A great-fit Acton family believes deeply in the long game of developing character and independence over short-term achievements like test scores or grades. They see their child as the hero of their own journey — not a project to be micromanaged. These families value growth, grit, and purpose more than results.

Here are some signs a family is a great fit:

1. They trust children. They believe young people are capable of taking ownership of their learning, making choices, solving problems, and growing through real-world challenges.

2. They value freedom and responsibility. They’re excited about giving their child more freedom but understand that with it comes accountability — and they won’t swoop in when things get hard.

3. They’re growth mindset-oriented. Rather than fearing failure, they believe mistakes are part of the learning process and value resilience, curiosity, and iteration.

4. They’re willing to “de-school” themselves. They’re open to unlearning traditional notions of education — like grades, homework, and adult-driven motivation — and replacing them with trust, Socratic dialogue, and intrinsic drive.

5. They seek partnership, not control. They want to walk alongside their child and the learning community, not dictate outcomes or override studio processes.

6. They care more about who their child becomes than what they achieve. Ultimately, they’re more interested in nurturing a young person of character, purpose, and curiosity than checking academic boxes.

Great families come from all walks of life, but they tend to have a deep sense of commitment to family and especially to inspiring their children to become the best version of themselves they can be.

It's obvious that parents who “helicopter” and micromanage or parents who “lawnmower” and remove all obstacles do not do well at Acton Academy. Over time, however, certain patterns do emerge when it comes to families who seem like a great fit on the surface but ultimately struggle at Acton. The common thread is usually a mismatch between what they say they believe and what they’re actually comfortable living out.

Here are a few red flags to watch for:

🚩 They love the idea of independence… until it’s messy. These parents say they want their child to be responsible, but they struggle when their child isn’t “performing” the way they hoped. They may step in too often, push for adult intervention, or expect top-down solutions when challenges arise.

🚩 They’re outcome-focused more than journey-focused. If a parent is deeply attached to grades, rankings, or academic benchmarks, they may not have the patience for Acton’s emphasis on intrinsic motivation, personal growth, and long-term mastery.

🚩 They can’t let go of control. Parents who regularly question studio decisions, challenge Socratic processes, or try to “fix” things behind the scenes often undermine the learner-driven culture. This can also show up as constant emailing or trying to negotiate studio norms.

🚩 They view Acton as a service provider, not a partnership. These parents expect the school to “do” education to their child, rather than being co-creators in a shared journey. When something isn’t working, they look for someone to blame rather than embracing it as a growth moment.

🚩 They struggle with ambiguity. Acton requires a high tolerance for uncertainty — progress isn’t always linear or easy to measure. Families who need frequent reassurance or a clear “report card” may find the model too uncomfortable.

🚩 They want a unique school, but a conventional outcome. This shows up when parents love the innovation and freedom — but still expect their child to end up with traditional accolades: perfect transcripts, Ivy League paths, etc. That tension can lead to misalignment.

Acton is designed to meet learners where they're at, with an invitation to embark on a hero's journey. The most critical trait of a learner who can be successful is the ability to take responsibility for their choices when they fail, and accept the consequences of their actions. All the rest seems to be learnable in the studios through experience.

This is why parents who are committed to Acton principles is so important to the success of a learner in the studios. Passive parents or hands off parents set their children up for failure because they'll often resent accountability in the studios since it's not something they experience at home.

With that in mind, then it becomes about building a strong culture that supports transformation through experience, reflection, failure, and courageous choices.

It takes a takes a lot of hustle to find the right families, and having committed founding families is a key factor to success. To launch, there isn't a "best strategy" as much as consistent effort and being creative. Your founding families will come often from unexpected places, so it's all about hustle in the early stages.

When you onboard and as you explore the forums, you'll find lots of support tools and strategies to help with your early and ongoing recruiting efforts; anything from our 100 BLDs Challenge (a strategic approach with scripts and tools for meeting with 100 community leaders in your area) and digital marketing strategies and checklists, to hosting a Children's Business Fair and doing book clubs.

In the end sharing your story and your vision, plus sharing Laura's story in Courage to Grow will likely be enough to garner enough families to successfully launch. From there, would of mouth can spread and you can fine tune your funnel.

We also have owners who have and do offer paid sales tools for those less familiar with formal marketing strategies.

Far more important than your exit process is your sales process. Screening hard up front and making sure families understand what they are committing to will save you from the headache of exiting a family or a learner that isn't a good fit. At a minimum, most campuses require reading Courage to Grow and doing an Audition Day - a day where the new learner comes to see if they are ready to be a contributing member of the community - before they enroll a new family.

That said, even if you screen well you'll most certainly have situations where a learner or family will choose to leave as a result of breaking their promises. While the process may be a bit different for each campus, our contracts make it crystal clear when someone is choosing to leave because of his or her actions.

There is LOTS of discussion on the forums on this topic and you'll be more than welcome to share your early challenges so you can approach this thoughtfully when it inevitably comes.

For most of us, this is the hardest part of being an Acton owner.

First, it’s worth noting that we (all owners) take great care to never to make statements or take political stands on behalf of the Acton Academy Network and do our best to steer clear of political/educational reform fights. As an Affiliate, we'll ask you to do the same.

While it's possible in some select areas to face some pushback, Acton's mission is to inspire each person who enters our doors to find a calling that will change the world. We take no political stances and we aren't trying to reform traditional education. Rather, we deeply believe in the incredible nature of the human spirit and we appeal to great parents who want the best for their child, something hard to argue against.

A few tips to help in case you do find some pushback:

• Avoid the trap of engaging in political fights where no one can win. Attempting to change someone’s mind is often far more difficult and costly than finding someone with whom the Acton Academy philosophy and model already resonates with.

• Focus your energy and efforts on casting an exciting new vision for the learners in your community and invite others to join you on the journey, rather than criticizing traditional methods. Our affiliates tell us that inviting others to read Courage to Grow can be particularly useful for this.

• Remain focused on finding the right founding families, keeping the promises you make to them and building a healthy, thriving community of happy customers. We have observed that when an owner does this, more often than not, word soon gets out in their community, and they find that they have more than enough demand to fill their studios.

In the lower studios (Spark and Elementary) this is relatively quick and easy, with roughly 90% or more of learners being a great fit.

In upper studios (Middle School and Launchpad) this gets more difficult since our learners are now ready for real rigor, a natural next step after finding a love of learning. If learners come from the outside of Acton in middle school and haven't developed a love of learning, the rigor can feel more like drudgery, making it really hard to recruit at this stage.

That's why we highly suggest starting with lower studios that feed into upper studios so learners build on the right foundation.

Interestingly however, over time this separates more clearly and rockstar high school age learners can do really well (meaning it's easier to spot the 1 out 10 ready for a Launchpad experience).

The key in any scenario is to attract families who are "running towards Acton" rather than those families whose dysfunctions are causing problems no community can solve.

We’ve found that with specialized off-campus support, dyslexic learners can thrive at Acton. ADD and ADHD also do not appear to present challenges within our studio environment.

More importantly, we believe that labels like these are often misdiagnosed or overgeneralized. Instead of focusing on labels, we look at each learner’s unique strengths and struggles. As long as a learner can keep their promises, make progress in their learning, and take responsibility when they fall short, they are welcome in our community.

We’ve seen learners with nearly every label succeed — and a few rare cases where we weren’t the right fit. Every human exists along a wide range of spectrums, and each learner brings a unique mix of gifts and challenges.

However, we do not believe that any form of direct instruction—whether from a guide or a tutor—can occur within the studio without undermining a truly learner-driven culture.

In the past, we’ve had some misunderstanding about the terms ‘gifted’ and ‘exceptional’ because we believe every person is a genius, in the proper definition of the word, and it’s not just rhetoric to us. It would be against the belief system of Acton to in any way signal that an owner believes one group is more gifted than others, even if that’s the terminology used in academia. Because of this, we actually ask that our Affiliates completely abstain from using terms like ‘gifted’ as a way to separate young people, since we believe every child has gifts that can used to change the world.

In other words, all children are gifted, so yes, Acton is for gifted children.

Young people can be retained 85-90% + of the time. Parents are harder.

Retention rates depend on how hard you screen parents and whether your philosophy is to heavily counsel parents or not. Acton Guatemala has very high retention rates because they invest a lot in families, which requires great patience and expenses.

Another factor to retention is the consistency of your in studio experience. If you trust the best practices and the Playbook, rather than try to reinvent systems, tools, and processes, you'll have less turnover. If you continue to reinvent or over experiment, you'll lose families along the way as expectations change.

Anecdotally, in our experience, the best parents tend to be those that are already 100% committed to the Acton approach and are more focused on improving their relationships with their kids and their family dynamic (aka parenting) than building relationships with teachers and school administrators. Put another way, from an engagement standpoint, they don't tend to need or want a lot of hand-holding, reassurance, or feedback about their children on a regular basis - they always go straight to their child with concerns first.

That said, here are a few examples of ways other Affiliates have found to effectively engage with the right parents:

• Learning about the model:

i. Courage to Grow – for some owners, this is suggested or required reading as part of their audition or onboarding process. A beautiful story and a quick read, other owners and parents tell us it’s by far the quickest, most effective way to determine whether or not you are destined to be an Acton Academy parent.

ii. Children's Business Fair – many owners will host these one-day events for community outreach and recruiting purposes. For some prospective parents, sometimes seeing Acton Academy philosophies in action is the best way to spark the curiosity to learn more about the Acton Academy model.

• Staying engaged in a productive way:

i. Family Quests (Onboarding, etc.) – many owners utilize the learning Quest format to engage the whole family during the Onboarding process and beyond. A fun, unique opportunity for a family to focus on growth and relationship building, Family Quests can be a great way to help parents experience firsthand the thrill and satisfaction of this particular aspect of the Acton Academy model.

ii. Parent Meetings – these meetings, often held 2-3 times per year, provide opportunities for the entire parent community to come together to discuss the Hero's Journey they are on as Acton Academy Parents, rather than focusing on school politics and policies or their child's academic performance.

iii. Culture of Transparency – at the original campus at least, we have found that clearly defining and holding boundaries around parent communications and contracts helps encourage parents to engage in productive ways. At our campus, for instance, parents sign a Parent Contract that sets expectations around communications, designating the Head of School as the primary point of contact for parents, should they have a situation or concern that needs to be addressed. In addition, to encourage a culture of transparency, it is also our policy that any parent communications addressed to guides are sent to a shared group guide email that automatically copies all guides and owners. This helps ensure that 1) the appropriate parties are involved and 2) everyone is on the same page regarding the details of the particular situation.