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micro school

Coronavirus / COVID-19CustomizationEducation ChoiceEducation EquityFeaturedMicroschoolsParent EmpowermentPodcastSchool Choice

podcastED: SUFS president Doug Tuthill interviews education innovator Kelly Smith

redefinED staff July 22, 2020
redefinED staff

In this episode, Tuthill speaks with the founder and CEO of Arizona-based Prenda, an organization on the frontlines of the micro-school tsunami that has ensued during the global pandemic. These home learning environments, catering to fewer than a dozen similarly aged students, are gaining traction as concerns about health and safety in brick-and-mortar schools continue to rise.

https://www.redefinedonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Kelly-Smith_EDIT.mp3

Smith discusses how he was inspired to create Prenda after realizing he didn’t “know how to learn” while studying at MIT and how that inspiration led him to envision countless opportunities to change the way America thinks about learning. Rejecting the notion that education is a passive activity, Smith launched Prenda as an organization “starting with the heart, honoring each child’s “divinity and infinite value.”

“We’re focused on the question, ‘What does it mean for children to engage in the world and learn things?’ … to go out and build the life you want?”

EPISODE DETAILS:

Prenda’s learning model of “conquer, collaborate, create”

How micro-schoolteachers act as guides to activate student learning

Equity issues and ensuring that the most vulnerable have access to Prenda programs

Criticisms surrounding ignoring pedagogical best practices in favor of Prenda’s holistic approach 

Prenda’s expansion plans into additional states including Florida

LINKS MENTIONED:

Conquer, Collaborate, Create – Prenda Learning Model

Washington Post: For parents who can afford it, a solution for the fall: Bring teachers to them

July 22, 2020 0 comment
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Educator spotlightFaith-based EducationFlorida Tax Credit ScholarshipMicroschoolsPrivate SchoolsSchool ChoiceSpotlights

The little school where it’s okay to fail

Ron Matus October 1, 2019
Ron Matus

Arts Thereafter Head of School Phil Henderson, a former district science teacher, reviews a student portfolio with one of 60 students at the K-12 “learner-driven” private micro-school he founded with his wife, Jennifer.

ST. CLOUD, Fla. – In the ever-expanding universe of public education, Phil and Jennifer Henderson are, by their own design, little fish in a big pond. A few years ago, the couple left teaching in public schools here on the edge of metro Orlando to start their own little micro-school.

Arts Thereafter is a faith-based, arts-rich, economically diverse, “learner-driven,” K-12 school with 60 students. (Try and label that! 😊) It reflects what the Hendersons think is the right way to do teaching and learning, spurred in part by a fear to fail that gripped one of their own children. (Click on the audio below to hear their account.)

Lawyers, ranchers and blueberry farmers like their approach. Nurses, mechanics and sheriff’s deputies do too. Many of them wouldn’t have been able to afford Arts Thereafter (as modestly priced as it is) without Florida’s menu of choice scholarships. The Hendersons wouldn’t have been able to sustain their school without them. But shared interest, and the freedom to try something new, is giving life to the couple’s vision. And who knows? It might even give educators, in Florida and beyond, another example of what’s possible under a new definition of public education.

“If you’re a fish that’s been in a fish tank for a long time, do you realize there’s a whole ocean out there?” said Henderson, 39, who taught science in district and charter middle schools. “I’m not saying our way is for everybody. But there’s a whole ocean out there of different ways of doing things.”

Jennifer Henderson, Middle School Head Guide and co-owner of Arts Thereafter, engages with students in the middle school studio. Henderson firmly believes education doesn’t have to be boring and true intelligence is not based on a test score.

Arts Thereafter is tucked into two modular buildings behind a modest church that pines hide from the highway. Its humble exterior belies that it’s part of the Acton Academy, an acclaimed micro-school network. From its start in Austin, Texas a decade ago, Acton has grown to 160 affiliates. Phil Henderson said when he stumbled on the network’s existence, “I was ready to give my life to it. I said if this is the future of education, count me in.”

There are no tests, no grades, no grade levels in the traditional sense. There are “guides” instead of teachers. Students are given wide latitude to become independent thinkers, to acquire useful, real-world knowledge by following their curiosity. They do projects and group work. Their peers hold them accountable.

Does it work? Let’s veer from fish to chicken.

Earlier this year, the kids in the middle school “studio” were challenged by their guide to build a structure. They initially proposed a playhouse (for the younger students) but … too expensive. Somebody suggested a chicken coop. They could raise chickens, sell the eggs, and learn tons of science along the way.

Arts Thereafter encourages students to learn through experience, working together on group projects that promote teamwork. Middle school students at the micro-school recently designed and built a chicken coop.

Working in teams, some of them acquired eggs from a local farmer and raised the chicks. Others contacted local builders to defray costs through donated materials. Others researched local ordinances to make sure it was legal to keep chickens. All of them worked together on the design, which had to be revised several times to meet financial realities. (The original called for a three-story “chicken mansion.”) All of them worked together to build it.

Last week, the students sold five roosters they raised for $10 each. The student designated to be the seller was sure he could get $20 each, but froze when it was time to haggle with the buyer. His peers razzed him a bit, but both he and they could laugh about it.

Failing was part of the process.

“This wasn’t take a test and regurgitate it back on paper,” Jennifer Henderson said. “This was planning, designing, re-designing, fixing, failing and trying again. We let them fail, early and often, so they know how to bounce back and do better next time.”

Half the students at Arts Thereafter use state choice scholarships, including 26 who use the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for lower-income students. (The scholarship is administered by nonprofits such as Step Up For Students, which hosts this blog.)

Katherine Day’s son Christian is one of them. Day, a mother of five, is a paraprofessional at a district school. Her husband is a branch manager for a rental car company. Christian, 13, was a bit of an outcast in public school. His peers picked on him because he liked to talk physics and the military, and most of his teachers, Day said, didn’t have the time or inclination to help. Christian woke up every morning dreading school.

In the beginning, it was rough at Arts Thereafter too. But the Hendersons kept in constant contact with Day. In a micro-school with 60 kids, they could.

Two years in, Christian is happy again, and fully engaged in his school. He’s made friends. He knows everybody is on his side. “Every issue, they helped me through it,” Day said. “It was like family.”

It remains to be seen how much micro-schools can chip away at the big challenges facing public education. But in a choice-rich state like Florida, it’s not hard to find more of them (like this one and this one) emerging in the shadows of school districts. One by one, they’re giving parents and teachers a glimpse into the endless educational variety that, with more choice, can be.

“These micro-schools are all answers to different questions,” Jennifer Henderson said. “Everybody’s different. Everybody has their own thought about how education should be, how their children should learn. We’re only an answer for some. We’re not an answer for all.”

But with more choice giving more educators more power, more answers might add up. The little fish at the Arts Thereafter micro-school checked their fear to fail.

They found out the water’s just fine.

https://www.redefinedonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Arts-Therafter-Acton-Academy.mp3
October 1, 2019 0 comment
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microschool
CustomizationEducation ReportingPrivate SchoolsSchool ChoiceTax Credit ScholarshipsVouchers

Ron Clark Academy: We have to give teachers more freedom

Matthew Ladner April 8, 2019
Matthew Ladner

I recently had the opportunity to visit Ron Clark Academy, where I got “slide certified” and my mind was blown. I’ve been to many outstanding schools over the last two decades, but I’ve never seen a school with the energy to match RCA.

RCA is a micro-school in Atlanta where 75 percent of the students receive aid from Georgia’s tax credit scholarship program. A private school covering grades 5-8, RCA plans to include fourth-graders next year. The enthusiasm of the kids and the staff is off the charts, as you can see in this video. Two young ladies in sixth grade showed me around the school, and I would be happy to bet on them against the field to be elected president of the United States by 2044.

RCA takes a lot of cues from Hogwarts of Harry Potter fame, and not just in terms of art and décor. The students join houses reminiscent of Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. If you want to see a respectful but spirited debate break out during your RCA tour, ask your student guides which house is best. If you are feeling especially mischievous, ask them which house is second best.

The RCA kids are amazing and are having a blast, and so are the teachers. The CNN video referenced above notes the school decided to be private so it could innovate. Clark’s quote is key: “You can talk about the state government, you talk about principals and superintendents, it all comes down to finding passionate people who want to teach. We have to give teachers more freedom, trust them more, and allow them to use their own creativity to fire up their own students in the way they know they need to do.”

Teachers travel from all over the world to learn RCA’s methods. Those methods are fun, and the kids who benefit from them are crushing the ball on scores and gains.

Here is what RCA is not doing:

If Florida thinks it will attract the tens of thousands of new teachers it needs by having them drone through a curriculum script like Ben Stein’s, good luck with that. If you want to set these people free to spend their careers reveling in the joy of learning like Ron Clark, the line will form to the left.

What does the state need to do? Start by giving more teachers the opportunity to run their own schools and more families the opportunity to select from among them. Let parents rate the schools, require light-touch academic transparency, and stay out of the way.

April 8, 2019 0 comment
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Private SchoolsSchool ChoiceTeacher EmpowermentTechnology and InnovationVoucher Left

Lessons from the Renaissance school

Ron Matus October 16, 2018
Ron Matus

BBI International micro school is another example of what’s possible with expansion of private school choice. Sixteen of its 50 students in K-5 use state-supported school choice scholarships. Here, first- and second-graders in Alexa Altamura’s cooking class learn how to make bucatini with amatriciana — and so much more.

POMPANO BEACH, Fla. – With a little help from their culinary instructor, the multi-ethnic group of first- and second-graders at BB International School chop, grate, dice, squeeze, season, stir and serve. They tong noodles into bubbling red sauce. They sprinkle in chili flakes. And along the way, they learn far more than how to rock an impressive bucatini with amatriciana.

The instructor, Alexa Altamura, adds a dash of math (slice the onion into cubes), a drop of geography (the pink salt is from the Himalayas), a pinch of global trade (tomatoes are originally from Mexico). She folds in a smidgen of anatomy (the role of muscles in chopping), a morsel of chemistry (steam, reduction, the Maillard reaction), a hint of marketing (that stamp in the cheese wax isn’t there by accident). There’s a little history scattered in (the recipe calls for pancetta because ancient Italians used cows for work, not food). And, incredibly, a lick of biology (a pivot into pasta varieties yields mention of black pasta, colored by the ink that squid disperse to escape predators.)

“There are more than 100 types of pasta,” Altamura tells her students, noses inhaling hot-plate heaven. “In America, we’re stifled.”

The cooking lesson at BBI is so fun, it’s easy to miss something even more fantastic: a peek into the future of public education.

BBI is a micro-school. In K-5, it has 50 students. (Its pre-school has another 80). The public school district around it has 271,000 students.

It’s wild to think of BBI as representative of tiny, new species emerging where Big and Standard have ruled for so long. But expansion of educational choice is shifting the terrain. The little ones, in all their nimble glory – from micro schools, to home school co-ops, to in between things that don’t even have names yet – have more ability than ever to adapt, evolve, expand. More educators can create options. More parents can choose them. And the potential niches where the twain shall meet are infinitely diverse.

“We could be a tony private school,” said Julia Musella, BBI’s founder and head of school. “But we make a deliberate effort to keep it affordable. This is a community school.”

Julia Musella wanted a high-quality, intentionally diverse school that emphasized how to learn, not what. BBI is the result of more than two decades of picking and choosing the best from a wide range of educational approaches. (Photo courtesy of Musella family.)

The child of a grocery store executive is enrolled here. So is the child of a cashier at Lester’s Diner. Trying to further describe BBI is like trying to describe a new color. Julia Musella and her son Luciano don’t have traditional educator backgrounds. Their vision, though, is an intentional blend of educational approaches they combined to spur curiosity and creativity. BBI, Julia Musella says, is “a world school with a Renaissance curriculum.”

School choice is key.

Sixteen of BBI’s K-5 students use educational choice scholarships. Ten use the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for lower-income students. Five use McKay Scholarships for students with exceptionalities. One uses a Gardiner Scholarship, an education savings account for students with special needs such as autism. (Step Up For Students, which publishes this blog, administers the tax credit and Gardiner programs.) For some students, the Musella family foundation helps bridge the gap between scholarship and tuition.

The Musellas see choice as vital to advancing equity and diversity. Without it, BBI could not be the Renaissance-for-all they want it to be.

“In my area, there isn’t enough representation of what America is in our schools,” Julia Musella said, referring to diversity in schools, public and private. “You have to learn as a human being to work with everybody who lives on our planet. You have to understand them, and understand cultural differences, and find out what you have in common, and work from there.”

***

As fate would have it, BBI’s one-acre campus bloomed in the iguana-happy sprawl of Broward County. The centerpiece is the restored home of Pompano Beach’s founding family. Yellow brick, lush vegetation, rows of tricycles. The first impression, elegant and whimsical, is not by accident.

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October 16, 2018 6 comments
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