I’ll be honest—I never planned to homeschool.
My son was at a great private school. We loved his teachers. Then the pandemic hit, and suddenly my five years old was isolated and not really learning online. As hard as people tried, it just wasn’t working for him.
He’s curious, social, and full of life and I remember thinking: I don’t want him to spend his one wildly beautiful existence on a screen. So we tried something different.
We created a more intentional rhythm for learning, one rooted in connection, movement, and meaning. Over time, that decision grew into Ellemercito Learning Community, a hybrid homeschool program and microschool in Southern California.
At its core, the approach is simple: children thrive when they feel safe, seen, and supported. We combine core academics with real-world experiences and partner with community experts while spending time outdoors where learning feels alive and relevant.
We call this delight-directed learning. We ask students: What brings you delight? What sets your heart on fire? What makes you come alive?
When learning is rooted in connection, it becomes something lived. The goal is not simply engagement, but that learners feel deeply enlivened—curious, confident, and fully themselves.
Across California, more families are searching for something like this where learning is personal, flexible, and responsive to not only who their children are, but what they may become. We’re seeing educators stepping forward to build new models with a clear sense of purpose even if their resources are limited.
Microschools are intentionally small, relationship-driven communities with no funding or connections to the public school systems. For many families, they are life-changing. Yet the systems around them have not kept pace.
In many parts of the state, founders run into a patchwork of zoning rules and regulatory hurdles. Small programs of less than a dozen children are treated like large institutions and subject to costly permits and approval processes that were never designed for this kind of model.
Families ready to find these options—and educators ready to create them—often find themselves stalled before they even begin.
A bill currently under consideration, Senate Bill 1086 by Sen. Megan Dahle of Northern California, aims to change that by creating a clearer pathway for microschools through streamlined local approval. For many founders, it could mean the difference between opening their doors or remaining caught in systems that were never built for small, community-based learning.
This is not about replacing existing systems. There is room for all-of-the-above approaches where public, private, charter, homeschool, hybrid, and microschool can flourish alike. What matters for each of these options ultimately is how quickly the community can respond to and provide environments where children can truly thrive. We are also seeing a shift in how success is understood beyond academic outcomes.
Can we magnify our children’s sense of belonging, purpose, and a genuine love of learning? Can educators and policymakers imagine new possibilities in the 21st Century outside of the traditional school walls? What about a STEM-focused microschool, a performing arts conservatory, a school focused on forestry and ecosystems, a bilingual learning community or a design and innovation lab?
As a homeschooling mother and an educator of two decades, I have seen what becomes possible when learning is rooted in connection and meaning. Across California, more communities are exploring these possibilities together and they are unlimited.
Because the truth is that families and founders are not waiting for policy to catch up to their courage. They are already building and actively seeking one another.
In these small, human-centered spaces, connection creates capacity to explore, to adventure, to delve into interests, to ask questions, to engage deeply, and to grow into who they are becoming.
This is where learners begin to flourish, not just academically, but as confident, capable, and self-aware individuals.
The microschooling movement is growing. Innovation is already underway and we hope that the legislature can share our everyday courage and catch up by moving SB 1086 forward.
Lizette Valles is the founder of Ellemercito Learning Community, a healing-centered hybrid homeschool program and microschool in Southern California, and of the California Microschool Collective, where she supports families and founders in creating more human-centered learning environments.