Last month, the local government in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, shut down my children’s school—not because of safety concerns, financial issues, or lack of student learning. In fact, the 60-some children who attend Threefold Schoolhouse, which my wife and I cofounded in 2019, are thriving. My wife’s phone buzzes with calls from other moms who want to enroll their kids next year.
What shut us down? A zoning issue we didn’t even know existed. We ran into a regulatory barrier that represents the next battleground for school choice.
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Threefold Schoolhouse operated out of a former office building. Another school owns the facility, and it graciously allowed us to use a small part of the second floor. On Sundays, a local church also used the space for worship service. As far as all parties understood, we were following the rules.
But it turns out that, while the first floor is approved for educational use, the second floor is approved only for business use. A local government inspector—just doing his job—stopped by and respectfully informed us that both our schoolhouse and the church needed to clear out. Apparently, there’s one HVAC and sprinkler standard for cubicle dwellers, and another for students and worshippers. No doubt this distinction is well-intended—but is it justified?
Fortunately, our students will keep learning. By June, Threefold Schoolhouse teachers and students will have met in 13 temporary locations since the school’s founding. But our experience should concern parents across Pennsylvania and the rest of the country. More to the point, it should spark reform.
Our small nonprofit has been working for seven years to create a permanent home for the school. Before turning a single shovel of dirt, we spent more than $500,000 on lawyers, architects, and engineers trying to comply with the complicated mesh of local zoning and land-use rules. Our schoolhouse will reach completion because I’ve run large nonprofits and know how to manage capital campaigns, and because the families are so committed. But what are others supposed to do?
Especially since the Covid pandemic, families have flocked to new and better learning options, with many more wishing that they could follow suit. State lawmakers have tried to meet this demand by enacting universal school choice in more than a dozen states. Even here in purple Pennsylvania, more than $600 million per year is now available in school-choice scholarships. But while the demand is there, zoning and land-use rules needlessly constrict supply.
How many excellent schools have been shut down—or never started—because their organizers couldn’t navigate the local zoning regime? Lisa Tarshis, executive director of the Primer Foundation, tells me she works with hundreds of school founders who’ve hit the same walls. The nationwide number is almost certainly much higher.
These schools—and the children they serve, and could serve—need reform at both the statewide and local levels. Most states have building codes that treat schools the same if they have six students or more. That means the same stairwell-width requirements for 2,000-student mega-schools as for 20-child microschools, for instance, which doesn’t make much sense. If a non-school space will be used as a school, it usually needs to be reclassified, triggering expensive upgrades. Pennsylvania has adopted these rules on a statewide basis. Over 90 percent of municipalities in the state have elected to enforce the code themselves, with many adding further restrictions.
If families truly want the promise of school choice fulfilled, lawmakers need to change the one-size-fits all regulations on education. Florida shows the path forward. On April 20, Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation—passed with strong bipartisan support—that will allow private schools with less than 150 students to make use of existing buildings under an alternative, lower-cost compliance framework. The Primer Foundation estimates that this single reform will reduce the timeline to open a new school to three to five months and cut buildout costs by up to 80 percent.
More states should adopt Florida’s approach, including Pennsylvania. In the meantime, Threefold Schoolhouse isn’t giving up. This summer, we will finally complete our permanent facility on a nearby six-acre plot, though at significant expense. When school starts this fall, we’ll put the recent drama behind us. But it shouldn’t be this hard to start a school and give children a better education America.