Heartwood ALC: a WASC-accredited microschool and homeschool hybrid program for families who believe that education should be an expansive, joyful experience rather than a stressful one. Currently enrolling grades 3 - 6.
Our learning community’s foundation is a single, research-backed truth: children are born with an inherent drive to explore, create, and understand. Whether your child is deep in a complex digital build, reflecting quietly in our sensory garden, or collaborating on a community co-design project, they are practicing essential skills. When the context empowers them to follow this drive and adults support them in directing it intentionally as they grow, truly transformative learning becomes possible. At Heartwood ALC, we celebrate young learners, partner with families, and offer an invitation-full space to foster in our students the self-possession and agility they need to navigate an ever-evolving world.
We believe that when a child is free to explore, experiment, focus, and wonder, they become the architects of their own futures and capable life-long learners. We nurture this growth daily by leveraging:
Agency & Independent Thinking: Our students make meaningful, self-directed choices every day. By navigating their own paths, with supportive community members as collaborators and co-thinkers, they develop their autonomy, discernment, and sense of purpose.
An Ecosystem of Belonging: We’ve designed a non-competitive, age-mixed environment where students learn from and with one another. In this space, a social breakthrough, creative project, or new skill is celebrated as deeply as an academic "level-up."
Play for Life: We protect space for abundant free play. Play connects children to their bodies, their creativity, their peers, and their environment. Play is how children engage in meaning-making, develop resilience, and practice complex problem-solving and social skills. And, of course, play is fun! The shape of play changes as children grow, but its value in their lives doesn’t.
Real Responsibility: From co-designing the weekly schedule to resolving interpersonal conflicts together, our students are active stewards of their space. These practices engage them in developing not just as independent learners but as capable, considerate community members.
Heartwood utilizes a trans-disciplinary competency model which defines success through developing transferable skills and self-actualization. One of the things this means is that we’re not a low-demand space, but we are a low-arbitrary-demand space. We’re high-engagement, high-agency, and in many ways high-responsibility. Our students are busy developing transferable skills and self-actualization; our facilitators aim to support rather than interrupt that work.
Our Clarkston microschool operates August through May, Monday through Friday, 9:00 am to 3:15 pm.
We currently have 5 open spots for fall and are currently accepting applications from the metro Atlanta area.
Our homeschool hybrid program runs Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays during the school year, with the same hours. Homeschool coops interested in partnership or meet-ups can contact us here.
There are many ways that people practice self-directed education. You can learn more about how we do it on our FAQ page.
Join us at Heartwood ALC, a space for the learner your child is already becoming.
A Typical Day, shared by our self-directed cat
