Jake Thompson is the founder of Heroes Academy, an Acton Academy in Boise, Idaho that he opened in 2016. Jake is also now the head of the entire Acton Academy network, which includes over 300 learner-driven schools serving thousands of students worldwide.

Check out Kerry's LiberatED interview with Acton Academy network cofounder, Jeff Sandefer.

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Today's guests are Taylor Munro and Lacey Fickes, cofounders of Peak Academy, a microschool in Richmond, Texas currently serving students in grades K-8, with a high school expansion in the works. They launched Peak Academy in August 2022, but prior to that both founders worked for many years as public school teachers in Texas.

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Tonya Kipe was an elementary school teacher in Florida public schools for over a decade before launching Kipe Academy, a microschool in Polk City, Florida. She grew her microschool from one student in January 2024 to 26 students today, including those with special learning needs.

Read more about Tonya's microschool in Kerry's latest article at The 74.

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Today's guest is Latoya Nelson, founder of The Attuned Community School, a hybrid homeschool program in Warner Robins, Georgia. Latoya is an experienced educator who taught in public schools and charter schools for over a decade. She has been especially interested in working with children in foster care, as well as adoptive families. Latoya launched her microschool in August 2022 after participating in the KaiPod Catalyst microschool accelerator program.

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Don and Ashley Soifer of the National Microschooling Center join me to talk about some of their microschooling predictions for 2025.

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Giselle McClymont knew from second grade that she wanted to be a teacher. She went on to earn an education degree in college and taught in Florida's Broward County public elementary schools for six years before leaving the system in 2022 to be a stay-at-home-mom with plans to homeschool her daughter. A year later, she learned about microschools and was hooked. Giselle soon launched Tree Stars Learning, a microschool in West Sunrise, Florida. She is now in the process of opening a second location in Coral Springs.

Read more about Giselle's entrepreneurial journey in Kerry's latest article at The 74.

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Susan Haws is the founder and Executive Director of Insight Colearning, a private learner-centered, micro-high school located in Durham, North Carolina. She began her career as a Teach For America member in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas in 1993. She went on to teach middle school and high school in traditional public schools, until she left the classroom to earn a Ph.D. from UNC-Chapel Hill. Insight Colearning began as a homeschooling collaborative in 2018 and is now a state-recognized private school. In 2022, North Carolina became the ninth state to enact a universal school-choice program enabling education funding to follow students to their preferred educational settings. Insight Colearning participates in the state's school-choice scholarship programs.

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Our guest today is Coi Morefield, founder of The Lab School of Memphis in Tennessee whose newest endeavor is Microschool Masters, a masterclass program for innovative schools and spaces that provides professional development resources for microschool teachers and leaders.

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Melanie Leone is a former public school teacher with a Master's degree in Educational Leadership. Over the course of her career, she's worked in multiple states and spent five years as a childcare center director which changed her philosophy of education. In fall 2023, she founded Anchor Center for Learning in Stow, Ohio as a three-day-a-week, multi-age microschool that emphasizes student autonomy, academic personalization, and a sense of wonder.

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Today's podcast guest is Tyler Thigpen, co-founder and CEO of The Forest School: An Acton Academy, The Forest School Online, and the Institute for Self Directed Learning in Fayetteville, Georgia. Tyler is also the Academic Director at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, a guest lecturer at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, and co-author of the new book, The Playbook for Self-Directed Learning: A Leader's Guide to School Transformation and Student Agency.

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