Executive Summary
Half of all Americans will be self-employed by 2030. Traditional public and private schools cannot satisfy the needs of tomorrow’s entrepreneurs. Homeschooling limits the range of professionals and peers children learn from. Unschooling makes it difficult for children to develop self discipline, focus and drive. Those in the best position to learn and achieve are children who grow up around a well run business. Harrier Young Adult Business Program is a solution for families that don’t have thriving businesses to drive their children’s learning and development.
Education focused work for hands-on organic learning in a dynamic and fun business environment.
The Young Adult Business Program will be located at and centered around a garden and nursery, growing berries, pumpkins, flowers and more. Students will be involved in all aspects of the operation from growing and harvesting, to making and selling products such as, plants, juice, cookies, pies, bird houses, artwork and books.
Harrier Education will serve families with children from 7 to 12.
The name and logo allude to the Northern Harrier Hawk, a long-winged, long-tailed hawk whose numbers are diminishing in North America.
Company Analysis
Children as young as 4 years old are being tutored to get good grades on state entrance exams so that they can get into good primary schools and ultimately elite colleges. Yet, there is limited demand for individuals who excel at test taking but have few practical skills and are too deep in debt to consider apprenticeships. Some of the most desirable employers, such as Google and Tesla, no longer look at college transcripts and are hiring a lower percentage of college graduates than in the past.
The two most famous technological innovators, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were both college dropouts. The richest man in history, John D Rockefeller, was a high school dropout. These men are outliers but not exceptions. Preparing people for success is not the main purpose of schooling and never has been. But sending children to school is especially misguided today.
An entire world of knowledge is now at all of our fingertips. All any child needs is the ability and desire to obtain and use it.
We believe that the Internet is a powerful tool but a dangerous master. It must be used with extreme care and caution and generally limited during formative years. We believe young adults require a high degree of physical movement for good health and mental well being. We believe that children naturally want to produce and create and will do so willing when given the chance. Through productive and creative activity, children learn about themselves and the world around them, making easy and natural connections.
A TRADITION OF ORGANIC EDUCATION
Leonardo da Vinci, said that “study without desire spoils memory.” Perhaps the greatest scholar the world has known, his only formal study was apprenticeships.
In the early years of mass schooling in the United States, Henry David Thoreau asked…
“Which would have advanced the most at an end of a month–the boy who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this–or the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the institute and in the meanwhile, had received a Rodgers penknife from his father? Which would be most likely to cut his finger?”
After the Civil War, Booker T. Washington founded the first vocational school for blacks. In his autobiography he wrote…
“It was my aim from the first at Tuskegee to not only have the buildings erected by the students themselves, but to have them make their own furniture, as far as possible. I now marvel at the patience of the students while sleeping upon the floor, while waiting for some kind of bedstead to be constructed, or at their sleeping without any kind of a mattress, while waiting for something that looked like a mattress to be made.”
VOLUNTARY PARTICIPATION
Students will be encouraged and motivated to work and learn, but never pressured or coerced. On joining the program, students are given a journal to document their experiences, thoughts and ideas. The children will be free to participate in business activities or sit alone or write in their journal. The choice to sit alone and write will be taken as a sign that more individual attention is desired.
MISSION
Our mission is to assist parents in raising lifelong learners and achievers.
MANAGEMENT TEAM
All team members starting with founder, Charles Stampul, will possess real and useful skills, know how to relate peacefully with children, and have great teaching and motivation skills.
Market Analysis
Government school students 84% (falling)
Private school students 10% (falling)
Homeschooled children 5% (rising)
Unschooled children < 1% (rising)
Competitive Analysis
CURRENT ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION CHOICES MOST SIMILAR TO HARRIER
Waldorf Schools
There are 190 Waldorf schools in America and 1139 worldwide. Waldorf education aims to educate children about a wide range of religious traditions without favoring any one. This approach diminishes the importance of western culture and values. Waldorf schools allow for free expression and creativity but fail to promote critical thinking. The lessons and learning environment is manufactured.
Marietta Johnson: School Of Organic Education
The Fairhope organic school is not truly organic. Like Waldorf schools, The environment and curriculum are manufactured. The Fairhope school allows for free expression and creativity but does not put enough emphasis on practical knowledge and reasoning.
Acton Academy
Acton Academy has been growing quickly and now has roughly 100 franchise locations worldwide. However, it has strayed from its original vision of allowing students to direct their own education. Students spend too much time learning on the computer and taking standardized tests. With limited guidance and modeling, Acton Academy provides little advantage over unschooling.
Customer Analysis
More and more children are fleeing the compulsory government schooling system as well as private schools following Department of Education mandates. Over 1 million children between 7 and 12 are being homeschooled, now over 5%. The number of unschoolers is also growing; currently an estimated 37,000 children receive no formal instruction.
Our target customers are parents unhappy with government schools and not satisfied with the current alternatives. They believe in free inquiry, free enterprise, individualism, and adhere to western traditions and values. They live in rural or suburban communities.
STUDENT PROFILES
Thisbe
Thisbe lived in a home with many great teachers. There was her father John who was great at fixing things and knew tons about stars and planets, her mother Barbara who loved the theater and wrote her own plays, her older sister Melanie who was into music and fashion and her older brother JJ who taught her how to play basketball and ride a dirt bike. Then there was her dog Casper and her cat Aurora who were just fun to watch and play with. Thisbe’s family had so much to learn from each other that it never made sense to spend any time after school doing homework. Thisbe’s father not only told his three children that they did not have to do any homework, he actually encouraged them not to. This turned out to cause many problems for Thisbe at school. She became the target of bullying. The strange thing was, the bullying seemed to be started by the teachers. They made Thisbe’s classmates think that she was getting away with something that they couldn’t. Some began treating her badly. When nasty things started to be written about Thisbe and her family on the Internet Thisbe’s father had enough, and took Thisbe out of school.
Jason
Getting ready to leave the house early each morning would be something new for Jason because Jason never went to regular school. He was homeschooled. For as long as he could remember, Jason seemed to know more than other boys and girls his age. This made him feel different. Adults sometimes said that different was good, but it didn’t feel that way. He wanted to have lots of friends and be well liked. But when Jason talked to other children about things he was interested in they either said he was showing off, or just being boring. He sometimes talked to his parents about going to the public school most of the neighborhood kids went to. But it was all too frightening. One day, Jason’s father announced that he found the answer. “How would you like to try something new, Jason,” he asked. He told him about the Harrier Young Adult Business Program and they decided to give it a try.
Paul
As Paul laid in bed early that first day, he saw in his mind’s eye snapshots of his friends Jared and August clowning around in the hallways of Benton Academy. He pictured the sun coming up over the campus. When he opened his eyes he remembered that that life was over. Why did my father have to lose his job? he asked himself. It wasn’t until his father lost his job that he even knew that Benton Academy cost as much money as it did. But then Paul thought about some of the famous men he had learned about the year before, men like Paul Revere and Thomas Paine. What would they do in this situation? he wondered. They would overcome, of course, and maybe he could too. Maybe this would just be temporary anyway. By next year Dad will have a new and better job and I can go back to Benton. He imagined returning after a year off, how he would be greeted by his friends and teachers and coaches. It would be like George Washington riding back after the battle of Trenton.
Karina
Karina was awake and almost ready to go before her mother and father had even made it out of bed. She didn’t know whether she was going to school or work. It was both or neither. Karina wasn’t sure but she was excited to find out. Just to have some place to go felt great. Karina had been what her parents called “unschooled.” They believed that learning should be self-directed. In other words, it was up to her to figure out what she wanted to learn and how. But how could she know? Karina worried that she wasn’t learning what she needed to. She worried that she wasn’t working hard enough. Sometimes she just worried about nothing at all. She also felt guilty. Why should she get to sit at home while the other kids have to go out in the rain and snow and do things they don’t want to. Don’t people have to sometimes do things they don’t want to? Isn’t that part of life? It especially bothered Karina when people joked about unschooling meaning sitting in pajamas and playing video games. Karina never touched a video game a day in her life. But in a way what they were saying was right. It was just too easy. Whatever Harrier turns out to be, at least she now has a routine. A reason to leave the house and do something, and let others worry about what.
Ai Wen
As a child growing up in a small city in China, there were three things to do, study, continue to study, and study some more. And if you were really ambitious you can try studying while you sleep. Ai Wen didn’t like to memorize what her teachers said and wrote, but she did it anyway because her parents told her it was the only way to get into a good college. Her grades were good but not perfect. When she scored 92 on a math exam her mother lectured her. “If you want to make it out of Benxi you need to do better.” Ai Wen studied harder. When she got an 86 on the next test she felt disheartened. She began studying less and drawing instead. Her grades got worse. Worried about her future, her mother and father decided to accept an offer from Ai Wen’s Aunt Lan Lan for Ai Wen to live with her in America.
Financial Plan
Purchase property or lot zoned for commercial and residential use.
BUDGET
Property $300,000.
Editions/ Renovations $100,000
Equipment $25,000
Legal/ Administration $15,000
Moving $5,000
Misc $5,000
Total: $450,000
Operations Plan
The program will require at least one acre of land for outdoor growing in beds, a greenhouse, outdoor and indoor workshops, walk-in cooler, large kitchen, conference room and library. Specific design depends on property or lot purchased. Tuition will be the primary source of revenue with additional revenue from donations, and product sales. Projected start date is September 2022.
Marketing Plan
The program will be priced in line with competing area education options for children 7 to 12. Once operational, open houses will be held to recruit students. Possible promotions include free trials and referrals. The program will be further marketed through community outreach, press releases, bulletin boards, message boards, email blasts, advertising, social media posting, podcast interviews, video documentaries.
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