Join us

Keep the school. Get the head office.

Independent shouldn't mean alone.

Innovation Advantage Schools™ gives independent early learning schools the departments a national brand runs on — curriculum, teacher development, quality systems, and a program families can tell apart.

Your name. Your brand. Your leadership. Your enrollment system. Your revenue.

Flat annual dues, banded by licensed capacity. No royalty.

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20+
Years operating schools
20+
Schools built
3
Exits
1,000+
Educators trained

PBS · Oprah Magazine · TEDx · Harvard Project Zero · Lake Nona Institute

The math

What a system usually costs.

Royalty and marketing fees in early education franchising generally run 7 to 9 percent of gross revenue. Every year. For the length of the agreement.

Innovation Advantage Schools charges flat annual dues, banded by licensed capacity. Not a percentage of anything you earn.

FranchiseInnovation Advantage Schools
Ongoing cost7–9% of gross revenueFlat annual dues by capacity
Your school's nameReplacedKept
Your brandTheirsYours
Territory protectionYesYes
Enrollment and management systemsTheirs, requiredKeep what works
If you sellTransfer fees, approval, conditionsYour business, your sale

On a school doing $1.5 million, the difference is roughly $90,000 to $120,000 a year.

That is a raise for your entire teaching staff. Or it is your margin. Either way, it stays in your building.

03 · WHY THIS EXISTS

I’ve been on every side of this business.

As a franchisee, I learned the value of a system, but also that a system alone doesn’t guarantee results. As a franchisor, I learned that every market is different and that the best systems create consistency while leaving room to adapt. As an independent owner, I experienced the freedom to build something different, along with the reality of having to build almost everything myself.

When I sold my schools to a large organization, I saw the other side: the power of having specialized teams, established processes, technology, training, and resources working together behind every school. It made me realize how much independent owners are expected to carry on their own.

Those experiences shaped a simple belief: independent shouldn’t mean alone.

Independent schools should be able to keep their identity and flexibility while gaining access to the systems, resources, expertise, and community that are difficult to build alone.

That’s why we built The Innovation Advantage™.

08 · Proof

Built in real schools. Still running in one.

Before we asked a single school to join, we built and operated our own. Twenty-plus schools. Two decades. Three exits. The curriculum, the coaching tools, and the assessments were built inside working classrooms — tested by our own teachers, on our own P&L, with our own families walking through the door.

We still run a school. Every lesson, every coaching tool, every update runs in our own classrooms before it reaches yours. Nothing is sold to a member school untested.

Our director runs it day to day. That's the point. If the system only worked when the founder was standing in the room, it wouldn't be a system. It would be a personality.

One school. One location. We're not expanding. We run it to build the product, not to compete with the people who buy it.

Come see it. Tuesday morning, real teachers, real four-year-olds, an ordinary week.

Visit the lab school →

04 · FIVE DEPARTMENTS. ONE SYSTEM.

Everything your school needs to deliver a consistent experience — while the school stays yours.

Running a great early learning program shouldn't depend on having the right teacher, the right director, or you personally being in the building.

Innovation Advantage Schools™ gives independent schools the departments behind a strong brand — while you keep your name, your ownership, and your independence.

01 · TEACH

Give every classroom a better way to teach.

The problem: Every teacher teaches differently. New teachers don't know where to start. Curriculum gets purchased but isn't consistently used.

The answer: Ready-to-deliver lessons built around the CAPE Method™ give every classroom a common instructional approach.

  • School-wide curriculum
  • Ready-to-use lesson plans
  • Hands-on projects and resources
  • The CAPE Method™ instructional framework
  • Assessments connected to learning

You don't hand teachers a binder. You give them a way to teach.

02 · DEVELOP

Turn curriculum into teacher development.

The problem: Turnover keeps resetting quality. Training happens once, while the real challenges happen every day in the classroom.

The answer: Professional learning, coaching, and classroom practice work together so teachers develop while they teach.

  • New-teacher onboarding
  • Professional learning
  • Microlearning tied to classroom practice
  • Coaching tools
  • Leader and teacher cohorts

Your curriculum becomes your teacher-development system.

03 · MEASURE

Know what's happening without standing in every classroom.

The problem: Owners and directors often discover quality problems after a parent complains, a teacher leaves, or an observation goes badly.

The answer: Make teaching and learning visible.

  • Classroom observations
  • Lesson implementation tracking
  • Child portfolios
  • Assessments
  • Teacher feedback
  • School-wide visibility

Leaders can see where support is needed, coach around real classroom practice, and recognize what's working.

You can't improve what you can't see.

04 · DIFFERENTIATE

Give families a reason to choose you.

The problem: To parents, many schools look the same. Caring teachers, safe classrooms, play-based learning, similar promises.

The answer: Give your school a recognizable educational philosophy and a story families can understand.

Member schools receive:

  • An Innovation Advantage School™ badge
  • Parent-facing materials
  • Tour talking points
  • Project and learning displays
  • Family education resources
  • Marketing assets that explain your approach

Your director isn't inventing the enrollment story during every tour.

Parents don't compare curriculum. They compare what they believe their child will become.

05 · OPERATE

Get the systems department you never had.

The problem: Independent owners are expected to build everything themselves — curriculum, training, onboarding, quality systems, parent communication, and operating procedures. The alternative has traditionally been joining a franchise.

The answer: Get the infrastructure without giving up your independence.

  • SOP library
  • Staff onboarding systems
  • Implementation tools
  • School resources
  • Leadership support
  • Shared best practices
  • A community of independent providers

Keep your school name. Keep your ownership. Keep your local identity.

One system. No royalty. Your name on the building.

The result

Your school. Your brand. A stronger system behind it.

TEACH

Give teachers a common method.

DEVELOP

Build stronger teachers over time.

MEASURE

Make quality visible.

DIFFERENTIATE

Give families a reason to choose you.

OPERATE

Build consistency without giving up ownership.

Five departments. One system. Your name on the building.

Why your teachers will actually use it

The CAPE Method™

Most curriculum fails for one reason. It asks more of teachers than teachers have to give.

Every CAPE lesson follows the same four steps.

C

Challenge

Give children a real problem worth solving.

A

Analyze

Look closely. Sort, test, compare, notice.

P

Produce

Build something. Make the thinking visible.

E

Evaluate

Did it work? What would you change?

Four steps. Every lesson. A first-year teacher can deliver it on day one. A twenty-year veteran can go deeper inside the same structure.

Every step is hands-on. Children analyze by sorting and testing, not by filling in a worksheet. They produce by building. Four-year-olds already do this — the method names it so a teacher can plan for it, and so a leader can coach it.

This is early childhood, not academic pushdown.

CAPE in action

One lesson: The Bird Feeder Challenge.

Ages 3–6
C · Challenge

"The birds outside our window have nothing to eat this winter. How can we help them?"

A · Analyze

Children watch which birds visit, talk about what they eat, and test which materials can hold seeds.

P · Produce

Each child designs and builds their own bird feeder from recycled materials.

E · Evaluate

They watch which feeders birds actually use — and redesign the ones that didn't work.

See a full lesson →

The enrollment argument

Early learning built for the age of AI.

When answers are everywhere, children need to learn how to think.

That's the sentence parents respond to, and almost no early learning program in your market is saying it. The CAPE Method™ develops what holds its value as technology gets more capable: curiosity, critical thinking, collaboration, problem-solving, and the confidence to start on something you don't yet know how to do.

We call it The Innovation Advantage™. You get it as a program. You also get it as an enrollment story your director can deliver without improvising.

The badge

An Innovation Advantage School™ badge for your door, your website, and your email signature.

Tour materials

Tour one-pager and director talking points.

Parent handouts

Explaining what children were learning, not just what they made.

Project sheets

Materials that make learning visible every week.

Parents don't compare curriculum. They compare stories. This gives your school one the school down the street doesn't have.

What families see →

09 · Who it's for

Built for the people who run the system.

Independent single-site owners

Compete with the national brands without becoming one. You get the systems and keep your school.

Multi-site operators

One standard in every location. One language across every director. You stop rebuilding quality school by school.

Networks and agencies

Deploy a consistent early learning model across a network of providers, with the training and implementation support that makes it stick.

10 · What it costs

Flat dues. Per site. Banded by licensed capacity.

No royalty on revenue. No territory restrictions. No rebrand. No transfer fees when you sell.

A sixty-child school doesn't pay what a two-hundred-child school pays. Multi-site operators get volume pricing. Networks and agencies have a separate path.

See pricing →

The Founding Cohort

We're seating a limited number of founding schools before general enrollment opens.

What you get: your rate locked for three years, direct access to the team building the platform, and a say in what gets built next.

What we ask: let us document what happens in your school and publish it. Your results become the case for the next hundred schools.

Founding Cohort →

The system

Each part is useful alone.
Together, they change how a school teaches.

Curriculum

makes teaching easy.

Coaching

gives leaders confidence.

Assessments

individualize learning.

Growth

closes the loop.

Curriculum, coaching, individualized learning, and teacher growth — connected. That's the advantage.

Raising Innovators · The podcast

Conversations on building, leading, and disrupting early education.

42 episodes with the operators, founders, and educators doing the work — hosted by co-founder Marnie Forestieri.

Apple PodcastsSpotifyYouTube

The questions owners actually ask

Before you join.

What is this, exactly?

The departments a national brand runs on, for a school that isn't one. Five of them: teach, develop, measure, differentiate, operate. Curriculum is one part. The rest is teacher development, quality you can see without standing in every room, an enrollment story your director doesn't have to invent, and the operating procedures you've been writing yourself at night.

How is this different from franchising?

You keep your name, your brand, your leadership, and the systems you already run. Dues are flat and banded by licensed capacity, not a percentage of revenue. No rebrand, and no approval required when you sell. Full membership terms are in the agreement — ask and we'll send it before you commit to anything.

We already have a curriculum. Where does this fit?

Most owners do. Keep it. The CAPE Method™ runs as a layer on top, giving every classroom a common four-step structure while your scope and sequence keeps running underneath. The question was never whether your curriculum is good. It's whether it's being delivered the same way in every room, whether you can see that it is, and whether a parent on a tour can tell the difference. Those are the three things this fixes.

What actually changes on Monday morning?

Your director walks into a classroom with an observation tied to the lesson actually being taught, not a generic rubric. Your new teacher opens a plan instead of a blank week. You open a screen and see which rooms are running and which aren't. Your license, your staffing, and your schedule don't change at all.

What if my teachers resist it?

Some will. The ones who've watched three programs come and go usually do. What they're resisting is more work. That's what most of these fail on — they ask more of teachers than teachers have to give. CAPE is four steps, the same four every time, already planned. Your twenty-year teacher isn't being asked to change how she teaches. She's being asked to name what she already does, so it can be planned for and coached. New teachers adopt fastest — nothing to unlearn, and they're relieved to have somewhere to start. Either way, you'll see it. Implementation tracking shows which classrooms are running and which aren't, so resistance surfaces in week three instead of month six. That's a coaching conversation, not a discovery. And if a room still isn't running at sixty days, that's ours to solve with you.

What if my director leaves?

Then you find out what you built. Onboarding, coaching tools, and operating procedures live in the platform, not in your director's head. The next one inherits a system instead of rebuilding it. This is the department independent schools most often don't have, and the one whose absence costs the most.

Do I have to replace my management or parent-engagement software?

No. We sit behind the systems you already run. Keep your billing, your ratios, your parent app.

You run a school. Aren't you competing with me?

One school, one location, not expanding. We run it to test the product before you get it — every lesson, every coaching tool, every update runs in our own classrooms first. Come see it on a Tuesday.

We're a small school. Is this built for us?

Dues are banded by licensed capacity. Below 80, the economics usually don't work yet. Tell us your capacity and we'll be straight with you.

What Could an Innovation Advantage Look Like in Your School?

See how Innovation Advantage Schools™ can complement the school you've already built and help you create an educational experience that's easier to implement, easier to communicate, and harder to imitate.

Request a Demo

Your name. Your ownership. Your school.