playground equipment, everything's exploratory, free play.

So they're building forts, they're climbing trees, it's imagination.

They're jumping around on logs.

It's really beautiful like childhood 70 years ago.

You know, it's it's a lot more simple.

Then after lunch, we come back and we do all a whole afternoon is project based learning

electives, science, social studies.

Our older kids, middle school and high school, they go off campus for their electives and

then our younger kids, fifth grade and under, they stay on campus and we offer the different

electives in addition to the the PBL time.

Our entire school, we have a curriculum we use called my father's world and I love my

father's world because it's very, it's very compatible with our learning week.

So it's four days and then our entire school from kidder through high school, we are learning

the same thing at the same time.

So we do quarterly exhibitions, actually, tomorrow's our second or our third quarter exhibition.

We don't do any homework.

So then parents are invited in to see what they are learning throughout the year.

So like this year is creation through ancient Greece.

So like our first exhibition was all about each and Egypt and our high schoolers made

an interactive map.

They turned their whole classroom, you know, there was the Nile and pyramids and tombs

where like our second graders made like a pyramid that you could actually walk through

with higher glyphics.

So like everybody from kidder through high school is learning the same thing.

It's just differentiated and then we can learn from each other in different ways.

So my father's world, we use dimensions for math right now.

We use IEW for our older kiddos, third grade and up for ELA.

We use foundations for ELA for our younger kiddos and then we use Barton remediation.

And I think that is all the curriculum and then a lot of, you know, like unit studies.

Yeah.

And what about the middle and high schoolers?

You said they go off campus.

What is learning look like for them?

So they do all of their core subjects in the morning.

So science, they do math and social studies, ELA before noon.

And then at lunchtime, they'll either eat on campus or eat as we're driving off campus.

And then they do all of their science or their social studies is in the world.

Like government, they actually got to go to our senate building with the senate president

and it create a bill and go through the whole process of creating it, passing it, debating it.

It was a really cool experience.

But like I was mentioning, they went to gestures, which is a stand up comedy club for five weeks.

And they learned how to do public speaking and comedy.

They've done community service.

So just like PE electives and social studies, a lot of national parks this year,

this semester's theme is living off the grid.

So they've been more rugged skills.

Like they were harvesting pecans yesterday with another school partner that I was just mentioning to you.

And they went fishing last week and then they got to make fish tacos out of the fish that they caught.

They learned how to dress a quail and cook the quail.

They all got their fishing license just this year.

They got their food handlers card, their CPR certificate.

So it's a lot of like a real world skills that we're building a resume.

And then once a week, they go, they stay on campus in the afternoon.

And we do a business class that I teach them.

So a lot of entrepreneurship.

We do business fairs every year where they get to have their own businesses and that's our entire school.

And then it's open to the community.

And then we do a Bible class on campus once a week.

Wow, so much going on.

Sounds like a wonderful place to learn.

Tell me a little bit more, May, about your teachers.

How many teachers do you currently have?

And sounds like you'll be getting more because you're acquiring this other school nearby.

How many teachers and what are the air backgrounds and what's drawing them to dual school?

So I have 17 teachers.

And we have really great ratios, 9 to 14 kids per classroom.

That ratio is disproportionate to the actual class size just because we have like some one-on-one paras.

So that the staff counts for the one-on-one paras that we have.

Finding teachers is probably the hardest thing.

Now that we have some more community notoriety, I get more referrals,

but it's been like trying to find a unicorn because you want these teachers that have teacher,

you know, teacher tricks where they can pull from their behavior management

and they know what works in the organization and all the skills.

But then also not linear in the way of traditional mainstream education,

because that's not what we offer.

So it's, I had really awesome creative out of the box teachers that couldn't manage a classroom.

And then I've had, you know, really great mainstream teachers that have been overwhelmed

because it's not that traditional model where kids are sitting in seats all day with the teacher

just talking and teaching.

So it's been, and then you add the Christian component and then they have to be Christian on top of it.

So it's been challenging, but like I have an incredible staff now.

And it's like a mission field.

It's not just like a job where we're like trying to change what is offered in the educational sector.

Mmm, love it.

And tell us a little bit more about your location because you purchased a five-acre citrus farm

to host the school and there's been sort of ups and downs related to to that.

Tell us a little bit about location.

So the location was really the catalyst in what I feel like launched me getting the school.

So I found this property and I had been on my heart and I was like, okay, I'll go check it out.

And this gentleman handed me the keys.

He sees 80 years old him and his wife and they handed me the keys and said, go start your school.

And it was the most incredible story.

And I just feel like God had provided this amazing five-acre citrus farm.

It has over 500 trees, pecans and citrus.

There's chickens running around and it's just beautiful.

And in Arizona, we don't have that.

Like we don't have a lot of greenery and trees.

So it was just the most incredible property.

And we have come up against so many trials between ESA, like you mentioned.

So ESA historically has been funding for only kiddos that had disabilities

or awards of state or other.

And then they passed the universal eligibility and everybody was open to it.

So there was a lot of conflict with ESA.

And so we've had conflict with ESA.

We have had conflict with, when I say conflict, it's just challenges.

Like challenges have come about with these things.

What are the sort of challenges with the ESA first?

And then we can talk about zoning and those kinds of things.

Yeah.

Well, ESA, our government does not want alternatives to public education.

So we are a mark of a different opportunity.

And it's a lot of details, but they actually turned against me

and threatened to suspend every one of my students ESA accounts.

Because my own children were attending the school.

And so it was very challenging.

It's all been resolved.

But it was very challenging during that time, you know,

feeling like, oh my goodness, like am I doing something wrong?

And are all of my students going to be impacted by this?

And then also just feeling like 99.5% of our student base has ESA now.

And if that goes away, which our governor has sworn that she will remove it,

that all of our students will lose their funding.

So you're creating a business model off of a funding source that might vanish one day.

So that's been a challenging.

And then so the zoning challenge has been a big one with the school.

So the far my bought had in 1972,

old mid-century modern farmhouse on it.

And it translated to a school perfectly.

By the time we left there, we were bursting out of the scenes.

I had over 100 kids in there.

It was only 2600 square feet.

But we spent so much time outside.

And the county essentially came and said, hey,

you changed the usage of this.

Now you need to make it an educational building,

which in code world, that's like it's impossible to make a 1972 plumbing,

electrical, everything up to 2018 building code.

And paved the road outside, put a turning lane and do 100 year flood study,

like engineering stamps, like they were impugning over a million dollars of these,

like, changes when that was why our students were coming to us is because they wanted that,

like, outdoorsy, more rustic farmhouse experience.

And so that that had been really challenging.

So last year, I'd been working with the county for some time trying to satisfy every demand

that they had. And I don't know if you've had any experience of that,

but it's like a secret society where they don't tell you what you what they want.

You have to offer them what they potentially want.

And then they will redline it and tell you, yes, I accept this or yes, I don't.

So it's a really silly thing that you have to hire architects and attorneys.

And I self-funded this whole school.

I've put millions of my own money in it and I'm not independently wealthy.

And so having these fees and puenami have been very, very challenging to overcome.

So anyways, they essentially said, hey, you cannot continue to operate on this property.

And I found a little extra all of that money and trying to jump through all those hoops.

And they still said no.

They just don't care.

You know, they're not trying.

I'm like, help me help you.

It's me.

I went down there and I gave it my absolute best effort.

And so we ended up finding a church that was five minutes away from our school.

And we moved our whole school mid-year last year in October.

And that was very disruptive.

Change the vibe of the school a lot.

But through those challenges, it was a blessing because I think so much of our school was

romanticized because of how incredible the environment was with the trees and the chickens

running around.

And just people loved it.

But it being removed from that environment allowed us to isolate what we actually offer in academics.

And so for the last year, we've really refined who are we outside of this environment.

And we've grown tremendously through that.

And so as I was mentioning, we're trying to build a new permanent building back on that property.

That's not that 1972 farmhouse, but it's on the farm.

So it'll be a new 10 classroom building.

But it'll cost two and a half million dollars.

And I've been trying to fundraise and

asking for money is not my gift in life.

It's been slow.

Yeah.

And hopefully that comes to fruition and you're able to raise the money and open the new building on the five-acre farm.

What capacity would that give you how many students would you be able to serve there?

So with the 10 classrooms, I have about 180.

And then the architect has a three-phase master plan,

renderings proposed where the first phase is like, let's just get you in to host the students that you have.

And then the next phase, it'll increase it.

I think it's about 300.

And then the third phase is like 480.

So by the end, we would have almost 500 students on that campus.

And the second phase only costs an additional million because all of the groundwork is already done for it.

So it's like the first phase is the biggest hurdle to get through.

Yeah.

Only a million.

Only a million, right?

And I mean, it sounds like there is clear demand.

Like it doesn't seem unreasonable that you could get to 500 relatively quickly if you had the capacity in that space.

Is that your sense from the community?

Absolutely.

I think that when we can secure this long-term permanent location for us, it would,

the flood gates would open because I have so much demand right now.

But there's a little bit of insecurity with our building like where are we going to be?

Because the other building hasn't been built and this other one has been known to be temporary.

So I definitely think that once that is established, I don't even know how many students we will have.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, there's certainly been these entrepreneurial challenges for you, May.

But what has been sort of the biggest reward as a school founder for you?

I think the biggest reward has been persevering through the challenges

and not giving up when it's been hard.

And, you know, because we're impacting kids' lives and we're impacting families too.

And we have such an incredible community.

Like I have families crying and just telling me what a blessing this has been to them.

And so like even the story I shared with you about our first year, like I can only imagine if I would

you know, standing in that drive-through with an empty drive-through line thrown in the towel,

like how many hundreds of people I would have impacted if I would have given up then.

Like I think that's like because in that moment, I was so broken by the reality that it was like

I felt disillusioned to this calling of my life.

And I think that, you know, and I'm speaking to myself right now too because I have challenges

right now that I'm like, okay, don't give up because you don't know what is on the other side and

how many more people you're going to impact. And it's, I think that has been the most incredible

component of the school.

Yeah, just those lives that you're impacting for the better and families that have been

helped and found a spot that's really wanting with their values for their kids and meeting

their children's needs. So incredibly fulfilling, I'm sure. What advice do you have for aspiring

school founders? People starting out, you know, they're all obviously these ups and downs to

entrepreneurship and education entrepreneurship in particular given zoning and occupancy

challenges and all of that. But what advice would you give to someone thinking about following

in your footsteps as a school founder? I think community and that's been something that I've been

trying to really lean into in this season. You feel so alone when you were like founding

in this school and you were so many hats and people don't know the struggles and the weight

that you carry and the unhappy parents that you talk to and the kiddos and their struggles and

the financial implications that you've invested. And I think like when you connect with others who

have gone on this road for encouragement and support. And like I remember when I was first starting

and I was trying to create all these forms and somebody said to me like I don't view you as a

competitor. I view you as building the kingdom with me and he shared all of his forms with me.

And it just really impacted me whereas like that was the like my heart's position that I wanted

to share like when other people were in this position that we're all working together for one

common purpose. You know that you're not a competitor to me like we are partners in this mission

field and so I think my biggest advice would be go find those people that can come alongside you

and and lift you up and encourage you when you feel discouraged and give you tangible help and

resources because we're definitely stronger together. Any thoughts on on how to do that sort of how

to find or build that kind of launch community? Well I say so I say this and I feel like it's like

sounds so great right? But so a lot of people aren't really open to it either. So like I've had to

really go and just put myself out there with other schools and like hey this is who I am and

this is what we're doing and really like extend an olive branch and keep those like lines open and

you can you you'll find the people better for you and the people that want to be in your community

but I think don't expect it to come to you you need to go and seek it out for yourself and then

and you know we're in my business class we're reading a book by Joe Polish it's like gives to the

giver and the more that you give to others you know like so don't go out like seeking or what you

can get but like offering your service to others because we all have unique gifts and strengths

so giving those to other people and just making yourself available and then it'll it'll come back

to you as well so great such good advice so may if my listeners and viewers want to follow your

journey particularly as you grow hopefully into this next larger phase and connect with you learn

more about jewel school what is the best way for them to do that so I have instagram jewel dot school

so j-e-w-e-l-l dot school I'm not going to lie I'm not the great social media so I have people

that helped do that but yeah I think that would probably be the best way to just follow along see

what we're doing it's really cool to see what the kids do every day and the website is jewel dot

school yeah folks who want to to take a peek there as well well what a wonderful story from 18

students in 2021 to 116 and now dozens more with the acquisition of a new school and hundreds

potentially over the next couple of years so best wishes to you and thank you so much may jewel

for being on the liberated podcast thank you so much for having me thank you for listening to

the liberated podcast if you like this episode please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

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