LiberatED Podcast

More than a decade ago, Dani Foltz-Smith sent her two girls to a new school that had recently opened in Austin, Texas. It was the flagship Acton Academy, launched in 2009 by Jeff and Laura Sandefer to prioritize learner-driven education and enable each child to pursue his or her own "hero's journey." Dani's family adored their Acton experience so much that when they needed to move back to Los Angeles, Dani became the 3rd ever Acton Academy campus, after Austin and Guatemala, opening Acton Academy Venice Beach in 2013. Today, there are more than 300 Acton Academy microschools serving thousands of learners. Read more about Dani's school and the greater ecosystem of decentralized education options in the Los Angeles area: In Los Angeles, A Tiny School Lets Young People Direct Their Own Education (The 74) *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Refine KC is a full-time, faith-based microschool in the Kansas City, Missouri area that launched in August 2022 with 15 K-12 students. Today, it is at capacity with 40 students, 6 teachers, and a waiting list. Three of Refine KC's founders are with us on today's podcast to talk about why their school is so popular. "Church-Based Microschools Are 'Sprouting Everywhere'" (The Lion) *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Mercedes Grant and Isis Spann are two founders who launched their microschools this fall in Virginia and South Carolina, respectively. They share their startup experiences, surprises, and challenges, and offer advice to new education entrepreneurs. Mercedes runs Path of Life Learning in Yorktown, VA, and Isis runs A Home for School in Moncks Corner, SC. Both founders participated in the spring 2023 cohort of the KaiPod Catalyst program. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

As education across the US transforms from a centralized, top-down system to a diverse, decentralized marketplace responsive to the needs and preferences of learners and families, it can create some challenges for the entrepreneurial parents and teachers who are creating these new, bottom-up education solutions. Joining me on the podcast today is Mike Donnelly, an experienced attorney and vice president at the Yes Every Kid Foundation who is working to support today's education entrepreneurs and champion their innovative learning models. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

I recently spent time in the greater Kansas City area visiting microschools and learning pods, and talking to founders, and was struck by what I found. All seven of the learning environments I visited were founded within the past three years and all of the founders are former public school teachers who quit and created these alternative programs. They also all expressed greater levels of personal and professional fulfillment. One of those founders is our guest today, Tara Cassidy. Tara was a public school teacher for 17 years, but grew increasingly frustrated with the institutional bureaucracy and was also not happy with her children's experiences in the local public schools. In August 2022, she launched Crossroad Trails Education Center, a low-cost microschool with eight students in a commercial storefront location that previously housed a daycare center. By November, she had 20 students. To accommodate local demand for her program, Cassidy opened up walls and expanded into an adjacent space. She is now at capacity with over 30 mixed-age learners in kindergarten through high school, despite no marketing or outreach. Forbes: Former Public School Teachers Find Happiness in Entrepreneurship *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Alexi Burgess is the co-founder of Alcove Learning, a self-directed learning center for teens and tweens in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. Alcove opened in January 2020 as part of the Liberated Learners network of self-directed learning centers across the U.S. In Los Angeles, A Tiny School Lets Young People Direct Their Own Education (The74) *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

A common question about unconventional educational models, and especially about self-directed ones that put young people in charge of their own education, is how do kids turn out? To help answer that question I've invited Evan Hughes, who attended the renowned Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, MA for his childhood and adolescence, and now sends his son there as well. Sudbury Valley was founded in 1968 and has since inspired the creation of dozens of Sudbury-model schools around the world. It prioritizes non-coercive, self-directed education within a democratically run community where adults and children have equal say in school operations, rule-making and enforcement, hiring and firing decisions, and so on. There are no adult-imposed classes, no grades, no curriculum or top-down evaluative measures. So how exactly does a person learn in this environment? *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Frank Farro is the cofounder, along with his wife Natalie, of Acton Academy North Broward, in Coral Springs, Florida, which they launched in 2020. Acton Academy is of course the popular, fast-growing global network of learner-driven microschools, now encompassing more than 300 independently owned and operated Acton-affiliated schools. I've had the privilege of highlighting several affiliated Acton Academies on this podcast and profiling them in my Forbes column, and it's such a pleasure to have Frank on today's show to talk about his experience as an Acton-affiliate founder. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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 public charter microschools now also operate in New York City, Minneapolis, and Washington, DC. (I visited and interviewed the founders of the Wildflower charter school in the South Bronx back in episode 94.) And I've also visited Judy's Allium Montessori here in Cambridge, which is located just around the corner from me in Harvard Square. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

What is the LiberatED Podcast and who should listen? Check out this quick trailer to learn more!

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 support for navigating school choice policies, and support for "road schooling" and "worldschooling" families. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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 temporary spot in the back of Luddy's corporate office to now serving over 6,100 students across 13 locations in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Thales was recently named a semi-finalist for the prestigious Yass Prize for education innovation. Entrepreneurial Life: The Path from Startup to Market Leader, by Robert Luddy *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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 York, on the south shore of Long Island, that follows a child-led learning philosophy. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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-based, culturally relevant curriculum. The first year of opening she had 6 students. Now, she has 60 in-person learners and 7 teachers. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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 more schools in the Phoenix area and increase capacity to 800 students in new schools throughout the country. Ken is also the founder of the Neurodiversity Education Research Center which helps to support neurodivergent students as they prepare to enter the workforce in STEM-related fields. Science Prep Academy is a program of this research center. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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 email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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 after North Star, a learning center in western Massachusetts that was started in 1996 by Ken Danford, who was also a disillusioned public school teacher. Last summer, Josh quit his teaching job to open Canton Learning Collaborative, a self-directed microschool for homeschoolers. It grew from 5 learners last fall to 15 young people over the course of its first year. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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 newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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 homeschooling moms who wanted more consistent structure and social interactions for their homeschooled children within a faith-based learning environment. Their initial class had seven students. Today, Grace Prep serves more than 70 K-8 students with 11 staff members. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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 alternative to conventional schooling where young people thrive. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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 newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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 for education and expanding learning options for local families. Register here for the Encouraging Education Entrepreneurship & Innovation in N.H. Conference (September 30, 2023) *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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 the past 3 years. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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 than 10 years of experience as educators. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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 free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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 currently homeschools her two children, ages 10 and 8. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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 trends at fee.org/liberated.

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, and is expecting its January 2024 conference to be even bigger! *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

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 currently serves about 50 learners who attend part-time throughout the week. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Dr. LeDonna Griffin is the founder of Leaders to Legends Academy in Omaha, Nebraska. She works directly with families who are seeking alternatives to conventional schooling to educate their children. LeDonna worked in the Nebraska public schools as both a teacher and principal for 30 years. In 2019, she launched Leaders to Legend as a homeschool co-op, and in 2020, interest in her model soared. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Troy Salazar is the founder of Liberty Self-Directed Learning Center in West Des Moines, Iowa. Troy worked in public schools for 22 years, first as a second grade teacher in a rural community in Iowa and later in the Des Moines public schools where he spent most of his teaching career. He launched Liberty SDLC in Fall 2022 after becoming frustrated by the conventional schooling model. Liberty is part of the Liberated Learners global network of self-directed learning centers. "I remember saying to colleagues and friends, why are there so many unhappy kids? It just blew my mind," said Troy in our interview. "There were several times in the last few years where I said I can't do this anymore. Then, in my last year, I called my wife and said the idea of our grandkids being in this classroom scares me. I wasn't exaggerating or being dramatic, and it was nothing that the kids were doing. It was the response that the kids were having to this system. They were so checked out." Read the recent Forbes.com article featuring Troy and Liberty SDLC: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerrymcdonald/2023/07/21/its-the-year-of-universal-school-choice-but-barriers-remain/ Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Listen to Kerry's keynote presentation on education entrepreneurship and innovation at the 2023 Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO) conference, recorded live on June 23, 2023 at Long Island University. Read the case study of education entrepreneurship across the US. Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Karema Akilah is a former teacher in the Maryland public schools who began homeschooling her children 20 years ago, of which the past 12 have been devoted to unschooling, or self-directed education. Through her personal unschooling journey, she began wondering about the possibilities of Web 3.0, blockchain technology, and artificial intelligence to capture the magic of the unschooling educational experience. She launched The Genius School and the Genii DAO app to blend the theory and practice of unschooling with decentralization technologies to help build the future of learning. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Linsey Knerl is a mom of 6 in Nebraska who has been a working and homeschooling mom for over 15 years. In 2021, her book, Homeschool Hacks: How to Give Your Kid a Great Education Without Losing Your Job (or Your Mind), was published by Simon & Schuster and served as a timely resource for the many parents who were drawn to homeschooling as a result of the education disruption caused by the pandemic response. It remains highly relevant today. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Nestled at the end of a residential cul-de-sac in Hopewell, Virginia is Dream Tech Academy, a microschool founded by former public school teacher, Danette Buckley. Dream Tech Academy launched in 2019 with four children, including three of Danette's own, as a homeschooling and tutoring program. It is now a recognized K-12 private school with about 30 children and four hired educators and is located in an inviting single family home just outside of Richmond that Danette purchased exclusively for her school. Read Kerry's Forbes article featuring Danette and her microschool. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Matt Dreier and Kristen Braia are the cofounders of a new Acton Academy affiliate microschool, Pace Academy, in North Chesterfield, Virginia, about 10 miles outside of Richmond. Matt retired from a 20-year career in the US Marine Corps and began pursuing his interest in education. He earned a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and then teamed up with his niece, Kristen, a mom and successful entrepreneur, to launch their microschool. When Pace Academy opens this fall, it will join approximately 300 other microschools in the fast-growing Acton Academy network, and will be one of six Acton affiliate microschools in Virginia. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Kimberly Stringer is the founder of Kreative Kids Academy in Wichita, Kansas, a child-led, outdoor-based licensed preschool that during the pandemic response and school shutdowns expanded to include a school-age program that continues to grow and flourish. I had the chance to meet Kim and visit Kreative Kids and was so taken by its beauty, warmth, joyfulness, and emphasis on the value of abundant outdoor time for children. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Cecile Enright is the founder of River's Edge Academy Charter School (REACH), which she launched in 2011 with 70 students in a leased church space in rural Rogue River, Oregon. Today, the school serves over 200 students in two locations. REACH is a K-12 hybrid charter school, enabling students to be on campus for part of the week and to learn from home or in the community for the remainder of the week, often taking enrichment classes in areas such as art, music, and 4-H with local community partners. As a charter school, REACH students attend tuition-free. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

When schools shut down in 2020, Detroit mom Danna Guzman joined countless parents across the US who created "pandemic pods" to enable their children to continue learning together during school shutdowns. Mounting enthusiasm for her learning pod led Danna to expand it into an established microschool for homeschoolers that continues to grow and flourish today. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Maysaa Bazna haș been involved in education and alternative education for many years. She earned her doctorate in curriculum and teaching at Columbia University, and was a professor in Columbia's Teachers College and the City University of New York (CUNY). She has taught in the areas of learning disabilities, disability studies, and inclusive education. Maysaa is currently the Director of Professional Practice and Community Partnerships at the School of Education, Queens College, CUNY. In 2010, looking to create the kind of hands-on, self-directed educational experience she wanted for her child, she launched Pono, an outdoor, democratic education co-learning community in New York City. She continues to serve in an advisory role for Pono while also expanding her passion for outdoor education by partnering with the New York City public schools. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Today's guest is Ariel Maguire, an accountant and mom of 4 who lives in a rural area of the Big Island of Hawaii. In early 2022, she and a group of local moms got together to create Kulike Learning Garden, a Waldorf-inspired microschool structured as a Private Membership Association, or PMA, to help with the care and education of their children in an area with severe child care shortages. They hired an experienced teacher and were successfully operating the program for about a year until state regulators shut them down, and fined Ariel $5,000, for running an "unlicensed" school. Local Hawaii news coverage of Ariel's story. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

"A lot of families started realizing things weren't working in the conventional system," said Syreeta Farria, a homeschooling mother of two children in Detroit who, along with another homeschooling mother, Victoria Washington, runs a weekly homeschooling program for local families. Farria has seen the growth in homeschooling over the past three years, particularly among families of color. "There are a lot of stereotypes about what homeschoolers look like. And quite often, most people do not see moms like myself and Victoria. They do not see that there are Black and brown families in urban areas that are moving away from traditional learning and deciding to do homeschooling or non-traditional methods when it comes to educating their children." *** Sign up for my free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Cara Frantz is a certified professional midwife who never planned to launch a microschool until the school closures and education disruption of 2020 led her to create Envision Homeschool Collective for her children, their friends, and members of the community. Envision Homeschool Collective consists of two microschools, one for high schoolers on her property and the other for middle schoolers just a mile down the road, with three hired educators. Prompted by local demand, Cara intends to expand her microschools over the coming months. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Ben Kestner and Lisa Pavlock are experienced educators who taught in both public and private schools in the US and internationally before leaving conventional education in 2013 in search of something different. They moved to Montana with their young daughter and founded a Sudbury-inspired, democratic school on a Native American reservation. In 2021, they moved to Ibiza in Spain to help lead The Learning Project in Ibiza, a new Sudbury-model, democratic school focused on non-coercive, self-directed learning. *** Sign up for Kerry's free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Coi Morrison worked for several years as a public school teacher in both the Chicago Public Schools and the Memphis Public Schools. She became frustrated by the standard education system and left education, earned an MBA, and worked in banking for a while before returning to teaching. It was searching for a school for her own four children that led her to create The Lab School of Memphis in 2021. Sign up for my free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.

Becky Abrams is a longtime homeschooling mom in the Rogue Valley of southern Oregon who started a small, parent-run homeschool co-op in 2015. That co-op led to the creation of Arrows Christian Academy, a drop-off, K-8, hybrid school with nearly 200 kids and 25 staff members in two locations. As she delegates more of Arrow's day-to-day operations, Becky is now helping other education entrepreneurs to create similar learning models across the country through her website, nonprofitedsolutions.com. *** Sign up for my free, weekly email newsletter on education trends at fee.org/liberated.