Zeeland Record
In the spring of 2018, Carlos and Margo Esquivel quit their teaching jobs in the same week – Carlos as a printing and graphic arts instructor at Careerline Tech Center, Margo as an Allendale Public Schools elementary teacher – to educate their children at home.
“We realized we needed to homeschool our kids because we didn’t like what was happening in the (public) schools, so we pulled our daughter out,” Carlos said.
However, as the Esquivels started homeschooling their kids – Ava, 16, Adrian, 14, and Eli, 6 – they found a gap in the typical homeschool curriculum that wasn’t being addressed – one that involved hands-on learning and development of problem-solving skills.
So in 2021, Carlos and Margo launched The Social Microschool, an initiative they say gives children the social and skill-based development that might be missing in a homeschool setting. Up until now, the Esquivels offered their program two hours a day, two mornings a week at the Howard Miller Library and Community Center.
Now, The Social has a place of its own. Last Thursday, the Esquivels unveiled The Social’s new location at 135 E. Main Ave, as children from the program helped cut the ceremonial ribbon marking its official opening.
“We do everything that’s cool about school and leave out all the rest,” Carlos Esquivel said. “No eight hours in a seat, no academic learning that’s going to be assessment-based. All these parents do the academics at home. We don’t teach any of it. All we do is give them is the really cool projects and provide them the class environment … We even have them ride school buses so they get the full experience, so they (can say) ‘I’m in a school.’”
The Social provides hands-on learning opportunities for homeschool children – with one program targeted toward children in the elementary grades and another in middle school.
The K-5 Mini Makers program offers both one- and two-day classes, ideal for parents seeking a low-demand (translation: no homework) experience for their kids. The learning environment emphasizes exploration, wonder and play, allowing parents to focus on the academic portion of their kids’ education at home, Esquivel said.
For middle schoolers, there is the Make Lab, a program that focuses on project-based learning and building critical problem-solving skills for the workforce. This program emphasizes vocational exploration and real-world learning by including local industry advisors to provide feedback on projects, Esquivel said.
“We’re starting new classes like jewelry making, drone building and apparel design,” Esquivel said.
The Social began with 19 students in 2021 and has grown steadily ever since – to 28 students in 2022, 38 in 2023 and then a 58 percent increase last year to 60 students. And all indications point to continued growth in the fall, Esquivel said.
The Social had been looking for a location to move into for about a year, with a desire to locate downtown. Local real estate agent Steve Sterken told the Esquivels about the space at 135 E. Main.
“We got a chance to lay it out how we wanted it, put plugs where we wanted them, this wall where we wanted it … and have been working towards that for about a year, with the crew, to get it as perfect as we can,” Esquivel said.
The Social is part of a growing trend in education in the United States toward the creation of microschools to provide supplemental education support to homeschoolers. The Social receives financial backing from VELA Founders, a Glencoe, Ill.-based organization that invests in newer learning models that reflect family preferences and values.
“What they do is they find and help encourage startups in education areas or fields, to start up out of system. It would be nonpublic organizations that are innovating in education,” Esquivel said.
VELA Founders provides financial support to more than 3,800 microschools and other homeschool-based programs around the country, said Katie Powell, a Grand Rapids native and the organization’s director of community design.
“We’re building a lasting movement that’s transforming education – one idea and one community at a time,” Powell said.
To learn more about The Social, visit the microschool’s website at TheSocialZeeland.org.
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