FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 05/16/2025
CONTACT: Phillip Suderman, (850) 376-4110
Today, the Institute for Justice (IJ) celebrates the Office of the Arizona State Fire Marshal’s ceasing its bid to require Baker Creek Academy, a microschool in rural Eagar, Arizona, to undertake tens of thousands of dollars in unnecessary building changes or else close its doors. The Fire Marshal’s decision comes after IJ questioned the basis of the State Fire Marshal’s inspecting Baker Creek given that local officials had no issues with the microschool’s operations for the two-plus years it had already been open.
“I’m extremely grateful to have the certainty I need to continue educating our learners in the best setting for them,” said Denise Lever, the founder and leader of Baker Creek. “Our educational model is designed as an alternative to traditional schools. As a former firefighter myself, I’m especially equipped to know that forcing our small, limited operation into the requirements for traditional schools makes no sense.”
Microschools are intentionally small learning communities, averaging 15 students each. Flexibility and innovation are the result. Whether serving as a child’s primary education or supplementing homeschooling, microschools often feature mixed-age classrooms, student-led learning, and affordable tuition. Teachers, often called “guides,” can customize education in ways that make students actually want to get out of bed in the morning.
New microschools popped up across the U.S. as parents responded to school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and more broadly questioned the services provided by traditional schools. Since the pandemic, the microschool movement has taken off. And thanks to Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program, which provides parents with savings accounts to spend on a broad range of educational needs, the state has been a hub of innovation in K-12 learning.
Denise started Baker Creek Academy with this background in mind. Baker Creek provides various supplemental educational services, primarily to homeschooled students—from one-to-one tutoring, to limited classroom instruction and group projects, to organized field trips. Baker Creek does not operate like what many might consider a traditional school; it is open just five hours per day, four days a week and students and parents can customize the services they want that best fit their needs. The four “guides”who operate at Baker Creek have approximately 50 students in their programs combined, never with that many in the building at once.
Yet, for a period this spring, the State Fire Marshal’s office threatened to crush Denise’s model under heavy regulation designed, not for these innovative and more limited programs, but for more traditional schools with hundreds or even thousands of students. In March, the office demanded to inspect Baker Creek for compliance with the state fire code, even though local fire and building officials had already approved Baker Creek’s opening. As a result of that inspection, the state fire officials signaled that they would demand tens of thousands of dollars in building upgrades to match the requirements for full-fledged, traditional schools. Denise was distressed, worried that she would not be able to continue to operate and that her students would be stranded without their best educational options.
After learning of Denise’s situation, IJ Senior Attorney Erica Smith Ewing sent a letter to the state’s fire inspector questioning the basis for the inspection on March 28. Now, the state’s fire officials have backed down, claiming that the threats to upend Denise’s operations were the result of “confusion.” More to the point, emails IJ uncovered through a records request suggested that fire officials worried that regulating Denise’s limited operations as if she were a full-fledged school would yield a lawsuit.
“Forcing Denise to follow regulations designed for sprawling, traditional schools would be both arbitrary and unconstitutional,” said Ewing. “More and more, we are seeing state and local governments hampering small, innovative microschools by forcing them into fire, zoning, and building regulations that never anticipated microschools and that make no sense being applied to what microschools do.”
“Teachers shouldn’t need lawyers to teach,” added IJ Attorney Mike Greenberg. “Bureaucrats shouldn’t use outdated and ill-fitting regulations to stifle parents and students from choosing the innovative education options that best suit their needs.”
With microschools and other personal education services growing more common, educational entrepreneurs like those at Baker Creek Academy are running into government officials who have yet to adopt their regulations to the new reality, which comes at the cost of the prospective students as well.
For example, in Georgia, local enforcers tried to force a microschool to comply with unnecessary inspections and building upgrades, in violation of state law protecting microschools. They backed down after a letter from IJ. And in Florida, Alison Rini nearly closed her doors this spring when an interpretation of the fire code required installation of over $100,000 in fire sprinkler systems—despite operating from a one-room building with multiple exits. Only after she received a donation from a generous donor was she able to stay open.
For the past 30 years IJ has been the national leader in defending greater choice and opportunity in education. IJ successfully defended Arizona’s innovative Empowerment Scholarship Account in 2014 and has defended programs in numerous other states that followed the Arizona model. In fact, IJ has successfully defended parental choice in education four times at the U.S. Supreme Court alone, and it is currently working in Alaska, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah, and Arkansas to help give all children a chance at a great education that fits their individual needs.
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To arrange interviews on this subject, journalists may call Phillip Suderman, IJ’s communications project manager, at (850) 376-4110. More information on the case is available at: https://staging.ij.org/issues/school-choice/