That the pair even managed to open HOPE is remarkable. Early on, they discovered that one cannot set up classrooms in, say, an empty store. State and local codes require prohibitively expensive retrofitting of wiring and plumbing, the addition of fire walls and security doors, removal of asbestos, plus a myriad of other requirements having little to do with education. The women sidestepped these obstacles when they found a home for HOPE in a partly vacated public school dating from the 1930s. Like the school's oak doors and bannisters, the desks exhibit years of battering, but this doesn't concern HOPE's owners.
Education takes place in the mind.
HOPE's enrollment rose to 68 in 1986 and 80 in 1987. HOPE Academy's teaching methods were inspired by Marva Collins' Westside Preparatory School in Chicago. But whereas Marva Collins can subsidize Westside Prep with royalties from her books and fees from her lecture tours, no such resources were available to Mrs. Farhat or Mrs. Sambaer. The problem, in part, was that neither woman was trained in business. Mrs. Farhat is a teacher, and Mrs. Sambaer is a nurse.