Homeschool Hints Podcast · Midwest Parent Educators - MPE

How To Prepare High School Homeschoolers As Entrepreneurs: Lisa Nehring

·21 min·1 clip

Lisa says textbooks have risen by over 400% in 10 years, and a college degree now needs a new strategy.

Lisa Nearing joins from South Dakota after a few technical hiccups. She introduces herself with one husband, two graduate degrees, five kids, and a black belt in homeschooling. That sets the tone. She talks about launching True North Academy in 2018 to offer live online classes for middle school and high school students, and about expanding that work with self-paced options. The conversation keeps circling back to real life. Lisa argues that entrepreneurship teaches the things teens actually need, like speaking, budgeting, problem solving, marketing, time management, and how to close a sale. She says those are real skills kids will use, and that entrepreneurship gives them a place to practice. The examples make that point concrete. One student built a fishing-related product, another sells T-shirts successfully, and another has grown a house-cleaning business large enough to hire help. Lisa treats these as practical businesses that meet a need and help students earn money while still in high school. She also describes a group project where students in different states and even different countries created an app together. Zoom and newer technology made that collaboration possible. In the live entrepreneurship classes, students also take part in a shark tank challenge. Lisa says the goal is for every student who enters the class to start and successfully run a micro business. As the conversation closes, she invites listeners to her workshop at the April 4th through 5th homeschool conference and curriculum fair at the KCI Expo Center. She also mentions the booth giveaways, which include little bookmark-sized products about transcripts, the military, and a Monopoly game. The whole interview feels like a practical conversation about how homeschool families can raise capable, working teenagers.

As heard by us

Entrepreneurship as homeschool preparation, told with the plainness of real family life.

Lisa Nearing makes a clear case for treating entrepreneurship as a genuine high school skill, not an extra flourish. The discussion stays practical, with attention to budgeting, marketing, problem solving, time management, and the confidence that grows from closing a sale or…

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Why you'd press play

Try this if you want entrepreneurship framed as practical high-school prep, not theory.

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