LiberatED Podcast

It is such an honor to have Jeff Sandefer on the podcast today to talk about his experience as the co-founder, along with his wife Laura, of the fast-growing microschool network, Acton Academy. Jeff and Laura launched the first Acton Academy in Austin, Texas in 2009. Today, there are over 300 Acton Academies worldwide, serving thousands of learners.

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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)

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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

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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)

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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?

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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.

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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.

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