LiberatED Podcast

Our guest today is Judy Dwyre, who in the fall of 2019 launched Allium Montessori , a microschool for children ages 6 to 12 that is part of the national Wildflower Montessori microschool network. The first Wildflower microschool opened in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2014. Today, there are more than 60 of these microschools across the US and Puerto Rico. Most of them are private, but Wildflower pub...

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Today's guest is Lizette Valles, a longtime teacher and school librarian who founded Ellemercito Academy in 2021 as a microschool focused on experiential learning and trauma-informed approaches to education. She is also the founder of Compass Educators , an educational services center that began as a holistic tutoring program but expanded to offer more services driven by parent demand, including s...

Bob Luddy is a successful entrepreneur who founded CaptiveAire Systems, the nation's leading manufacturer of commercial kitchen ventilation systems, and later became an education entrepreneur, founding Thales Academy in 2007. Thales Academy is a classically-focused network of low-cost, PreK-12 private schools that has seen extraordinary growth from starting as a microschool with 30 students in a t...

Rachel Goff taught in the New York City public schools for 16 years. She was growing increasingly disillusioned by what she was seeing unfold in the conventional classroom and finally decided to leave and launch Creative Space Learning Center in 2021, after choosing homeschooling for her own children. Creative Space is a learning center for PreK- 8th grade homeschooled children in Long Beach, New...

Felicia Rattray decided to launch Permission To Succeed Academy in the summer of 2020 after schools shut down due to the pandemic and the shift to remote schooling gave her an up-close look at her nephew's classroom. A longtime public school teacher, Felicia realized how far behind he was academically and created her microschool to help students like her nephew with a more personalized, mastery-ba...

Kenneth Mims is the founder of Science Prep Academy in Phoenix, a private STEM microschool for neurodivergent students in grades 6th-12th. Ken founded Science Prep in 2017 after working for several years with autistic students in Arizona. Last fall, Science Prep was awarded the $1 million "Ducey Prize" funded by Janine Yass, founder of The Yass Prize, to enable the school to open at least five mor...

Holler Creek School of Appalachian Ecology is a small, private K-5 school located in Carroll County, Virginia, just below the Blue Ridge Parkway. Its two founders are Aaron Sebens and Melanie Schrage, both experienced educators who wanted to create a school that embraces what they call "radical rural education." They launched Holler Creek in the fall of 2021. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly e...

Pastor Joshua Robertson is the Senior Pastor of The Rock Church of Harrisburg, PA and CEO and founder of Black Pastors United for Education . Through his role, he has spearheaded a variety of community initiatives aimed at education and youth empowerment, including establishing church-based learning centers for local young people who are enrolled in one of Pennsylvania's virtual charter schools.  ...

Josh Pickel grew up in Canton, Illinois and returned home to teach at the public schools he had once attended. As time went on, he felt increasingly unsettled about the coercive classroom dynamics characteristic of conventional schooling.   Josh began researching alternative education models and came across  Liberated Learners , a network of self-directed learning centers for teenagers modeled aft...

Today's episode covers three interesting and intersecting topics: unschooling, careers in the trades, and barriers to youth apprenticeships and employment. My guests are Wendy Zanders and her 16-year-old son, Keyshon, a certified welder with dreams of someday running his own business. Related article: Loosening Youth Employment Regulations Empowers Teens *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email...

Jenna Wertheimer leads Grace Preparatory Academy , a University Model® hybrid homeschool just outside of Boston. Students in kindergarten through 8th grade attend drop-off classes with hired teachers two days a week, from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and then continue to work on their curriculum at home with their parents or in self-organized cooperatives.  Grace Prep was launched in 2012 by two homesc...

Elements Academy is a private preK-12 microschool and family wellness community located in Braintree, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. Its founder is Heather DiNino, a former teacher and special education department chair in the Massachusetts public schools for more than a decade who realized that learning could and should be different. At Elements Academy, she has built a stunning alternati...

Kenisha Skaggs founded SOAR Academy in Georgia in 2011 as a non-traditional private school that focuses on an individualized approach to learning. Approximately 85% of SOAR Academy's students are neurodiverse or have special learning needs. Since its founding, SOAR Academy has reached more than 500 students and continues to have a long waitlist.   *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newslet...

Stacey Hammerlind and Jessica Rothbart are the cofounders of Micah Studios , a low-cost, secular microschool for children ages 6-18 in Newport, New Hampshire with a specific focus on low-income students who are now eligible for various school choice programs. Jessica is a homeschooling mother of six children and Stacey is a mother of four adult children and grandmother to two with a shared passion...

Eric Eisenbrey is the founder of the Eyes and Brains STEM Center , a microschool in the small town of Elkins, West Virginia that opened last year with a focus on science, technology, engineering, and math.   Eric was a public school teacher for 10 years before creating his exciting year-round, K-12 microschool, which he launched with the help of Microschool Builders . *** Sign up for Kerry's free,...

Dal "Doc" Richardson launched BreakOut School in Utah County, Utah in 2019 as an outdoor-based microschool focusing on kids with ADHD and neurodiversity. After a 20-year career as a pharmacist, he saw the need to create new and different learning options for young people in his community. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated .

Laura George is a mom of 11 now-grown children who homeschooled for 20 years before launching Compass Prep Academy in 2005 in Cherokee County, Georgia, just north of Atlanta. Compass Prep is a faith-based hybrid homeschool programs that is open to everyone. Hybrid homeschool programs began to emerge back in the mid-1990s and have gained tremendous traction over the past decade—and especially over...

Our Resilient Community ALC is a Georgia-based microschool for LGBTQ+ youth. It is part of the Agile Learning Centers (ALC) network of self-directed education schools and homeschool learning centers across the US and around the world. Thea Canby and Nicole Gustafson cofounded Our Resilient Community in January 2022, but both of them had been working at an ALC prior to launch, and each have more th...

Olivia Hasey and Emily Sieger are the cofounders of Raindrop Academy , a drop-off K-6 microschool for homeschoolers in the rural town of Rogue River, Oregon, located about four hours south of Portland. Raindrop Academy meets in a bright and cheerful agricultural grange and incoporates elements of Waldorf, Montessori, and self-directed, democractic educational philosophies. *** Sign up for Kerry's...

Chioma Onyewuchi is the founder of Heart & Heritage Center , an alternative experiential, outdoor program for homeschoolers in Houston, Texas that focuses on childhood creativity, curiosity, and a deep connection to African heritage and culture. Chioma was born and raised in Aba, Nigeria, and came to the U.S. for college, where she graduated summa cum laude from Fairleigh Dickinson University. She...

Karinna Fairbanks has experienced a wide variety of learning environments during her childhood and adolescence, including public schooling, virtual schooling, homeschooling, microschooling, and unschooling. Now, at age 15, she is entering college this fall as a sophomore, having accumulated numerous credits as a self-directed teen. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education...

Phoebe Love and Jennifer Lin and staff members at the Saint Louis Sudbury School , a self-directed, democratic, Sudbury-model school located in Saint Louis, Missouri. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated .

Nicole Doyle is a longtime homeschooling mom and home education advocate who cofounded the Georgia Black Home Educators Network in 2022. She is also the president of DeKalb Christian Home Educators, a homeschool co-op that's been serving the metro Atlanta area since 1989.   The Network hosted its first annual Flourish Black Family Homeschool Conference in January 2023 with nearly 350 attendees, an...

Noah Mayers has been working in education for over 20 years. He was a teaching artist for 8 years in both public and charter schools, then worked as a woodshop teacher at a private school for a year for before launching Brooklyn Apple Academy in New York City in 2010. Located in the Park Slope neighborhood, Brooklyn Apple is a self-directed learning center for homeschoolers and unschoolers. It cur...