Long-View Teachers Travel to North Carolina to Support School District's Math Teachers
One of the interesting things about Long-View Micro School is the financial model. Our financial model stands apart from the financial models of most independent schools in which tuition is set to cover about 90% of costs, and then funds are raised to manage the “gap.” In the typical independent school, dollars are raised from within the parent community through the annual fund and a gala or other social event. For the most part, it is expected that parents contribute to both of these events, and thus the true cost of attending the schools exceeds tuition. The annual fund and the gala occur during the fiscal year and thus there is significant pressure to raise funds from these events because the budget assumes these dollars will be procured. The dollars must come in lest the school end up in a difficult situation by Q3 or Q4.
At Long-View, we do not depend on fundraising to fund the gap between tuition and operating costs, and the gap is strategically tighter than in most schools. While fundraising serves many institutions, we decided from the inception of Long-View that fundraising did not align with the culture we sought to create. Galas and social events built on raising dollars nurture a culture in which those with the capacity to give generate social and political power. In addition, a financial model with a large gap between tuition and operating costs often produces a school in which costs go unchecked as more money is always assumed year-over-year. Again, this is the antithesis of the school we sought to create, and thus Long-View has a minimal gap between tuition and operating costs and the dollars needed to manage this gap are generated by the teaching team, not through fundraising. The teaching team works throughout the year to create products and services that can produce revenue. They are effectively generating intellectual property from some or all of the content they create at Long-View during the school year.
This alternative revenue produced by the teachers themselves nurtures a culture in which Long-View’s teaching team experiences positive pressure to be creative and to produce original content. The unique and thoughtful content that the teachers produce on a daily basis is then captured in some form and sold to other schools and educational institutions. Typically the content takes the form of physical products, virtual coaching, pre-recorded professional development, and “field guides.” Our most prolific offering is in-person professional development workshops, which often happen during the summer months.
This week, as an example, our math team traveled to a town outside of Raleigh, North Carolina to deliver a three day workshop to teachers from across the district. This particular district is working to innovate across its 15 schools, and one of the priorities is transitioning to pedagogy within the mathematics classrooms that raises the critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication skills of the students.
The Long-View math team delivered a 3-day workshop to Pre-K through 12th grade math teachers. We began by unpacking and discussing the assumptions, culture, and learning theories that drive the pedagogy utilized by Long-View in our Math Block, and then participants were ushered into immersive experiences for the purpose of exploring the distinct components of the Long-View Math Block, along with the conceptual terrain that is a by-product of the approach.
Our Long-View learners are with us — in spirit — as we deliver professional development like this to fellow educators. We invite our workshop participants, such as those in this rural district in North Carolina, to study artifacts — videos, photographs, transcriptions, and work samples — of our students and their thinking. Often, the main realization of the teachers who study these artifacts from our students relates to the impressive intellectual capacity of the Long-View learners. This, in turn, causes the teacher-participants to begin to expect more of themselves and expect more of their own students. Thus, our Long-View learners are helping shift the trajectory for other young mathematicians across the country.
