Primer: An Origin Story

I started Primer with a simple goal: bring a quality education to every American family.

28 years ago my mom started one of the first microschools in Florida. We were zoned for an F-rated school, living in my grandparents house, and heading home from a Kindergarten orientation during which my mom learned that 90%+ of the kids were below grade level – and my mom decided to take matters into her own hands.

She was a public school teacher and knew she could deliver something better for us. So she found five other families, invested thousands of hours of her time, and launched a microschool.

That small school changed my life. When my wife and I started having kids a few decades later, we knew we wanted something similar for our kids – but quickly found it didn’t exist. And it was then that Primer was born.

It was clear to me that education was going to change more in the next few years than it had in the previous few decades. There were thousands of wonderful teachers across the US who dream of launching their own schools in their communities. Technology was empowering deep personalization and incredible learning outcomes at a fraction of the cost of traditional models. But no one had yet figured out how to package this up and make a quality education accessible to every American family – a simple, but incredibly hard problem. My favorite kind.

Primer is still early. Very early. We educate less than .5% of K-12 students in the states in which we operate. But it works.

We serve families across Florida, Alabama and Arizona. We’re launching in Texas in August and more states soon-after.

We’re hell-bent on ensuring this is the last generation of kids whose zip code determines their quality of education. If you’re interested in doing the most important work of your life. Join us