LiberatED Podcast

Justine Wilson is the founder of Curious and Kind Education. She has been an educator for 18 years working in a variety of roles including outdoor science educator, public school teacher, and university instructor doing teacher-training. She launched the nature-based Curious & Kind in 2023 as part of the Agile Learning Centers (ALC) Network that prioritizes self-directed education.

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Thomas Arnett is a senior research fellow in education at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation. He is the author of a new paper on why parents choose microschools, entitled: Families on the New Frontier: Mapping and Meeting the Growing Demand for Unconventional Schooling.

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The Sanctuary Academy on the north side of Chicago is a Catholic microschool focused on learner-driven education enabling each child to follow his or her own unique path. It is part of the global Acton Academy network of hundreds of learner-driven microschools serving thousands of learners. The Sanctuary Academy is the first intentionally Catholic version of the Acton model. It was cofounded in 2020 by Kelly and Michael Sullivan who are homeschooling parents to their 8 children. They currently operate The Sanctuary Academy as a three-day hybrid homeschool program and have 37 students.

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The Cherry Hill School in El Paso, Texas is a Reggio Emilia-inspired, project-based 1st through 5th Jewish microschool that was founded in 2020. Joining me today to talk more about Cherry Hill and its learner-centered educational philosophy is Meg Birk, Head of School Curriculum at The Cherry Hill School. Prior to joining Cherry Hill, Meg spent 36 years as a public school educator in the El Paso School District.

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Rida Rizvi is a cofounder of Al Hadi Learning Organization, a Muslim microschool in the Washington, DC area that sprouted in 2017 as an off-shoot of a mommy-and-me class. It currently operates as a learner-centered preschool and early-elementary microschool. Rida is now creating a new organization called Azeez Academy for upper-elementary students.

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Todd Hepworth is the co-founder of Orchard STEM School, a K-8 microschool located in a working orchard in his rural community of Santaquin, Utah that is scheduled to open this August. Todd worked as a public school teacher for more than a decade, as well as an administrator at a Waldorf-inspired charter school, before becoming an education entrepreneur.

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Alexis and JT Rubatzky are the founders of Triumph: An Acton Academy in Cleveland, Tennessee, just outside of Chattanooga. Triumph is a home-based microschool for homeschoolers that opened in August 2023 and is part of the Acton Academy network of hundreds of learner-driven microschools.

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Rachel Good is the founder of Discovery Learners' Academy (DLA), a microschool that opened in Chattanooga, Tennessee in fall 2022. Rachel worked for more than 8 years as a public school teacher in Washington and Tennessee before launching DLA as a state-recognized PreK-12 private school with a personalized educational approach. It opened with 21 learners and today has 50—about 15 of whom attend part-time as homeschoolers. About half of the school's students are neurodiverse, a population that Good caters to as a former special education teacher.

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Iman Alleyne is the founder of Kind Academy and creator of Launch Your Kind, an accelerator program for those interested in opening their own microschools!

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Kaity Broadbent is the Chief Empowerment Advocate at Prenda, the national network that has helped to launch hundreds of microschools serving thousands of learners since 2018. A homeschooling mom, Kaity is a thoughtful and insightful voice on the topic of personalized learning and alternative education models. Prior to Prenda, Kaity was a Speech-Language Pathologist in public schools, literacy coach, and curriculum designer. She's a certified peaceful parenting coach and mom to four Prenda kids ages 4 to 11.

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