1、Research ReportSARAH OHLS,LAUREN COVELLI,JONATHAN SCHWEIG Microschools as an Emerging Education ModelImplications for Research and Evaluation2United States had little or no access to the support sys-tems that are often provided by schools(Garcia and Weiss,2020).Students were isolated from peers and

2、teachers,and the pandemic made it more difficult to participate in after-school activities,including athlet-ics and art programs(Digital Promise,2021).During the 20202021 school year,public school enrollment declined by nearly 3 percent(National Center for Education Statistics,2021)and continued to

3、decline through the 20212022 school year(Dee,2023).In some communities,parents enrolled their children in charter schools or opted out of public education entirely(Bouzaghrane et al.,2021;Mahnken,2021).One notable microschool network that gained significant traction during the pandemic is Prenda,whi

4、ch was founded prior to the pandemic in 2018 with only seven enrolled students.By the 20192020 school year,Prenda had grown to serve approxi-mately 900 students.By January 2023,the network had grown to serve more than 3,000 students in 300 microschool settings in six states(Bedrick and Ladner,2023).

5、Although it is difficult to get accurate counts on microschool enrollment,estimates are that between 750,000 and 2.1 million students currently use microschools as their main schooling provider(Hamlin,Searcy,and Cheng,2024;McShane and Microschools are an alternative to more-traditional school settin

6、gs for students and parents,many of whom are dissatis-fied with their other locally available schooling options,such as traditional public schools,charter schools,and private schools.As we show in this report,there is no single agreed-on definition of a microschool,and the flexible nature of the con