Built by Lomuscio Labs, shipping the outside diligence lens we wished we’d had — for the Head-of-School candidates who’ll lead schools next, the search firms that place them, and the trustees, consultants, and organizations who size a school up from the outside.
HiveCheck is the outside diligence lens we wished we’d had — the fast, honest read a candidate, a search firm, or a trustee needs on a school they’re evaluating from the outside. We’ve sat in the visiting candidate’s chair in independent-school searches and know the diligence a candidate needs — interviewing, doing the campus visit, parsing the public Form 990 the night before flying out. Every time, we wanted exactly this product. Most candidates either skip the diligence and walk into a five-year career decision blind, or they spend a weekend on Form 990 PDFs trying to reverse-engineer what HiveCheck shows in ninety seconds. We’d rather candidates spend that time preparing thoughtful questions.
In real estate you hire your own inspector. The listing agent is capable and works for the seller, so you bring in someone who works for you. An independent-school search runs the same way — the search consultant, the interim Head, the board chair are all retained by the school. HiveCheck is the diligence layer on the candidate’s side of the table. Search firms, consultants, and organizations that work with schools can use the same reports on the Firm plan — to brief a finalist, baseline a client school, or read a school before a meeting. Complementary work, different chair.
HiveCheck is a Lomuscio Labs product — part of a small portfolio at the intersection of education leadership, AI, and independent-school operations. Everything you see is sourced from public data: IRS Form 990s, U.S. Census ACS, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, BEA, HUD, and NCES Private School Universe Survey, plus the enrollment figure a school publishes on its own website, cited with the page. The methodology page walks through every number. If you find an error in your own school’s report, email us and we’ll investigate that day.
Up to nine years of filings per school, nearly all for fiscal years FY2018–FY2025, parsed from the federal Form 990 data set. Most schools' latest complete filing is FY2025 (the fiscal year ending in 2025), with FY2026 filings rolling in as the IRS releases them. The same disclosures the IRS publishes, presented for working candidates.
National Center for Education Statistics, Private School Universe Survey — total enrollment including pre-K, per-grade bands, FTE teachers. Matched for 1,556 of the 1,639 schools HiveCheck covers: the 2021–22 survey (the latest NCES release) for 1,361, and the 2019–20 or 2017–18 survey, the latest federal count available for that school, for the rest. Where a school publishes a current enrollment on its own website, we show that figure too, quoted, with the page and the date we read it. Schools with neither fall back to the 990-derived size cohort.
American Community Survey 5-year estimates — metro population, household income, education attainment, school-aged cohort, $200K+ household share.
Bureau of Labor Statistics for employment + unemployment, BEA for per-capita personal income, HUD for Fair Market Rent. All publicly available, refreshed on each source's published cadence.
Lomuscio Labs is an Asheville-based practice focused on AI strategy and tooling for independent schools and the people who lead them. HiveCheck is the first public product. The rest are quieter — internal tools, consulting engagements, talks, and the Fullstack Educator Substack.
The full report on any school in the 1,639-school coverage set. $20 a month for individuals, with School and Firm plans for teams.