By Jon Show —HeartHaven Education, an educational consulting company founded by a well-known group of Lake Norman-area educators, will open a new “learning studio” this August.

The studio is not a school, according to its founders. It will instead serve as a home base for HeartHaven’s mission to fill the void of real-world education in today’s schools. Think new-world applications such as investing and entrepreneurship, similar to old-world subjects like wood shop and home economics.

That could include full-time, in-person learning or working with students already enrolled in private, public, charter or home schools.

“We don’t want to compete with schools,” said Joy Warner, a HeartHaven co-founder. “We’re not in the business of competing. But we do want to show people in bureaucratic systems that we can do it better for everybody.”

HeartHaven’s founders previously helped build Community School of Davidson, a local charter school. The partnership includes Susan Ban, Leslie Bragg, Lora Shealy and Warner.

HeartHaven began as a consultancy working with educational institutions, but welcomed its first students last year after two families asked for help getting their children through senior year, the founders said.

One student remained enrolled at his local public high school while HeartHaven designed supplemental courses that counted toward school credit.

A second student, who had left the area for a residential arts program, returned without a path to graduate in time from his home school. HeartHaven designed a full personalized senior year for him, including dual enrollment at Central Piedmont Community College, and an entrepreneurship course built around his interest in art and dance.

As part of that course, the student formed his own LLC, built a business website and learned to invoice clients.

Warner said a year later the individual “functions like a third- or fourth-year college student.”

The involvement of a company like HeartHaven is permitted under a North Carolina law that allows parents who register as homeschools to pay outside companies to help educate their children. The founders said the provision is a recent change; in past years, the practice was common but not technically legal.

Families pay for HeartHaven’s services on a sliding scale. A single coaching session costs $150. A full personalized academic year, the option chosen by the two aforementioned students, costs $15,000, which is below typical private school tuition.

That revenue will help cover salaries for HeartHaven’s first two hires, a science teacher and a math teacher, along with rent on the new building.

HeartHaven also offers a “junior launch” program for high school juniors, consisting of monthly sessions over 10 months and priced around $1,500.

Under the model, students typically spend about three hours a day on academics at the learning studio. The rest of their school day is built around activities outside the studio, such as internships, jobs or athletics, which the founders count as part of each student’s education plan.

The founders said they consider themselves supporters of traditional public education and pointed to teacher burnout as a concern shaping their work. Several of HeartHaven’s founders previously taught in public school systems before leaving to start the company.

HeartHaven’s founders said they hope other schools will adopt elements of the personalized approach they’re testing with their current students.

“We’re not trying to detract from all those great schools out there,” said Ban. “One thing we notice is most of those schools work by a system, and we want what works for the human instead of pushing that human into the system.”

HeartHaven is structured as an LLC rather than a nonprofit, which the founders said gives them more control over the company’s direction rather than answering to an evolving board of directors.

“We’re not trying to be millionaires,” said Warner.

She added that improving education is the primary focus and not profit, and that they believe public school education should remain a cornerstone of society.

“The reality is, it’s changing,” said Warner. “It’s already changed. So we need to make sure that we take care of every kid in the process.”

“We just want to make it better, and starting in our community is our strategy.”