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Acton Academy Topsail
Watch this 15-minute Acton Academy Documentary on YouTube. It provides a strong foundation for our discussion in this episode. After watching, return here to dive into the details.
Are you familiar with Disruptive Education? Join me today as Nick and Jessica Bahr introduce a revolutionary approach to learning with Acton Academy and their new affiliate school opening this fall in the Topsail area, Acton Academy Topsail.
Imagine a school without traditional teachers. Instead, they have guides who answer students’ questions with more questions, encouraging critical thinking and self-discovery. No letter grades here—instead, students earn points and badges. Learners set their own pace, pursue their passions, and embark on their own Hero’s Journey alongside their peers in a collaborative studio environment.
If you’re looking for an innovative school option in Topsail, tune in to today’s episode. And be sure to share it with anyone interested in new educational opportunities.
Website: https://www.actontopsail.com/
Phone: 385-210-7404
Email: nick@actontopsail.com
Address: Coming Soon!
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Order “Courage to Grow” on Amazaon
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Welcome to Topsail Insider, where you can hear all about the businesses and events in the beautiful coastal towns in the greater Topsail area of North Carolina Coming up. Have you heard of disruptive education? I hadn't until just recently. Today, nick Barr and his wife Jessica will be joining us to discuss Acton Academy Topsail. That's A-C-T-O-N. Acton Academy Topsail a brand new school, completely different from the public, private and charter schools we're all used to. I'm going to do something a little different today and recommend you pause this episode and click the top link in my show notes. It will take you to a 15-minute Acton Academy documentary on YouTube. Check it out, then resume listening here. It will provide a solid foundation for today's discussion. Today, nick and Jessica will share insights about Acton's learner-driven community, the hero's journey, socratic guides instead of traditional teachers, and how kids collaborate on real-world projects with self-management and self-governance. This new school opens this fall. Stay tuned everyone. We have a lot to cover today on Topsail Insider.
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Speaker 1:Hello everyone and welcome to Topsail Insider. My name is Krista and I am your host. Today we are talking to Nick and Jessica Barr that's B-A-H-R Barr. They are the co-founders of an affiliate, acton Academy Acton Academy Topsal. Welcome, nick and Jessica. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 1:Thank you yeah thanks for having us. I did talk to some mothers before bringing you guys in here and there was some excitement about having another option here for us in Hampstead. And we do have one charter school, but only one, and one of the moms was saying where she came from, which was Charlotte she goes. There were charter schools everywhere. We had plenty to choose from. So we are limited. We are a bunch of transplants here and a lot of us, including myself, moved here specifically because the Topsail School District was so great. I just want to start out by saying that this episode isn't about whether or not the Topsail schools are good. They are good. This is about exploring a disruption to the way kids have been taught for over a century, which is the standardized curriculum and the standardized testing. The one size fits all in this age group teaching.
Speaker 1:So, this is a disruption. It has some Montessori touches to it. I think I don't have experience with Montessori, so you guys will have to tell me the similarities there as we go through this. I am going to give you some time here to explain this, the concept of the Acton Academy. I'm just going to let you go with it and tell us how it's so different from traditional schools.
Speaker 2:Great, oh, thank you, and thank you again for having us. Yeah, we agree with you Also. First of all, people care about education, and there's a lot of individuals doing their very best, putting their best efforts to work, and, like you, we're not here to say that anybody's doing a bad job, but we are glad to be able to offer an alternative, something a little different, and so that's what we found with Acting Academy, and I guess, to set this up for us and for the original founders of Acting Academy, good decision-making for our children is crucial. We want them to be able to make good decisions, so it is different than traditional schools we use. We call them guides rather than teachers, which is, I think, a term borrowed from Maria Montessori, and Socratic discussions are a big part of what we're doing, and that's where that kind of decision-making process comes in. It's a very much learner-driven environment. I'm sure we'll get into that a little bit more too.
Speaker 1:Oh, we will. This was a whole new language for me, actually.
Speaker 2:For us too, but it just with like sparks of delight and joy, almost common sense to me as well, as I've learned about it. It just it makes a lot of sense to me. So our young learners will have running partners and their peers will help critique their work and they'll hold each other accountable.
Speaker 1:So a running partner is someone in their age group their age range yeah.
Speaker 2:Yep. So a running partner will be somebody that they can look to, first to say hey, can you look over this, or did I do well enough here? And that kind of thing I guess I should say first every individual that walks through our doors at Acton Academy, we believe, is a genius. And it sounds cliche, but it's true, it's just. It's not just a sweet little phrase, it's something we actually believe and that each of those geniuses deserves to find a calling to be able to change the world in a profound way, and for that we use the hero's journey as a method or analogy for what we're doing.
Speaker 2:So our hope is that people that walk through our doors will be able to find their calling, find that thing that really makes them tick, find a passion, and I'm struggling with that with my own kids.
Speaker 1:When they come in, are you looking and trying to recognize what their passion might be? Are you truly just giving it to them and letting them explore and figure that out themselves?
Speaker 2:Good question, jess can answer if you have thoughts.
Speaker 3:I was just going to say it, the great thing about Acton is they will be introduced to lots of different interests and activities and projects and hopefully along the way they will find that passion because they will have plenty of opportunities to explore lots of different avenues.
Speaker 1:I was wondering about the different things that they might be exposed to, because right now it's math, science, social studies, reading and those we have to have. I get that Core skills. Yeah, what else are you providing them that would lead them to that passion? I did see in the video there was gardening, for instance, horticulture. What else are you having at your school to give them something outside of the basics?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I guess a typical day would start with a launch and we can talk about that. But to answer your question, we'll start with a launch and then, generally speaking, the first half of the day is dedicated to core skills, which our heroes or young learners will go and essentially on their own and with electronic device devices maybe it's Khan Academy for math or Lexia mastery based software that they will be using, and the great thing about that is they master it and then they move on, so really they can move as quickly as they want.
Speaker 2:They're not held back by everybody else in the class so that's the first part of the day which maybe is a little more individual, but still some collaboration goes on. And then the second part of the day is what we call quest and that's where there's more integrating everything they're learning all together. So it could be like you mentioned gardening maybe there's somebody interested in horticulture, but we also have. This is part of what I think makes the guide different than just a teacher. They can set up optional project ideas, or would call them launches, for the young learners to be able to pick and choose their project to work on and focus on throughout the year or the six-week session.
Speaker 1:I think the key differences, if I'm understanding everything correctly, is traditional school. You're in the classroom from 7.30 to 2.30. You go with your same age group. You do the same things. There's a path that you follow throughout the year. You get tested on it and here it's learner driven, it's passion driven. They're self-learning, they're self-governing. There is a lot of peer to peer stuff. Here's another key difference that I feel like we should mention the guides are not allowed to give answers. What is a guide allowed to do?
Speaker 2:Good question. Really, it comes back to the Socratic method. They're not allowed to essentially give a declarative statement in response to a question a young learner might ask. They are allowed, though, if somebody or one of the heroes comes up and says I don't know what I want to do today, what should I do today? A guide might say what do you think would be a good thing for you to do with your time today? And they'd say I don't know. And the guy would say let's think of some options. What did you do yesterday, how did that work out, and what would be something you could do today? And that's, I think, a maybe silly example. But they're guiding rather than saying by asking questions.
Speaker 1:They are not giving you the answer. They're returning your question with another question to make you figure out what you want to do, and that is the Socratic method that we're talking about. I will take a moment here. Let's just touch on the Socratic discussions. I want to go ahead and get that out of the way before we move forward. So anyone who's confused about Socratic teaching methods it refers to Socrates, who that was his way of teaching. He would ask questions and then more difficult questions until people came up with their own answers. That's the Socratic method and that's what you're employing at Acton Academy.
Speaker 2:And I love that. And the reasoning and the root of that is because we want to push power back to these young learners, to the kids. We want to empower them for their own education, and asking a guide or an authority figure, a specific question and getting a non-specific question in return leads them to seek different avenues of finding answers to their questions and really it helps them to understand that what we believe is learning to ask the right questions is far more important than being able to regurgitate correct answers.
Speaker 1:We're going to go ahead and start diving in a little deeper Before we do. Who were the original Acton Academy founders and how long has this academy been in place? When did they?
Speaker 3:get started with this academy. So, jeff and Laura Sandifer, they are from Austin, texas, and they opened up the first acting academy back in 2009. 2009.
Speaker 1:Do you know what prompted them to start it?
Speaker 2:Yes, I love that story. Tell me it's in the book and I'm sure if anyone does any research they'll happen upon it.
Speaker 1:But let's just mention the book here too, so people can look it up. It's called Courage to Grow, and Nick and Jessica were nice enough to bring me a coffee today so thank you very much, but go ahead and look at Courage to Grow when you get a chance. Go ahead and give us the nutshell version.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So Courage to Grow was written by Laura Sandifer and I guess the nutshell version is that they had their two young boys in a non-traditional preschool, at Montessori School. And they went to their, I guess, the head teacher at their private school where they were planning to send their boys, and sat down and visited with them and said hey, at what point do you think we should transition our boys to this school? And he said, well, as soon as possible. And he said oh, that's interesting, why? And he said, after they've had all that freedom, they're not going to want to sit chained to a desk all day and have somebody talk at him for eight hours.
Speaker 2:And Jeff Sandifer looked at that head teacher and said I can't blame him, kind of almost just snapped back. And then that head teacher looked down for the longest time. In Jeff's recounting of the story he says he thought he offended him. But then that teacher looked up with tears in his eyes and just said I can't blame him, I wouldn't want to be talked at for eight hours a day either. So at that point I'm done, we're going to we're doing something else.
Speaker 1:We're going to homeschool, we're going to open a school I don't know what it is, but we're going to do something else and from that they did end up starting Acton Academy. Now there's over 300 around the world, right? So 300 Acton Academy affiliates around the world. Are they measurable advantages to having your kids go through a program like this? What benefits have you seen or what successes can you mention here that these schools have seen with their students?
Speaker 2:I think to me one of the most telling. I guess it's still anecdotal in this sense, but it's very broadly been proven as well. But one of the most common pieces of feedback that they'll get from individuals that have gone to acting academy and gone on to get jobs and say is that they are teachable, they are willing to learn, accept feedback and ask questions so they're teachable. I think that's to me a great indicator of some of the success of Acton Academy. Probably what a lot of people would be looking for would be an answer Like. I know that the studies and data have shown that on average, an Acton Academy learner will progress two and a half grade levels in the span of nine months.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, and so that's significant yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's.
Speaker 1:That's on average, on average.
Speaker 2:And that's I think it's a side note, it's not the goal, but it's a telling point as well that when we allow these individuals to make choices for themselves and choose what they're going to do, do something they're passionate about, and really engage, the progress increases.
Speaker 1:You mentioned the hero's journey and when we were talking about it earlier, the kids are on a hero's journey.
Speaker 2:The guides are on a hero journey, but even the parents are also on a hero's journey.
Speaker 1:So talk to me a little bit about what that is. It's a new concept here, so tell me about the hero's journey.
Speaker 2:And it's new in the sense that we don't associate it with school typically but it is as old as time. So Joseph Campbell did a lot of work that focused on the hero's journey, or just the monomyth of. Think about your Frodo Baggins or your Luke Skywalker oh yeah, you're speaking to people right now.
Speaker 3:journey, or just the monomyth of think about your Frodo Baggins or your Luke Skywalker, oh yeah you're speaking to people right now.
Speaker 2:Just an ordinary person gets this call to venture and they answer the call. They have a decision. Often there's a mentor that helps get them to make this choice, to accept that call, and then they set out on this journey for discovering true treasure. And the treasure often ends up being within them. And along the way, they're fighting monsters monsters in our sense, and it acts in often our distraction.
Speaker 2:Victimhood or resistance might be one as well, and so this hero is setting out. They're setting out to change the world, they're setting out to do something, and it's often a service based for other people, and they return with this treasure to share with someone. Like we said along the way, like a lot of the learning that takes place is that asking those right questions is much more important. So I think a little bit about my dad. He was an educator and taught in public schools. My mom also, and I'm a product of public schools, but one of the things that I think my dad did really was and often frustratingly was to return our questions with more questions and invite us to find the answers ourselves.
Speaker 2:And yeah, and so I think that, along with the hero's journey, is really important.
Speaker 1:You are opening an affiliate Acton school here this fall. It's called Acton Academy Topsail.
Speaker 3:The age group for this first year is yeah, it's going to be ages 6 through 12.
Speaker 1:Okay, and how many students do you expect to have this first year?
Speaker 3:I think we want to start small and do it the right way and get a good tribe and community built. So our goal is 10 to 15 students the first year.
Speaker 1:Is that about average for Acton schools? Do you think? I think so.
Speaker 2:And the first Acton started with. I think seven was what they had.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's not huge and that was just very organic growth from there. They started in just a repurposed home in Austin Texas.
Speaker 1:The traditional classrooms. They're separated by ages and grade levels and often even different wings of the school.
Speaker 3:This is not it.
Speaker 1:This is a studio. Everyone's in the same room together. I can see how that's beneficial for the younger students. You've got the younger ones who are asking the questions to the older kids. But, like my son is 12, so he would be at the top of your age range that you're starting off with. I'm worried about him being challenged in the classroom. How is it going to challenge my 12 year old when he's maybe the only 12 year old?
Speaker 3:in the whole classroom. I think that's a great concern. The great and beautiful thing about the ACTED model is that it is learner driven. These 12 year olds can still learn at their own pace. They can set their own goals and challenges and can reach them as quickly as they put their mind to. And it also gives these 12-year-olds a great tool of learning to be a leader in the classroom. As they are mentors for the younger students and help make sure that the balances and checks are all in order, they learn a great, invaluable skill about being a leader that they might not get in the traditional classroom. That is important.
Speaker 1:You're right. If he's doing his own self learning prior to the project based stuff that they're going to be doing together, then he would already be doing his own thing over here and learning and progressing and then still get the leadership experience as well. I love that.
Speaker 2:I think just one other thing about having mixed age group is just that anybody who's tried to teach something to someone else, I think, has seen the benefit of you learn yourself much more as you try and impart some understanding to somebody else, and so going both ways both for those who are younger, those who are older. There's all sorts of benefits and just learning to work with different age levels and different groups.
Speaker 1:Does Acton follow a traditional school year or is it year round?
Speaker 2:We'll start with our first year on September 3rd and we'll generally follow the Pender County calendar.
Speaker 3:Okay, and how long are the school days? They're your pretty typical school day. We plan to start at eight and end by three, monday through Friday, and you said your parents were.
Speaker 1:Both of them were school teachers in the public school system, and you're a product of the public school system as I am, I am as well.
Speaker 2:Okay, and have any of your kids attended an Acton school at this point, no not yet and, to be a hundred percent honest, that's a big part of why we're starting an Acton Academy, because we want our kids to be able to go there and we have four.
Speaker 1:How old are your kids and what grades are they going to be in?
Speaker 2:So we have four kids. We have a 13-year-old She'll go into eighth grade 12-year-old who will start this fall at Acton Academy, otherwise would go into sixth grade Then we have an eight-year-old and a five-year-old who will both join.
Speaker 1:We talked about the Courage to Grow book. Who gave you that book?
Speaker 3:How did you get turned on to that in this academy? So Nick, for years probably over 10 years has just really felt like he has wanted and honestly felt called to start a school. He came home and just I feel like I need to start a school and for a long time years we didn't really know what that would look like. We talk about it but nothing really fell into place. Five years ago we were living in St George, utah, where we just moved from, and on Facebook I was scrolling one day and came across an ad for an acting academy offering the Courage to Grow book. So I requested the book, got it in the mail and gave it to Nick and said I think you should read this. This seems like something I think you would like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I did.
Speaker 1:You mentioned that you are from Utah, so what brought you to this area specifically?
Speaker 2:We were just I always tell people just chasing a dream. We wanted to live on the coast of similar to the school thing I'd say to Jess, let's try North Carolina.
Speaker 3:It sounds so nice. We had never been here, never visited no family, like nothing really was jumping out at us about North Carolina.
Speaker 2:Other than yeah, just a pull, an inexplicable pull.
Speaker 1:Did you come out to visit North Carolina before you made the move? Did you come just test the waters a little bit?
Speaker 2:We did.
Speaker 3:We did, but it was like after we had made up our mind we were moving, it was like we're going to move, but we better check it out Just to be sure, did you target Topsail area right off the bat?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did?
Speaker 2:We looked at Wilmington and our gaze shifted north, as many of us did.
Speaker 1:When did?
Speaker 3:you move here. We arrived in April of 2023. So we've been here for just a little over a year. We love it. We love the beach. Nick is living his dream because he gets to surf every day.
Speaker 2:Oh, nice. Well, we met in Hawaii in the ocean of all places, and so I did a little bit there, but I'm relearning here, so it's been fun.
Speaker 1:Where did y'all grow up? Where were you born?
Speaker 3:and raised.
Speaker 2:I grew up in Utah.
Speaker 3:And I'm from Wyoming, so we had to cross the ocean and go to Hawaii before we actually met each other. But we just love the ocean, we love the beach, we love the water.
Speaker 1:As mentioned earlier, acton uses the term guides instead of teachers, and will the two of you be guides?
Speaker 2:So I will continue working external to our Acton Academy top soul, but Jess will start out. We're very selective, and I think understandably so, about who will be a guide, and a guide that is, on a hero's journey themselves. Jess is going to be the first guide, as we continue to look for an assistant guide and then move on from there.
Speaker 1:How many guides will you have in the classroom? Let's say you have 15 students to start out with this year. How many guides will you have in there for the duration of the school year.
Speaker 3:We will have two guides. I think we could have one guide, really, but unless they get sick, we would need another guide, a backup, so an assistant guide, just one that knows the kids and what they're going through every day.
Speaker 1:They can be there when the other one can't, because this is a new concept and they're not allowed to just answer the questions or give them too much instruction. They have to answer the question with another question. I assume there's going to be some training involved with your guides. How, where are they going?
Speaker 2:to get this training? Good question They'll be vetted through a process similar to what we went through as we auditioned to become an Acton Academy affiliate.
Speaker 1:You two auditioned with the original founders. Yeah, that difficult.
Speaker 2:It was yeah, we had to.
Speaker 3:Was it really we had to make a video of ourselves and submit it and answer?
Speaker 1:questions. Oh, so you weren't in person when this was done online.
Speaker 2:We were able to do it virtually yeah.
Speaker 1:How do you go about training the guides?
Speaker 2:Yes, the guides will be trained. First of all, they'll go through an audition process similar to the one we went through as we auditioned to become an Acton affiliate, and they will also because we're part of the Acton Academy network. They have access to training tools and I think the software is called my Journey Tracker that they'll use. But they will do challenges and learn the Socratic method that way and through interaction with us and with other guides in the network.
Speaker 1:I'm assuming, then, that the guides don't have to have teaching degrees Correct, because I'm a helicopter mom.
Speaker 3:As many of us are.
Speaker 1:Will there be background checks of these guides?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, I just had to ask.
Speaker 3:That's a good question that I'm sure lots of parents wonder about.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about the learning tools. You mentioned, the electronic devices, and where they're using Khan Academy, which we do. Have experience with Khan Academy at North Topsail Elementary, which is where my kids went, so I know a little bit about that and how they progress through those levels. What other materials Are there? Workbooks, what about supplies, and do you issue electronic devices, or are we going to bring our own from home? What about science supplies and what about art and music and all of those things? What are you going to have there for them to get them excited about learning?
Speaker 2:So learners will engage with mastery-based software to develop their core skills in math, science, reading, writing, and that way students can progress at their own pace. They get badges or maybe points as they master each skill, and the use of gamification helps keep these kids excited and motivated to learn. And we also combine a Montessori blended approach and then, of course, project-based learning that we talked about, in a cohesive model to provide a rich entrepreneurial environment for students. And so it's experiential, it's hands-on, it's fun. In other words, learning is meant to be fun.
Speaker 1:The gamification is going to appeal to my boys anyway, and in the video that I watched they had the entrepreneurial. It was like a fair where they created their own products and they had this fair where they set up their booths.
Speaker 3:Yes, it's called the Children's Business Fair. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Acton Foundation will facilitate really anyone that wants to set up a children's business fair in their area, and we did a children's business fair. I actually listened to a podcast that you had with the Shaka Taco founders, and so our business fair was at Shaka Taco in Hampstead.
Speaker 1:I was thinking of that business fair, because I saw that and I didn't know about it ahead of time. I saw it too late. That would have been so fun to go to, and the video reminded me very much of that, so y'all were at that or that was.
Speaker 3:That was us. We hosted that, we put that on for the community and we're excited to do it. It was a success and the kids loved it and learned a lot from it, so we plan to continue to do that. I hope so.
Speaker 1:It got my attention.
Speaker 2:We should say, too, that we're not promising any kind of, like you know, a panacea or utopia. It's it's we're learning as well. Everybody's learning along the way, and I'm sure we'll make mistakes, but I think we are dedicated to, first of all, that belief that every child is a genius. And we want to empower them and give the power back to these young learners. So that they can find their own calling.
Speaker 1:I love it. My boys would be so mad if I don't ask you are you going to send them home with homework? Because that is just the bane of my 12-year-old's existence.
Speaker 3:We believe that family is in charge of their time after school, so we will not assign homework. Is in charge of their time after school, so we will not assign homework. We have heard from other Actons that lots of times children will bring their work home to work on it because they are engaged, they're having fun and they enjoy the learning process. So they will continue to work on their projects at home. But we will not send worksheets, workbooks He'll be thrilled.
Speaker 1:Will they receive any outdoor activities? Or, like a recess, because that's my nine-year-old's favorite subject? Mine too. What are you going to have for them as far as outdoor physical activities?
Speaker 2:The typical makeup of each day is there's an hour break for lunch in the middle and slash recess, free time to do what they like. But a lot of learning will lead these young learners outside anyway, but a lot of learning will lead these young learners outside anyway. And I mean, if it's a nice day and somebody wants to go read on the porch or out in the yard, there's no reason why they wouldn't be able to go outside.
Speaker 3:A lot can be learned from a game of kickball and just lots of play and exercise. There's a lot to be learned.
Speaker 1:And so we plan to incorporate that into every day. It's really hard for me to turn off one paradigm in my head and adopt another one, and even with myself growing up, grades were so important to me. And so where's the testing? Like I got to know. Like, how do acting students get tested the same way they get tested in a regular school? How are you? I think North Carolina requires some testing, right. And then how do you know that they've mastered a skill and can now move forward without that testing in place?
Speaker 3:I, as a parent, also would love to know what is my child doing at school and what are they accomplishing, and how can I know if they are mastering this? So to answer that question, the mastery-based software can show you how much they are mastering, along as they go, and additionally, we would have public exhibitions where parents can come in and the children will show off their work. They'll show them their projects that they've been working on and it's a great way for parents to see all the work that they're doing at Acton.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the first thought that comes to my mind is you mentioned mindset and Carol Dweck did a lot of research and wrote a book called Mindset. But we're big on growth, mindset and like the idea of praising effort and progress and not necessarily just the result. We won't issue ABC grades. Like we said, there are badges, there are points, there's a system of incentive and motivation that's in place, but it's not an authoritative figure that is assigning any kind of a grade or judgment on their work.
Speaker 1:Some kids are like I'm not going to get graded. This is awesome, I don't have to work that hard here. So how do you combat someone is I don't have to worry about bringing home a, D or C or F. How do you get them to be motivated to work hard in the classroom?
Speaker 3:I think the key there is finding the right incentive, but everyone will work if you find out what they want to work for as a guide. You just put in place the right incentives. Can you give me an example? Fun Friday we're going to go to the beach on Friday and if you have this badge passed off, you get to join us. We might even also have a snow cone while we're there and if they have that badge passed off, they're probably going to work for that so that they can join their friends at the beach Friday. But if they decided to skip their work all week, didn't get the badge, they're going to be stuck in the building on Friday working on that instead.
Speaker 1:Let's say that it doesn't work out. For whatever reason, I pull my kid out of public schools, I send them to Acton. We give it a year, maybe two, and we're like this is just not for my kid, it's not working out. I guess, first of all, when you see a kid struggling in that environment, what do you have in place to nurture that kid through the remainder of the school year? What do you do when a kid is really struggling in that environment?
Speaker 2:And do you mean struggling?
Speaker 1:I could see my nine-year-old. He loves structure. He wants to know what he's facing for the day. My 12-year-old is probably going to love this environment a whole lot because he doesn't like the structure. He wants to go in and determine his own path. Nothing would suit him better than that environment. My 9-year-old is much different, so he may like I don't know what to do with the chaos. I would imagine that some kids don't do well in that environment for any number of reasons, but what?
Speaker 1:do you do when you see a kid who's like in the corner, just not participating? I don't know what to do here. I can't find my passion. I'm frustrated. How do you deal with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say, first and foremost, one of the things that we tell people, as we're describing Acton Academy, is that our ideal day is looks like no adult interaction. If the adult didn't even enter the room, it would be a beautiful thing and nothing would change and these young learners would continue and go about and things would work out smoothly. And if that's a scary thing to some people, we understand and we get it and that's okay. It may not be the right place, and so I think, just understanding that at the outset, that's what our hope and goal is. So that, first of all. Second, though, I think, especially when you mentioned somebody like your son who appreciates some structure, I think the beautiful thing is that he can learn to create his own structure and provide that for himself.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a good answer, Nick.
Speaker 3:That's really good, but it's so true. That is the whole point of acting is they create the answer to whatever they need. That was.
Speaker 1:That is exactly what I needed to hear. No, he, he does need to learn how to create his own structure. You're a hundred percent right.
Speaker 2:It's a beautiful and amazing thought, and we will do everything we can to put it in place. Me as a parent, it is so hard. It's hard to watch them struggle, and so that's one of the things that we're overcoming and working on.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I think again just trying to give the power back to these young learners With the other affiliate schools. Has there ever been an instance where the student returned to public schools? And if so, did they test that kid to see like did you, are you up with us now? Did you cover the same curriculum? Now we've got to test you. We might hold you back for a year. That's another one of my fears that I'm trying to wrap my head around. What happens if it doesn't work out and we have to go back into the public school system? Is it going to be behind?
Speaker 2:State law does require that we do testing like the state mandated standardized test, and so we will do that as just a normal part of the day. We'll hand it out and move on. We'll do that because it's required. So I guess schools will have that piece of information if somebody ever did have to go back to the school, and there have certainly been instances where a young learner didn't fit or didn't find what they were hoping to find at. Acton and went back, but each situation is so different.
Speaker 1:I guess that leads to the next question Then are Acton schools accredited and if so, by whom?
Speaker 2:We're accredited by the International Association for Learner Driven Schools, and there is a society of micro schools that we're also a part of, but so, yes, we are accredited.
Speaker 1:So if it didn't work out and we went back into the public schools, this would help us with regard to getting them back into the school system at the proper grade level. Yeah, this feels. In some ways. There's some similarities to homeschooling, and here in Hampstead we have a very large homeschooling population. I love that, Outside of the obvious, you have an away from home location. What would you say are the benefits to attending Acton over?
Speaker 3:homeschooling? Good question. I think what draws a lot of people to choose homeschooling is just the freedom, and Acton Academy also offers a lot of freedom. Our goal, though, is to build a community of lifelong learners, and, as children come and interact with each other and set goals and play together, they are building a community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really emphasizes collaboration, real challenges, and it holds them to a high standard of character. And we've explored homeschool and I, I just we have to honor those who are willing and able to make that kind of a change and take that, take that challenge on. But I think there's there is so much to be said for humans bumping into each other and trying to figure out how to work together in a setting that's not, that's outside the home as well.
Speaker 1:Does Acton offer special needs programs?
Speaker 2:So we're not trained to serve children with serious learning disabilities, but we have been able to serve we as the network has been able to serve young heroes with dyslexia if they receive special training. And I think too, it's important to point out that we believe, believe often some minor learning disabilities are potentially misdiagnosed, and so we're not in the business of labeling people. We'll take a look at the fit of the family and see how things go, but we don't have training for those with particular special needs.
Speaker 1:Okay, so if you don't want to label things, you're not going to like my next question. But so they have the AIG classes in the traditional schools. How do you feel that academically gifted children how they would do in the acting environment?
Speaker 2:We honestly really do believe that every single young person is gifted so they can progress in any subject, to any level. A gifted individual has the power and ability and the tools to be able to excel far beyond what they may otherwise be able to find, whether it's in public school or elsewhere, because the sky's the limit. It's what do they know and what can they understand, and so they can keep going.
Speaker 1:Sometimes kids in the classroom may not have grasped the full concept, but because the rest of the class is moving on, they have to move on with the rest of the class and I was wondering if you could speak to that. So no, no kids getting pushed forward.
Speaker 2:My own personal experience. I studied it. It's called ESADE, it's a business school in Spain, business school in Spain. But even in a master's degree program I felt just a huge pressure for me myself to just fit it fit in, even with this small cohort of about 10 other individuals. I did not understand this ANCOVA statistical method very well, but I didn't feel like I could say I don't get it because we're in a master's program and we're supposed to get it.
Speaker 2:And so I kept on going and had to then go back and just a huge mess to try and figure things out later on. But I get that 100% and I think that type of pressure and just expectation is eliminated at Acton Academy.
Speaker 1:I think too, if a child is experiencing that and they get a bad grade, that's very discouraging, then you just want to like I must not be a great student, I'm just going to give up and then acting up in class just because they're hurt. And so I felt it helps both the full range of kids. Whether you're academically gifted in a traditional sense or you're being forced to move along at a pace that you can't keep up with and get super discouraged, I feel like the Acton Academy method is going to serve a broad range of kids who are dealing with different problems. Whether you're at this end or that end the learning spectrum.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and one thing that I did want to be sure and point out was just that it's just brings us back to that focus of encouraging young learners to participate in their hero's journey and find a calling that that will change the world in a profound way. And so if that means for a particular young hero that developing a math equation that allows them to travel through a black hole, we would be delighted and support them in that and that would be an amazing and great calling.
Speaker 1:How involved are the parents in your school? Jessica, you did mention that you will have events where we come and see their projects. Yeah, public exhibitions Public exhibitions.
Speaker 3:How else would we get involved? Right, I think when a learner joins Acton, you become an Acton family. Parents agree to also be on their own hero's journey. They will also sign a contract to adhere to the standard of Acton. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that's one of the difficult things for parents, and us as well, is to essentially respect that young learners experience and respect their studio and the studio space as sacred. Parents are encouraged to read their hero's badge plan and support them in their goals, but we actually ask that parents don't email guides or owners without first having asked permission from their child to do that, and we're not going to have a meeting about a child without that child sitting there. Because we don't want to become, we don't want to come between you and your child, that's you, that's between you and your child, and we're trying to respect the learning experience of the child and push the power back to the young people. There are journey meetings where parents are invited to sit with their young learners present, and, like she mentioned, learning exhibitions where parents and community members are invited to come and see what these young learners have been working on.
Speaker 3:But I do want to say that we would love like parent involvement. If there is something a parent is good at or passionate about, whether that be like Nick surfing, then we would love for them to come take the kids surfing and introduce them to all sorts of different things. We would love parents to be involved in that aspect.
Speaker 2:We're not closing doors, no yeah, but we do want there to be a clear boundary between where we're willing to step in and not we don't want to. We don't want to step in and fix problems for parents or children. The idea is that they'll learn to do it on their own.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to lie, that's another paradigm shift. Oh for sure it's hard.
Speaker 2:It is hard to oh, for sure it's hard.
Speaker 3:It is hard to yes, to see your child struggle and not want to solve the problem for them.
Speaker 1:Or just give them so much freedom.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that age I'm not used to that yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay. So let's talk about the pricing. This is a private school, okay. What is the planned annual tuition?
Speaker 2:For year one, the tuition will be $9,200 with a $500 registration fee.
Speaker 1:And are there any costs in addition to that registration fee and the annual tuition that parents would need to know about, like buying supplies and surfing lessons or snow cones? Is there anything else we should expect throughout the year?
Speaker 2:No, we don't plan to have any other fees. We'll provide like Chromebooks, for example.
Speaker 1:Oh, y'all do provide the Chromebooks, okay, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah and no, those are the only costs associated with it. Okay.
Speaker 1:So 9,200 the first year. You feel like that may change as time goes by, or just an adjustment like every private school does.
Speaker 2:Exactly Okay. I can't predict inflation, unfortunately I wish you could.
Speaker 1:You mentioned this to me and so I did a little bit of research to figure it out because I wasn't completely clear on it. North Carolina did just pass that universal school choice bill last year. I would say that you could go and apply for that, but there's a very short window, february 1st to March 1st. That's the window you get to apply for the next school year. That's gone. But you could, on February 1st, go apply for the 25-26 school year and use that money from that bill. But I would also like to say too that that is still based on an annual income. It's a sliding scale about how much you would be awarded in that scholarship program. But are there any other scholarships or financial aid opportunities that you could tell us about?
Speaker 3:Yes, we will definitely have some scholarship opportunities. If it was up to me, this would be free. I believe that every child really should have this as an option. It is amazing, and this is one of the biggest questions. Nick and I have gone back and forth on what should the tuition be? But unfortunately we do have to pay for building and guides and lots of different things, so there has to be some kind of. There has to be some kind of tuition.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's completely understandable. I get why you have to do that, but again, when you're used to going to public schools and now you've got to figure out a way to afford a private school. It's something that we all have to think about and consider, so I just wanted to put those questions out there for you so that the listeners can be aware.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think, too, it's worth noting that as we grow, we our plan is to be able to provide scholarships, and if somebody's got a creative idea, we're open to it. We don't want to, we're not. We're not trying to exclude anybody for any particular reason. This is just where we're at right now.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about your future plans. Where do you see Acton Academy Topsail in five years?
Speaker 2:Great yeah, we're starting now with an elementary school studio and then we'll add a spark or preschool and then middle school after that as soon as possible, followed by Launchpad, which is our term for high school. So in five years we plan to be able to facilitate up through Launchpad high school and even, sometime in the future, open up additional campuses to where.
Speaker 1:Neighboring cities. Is that what you mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and even just depending on demand we could have, I don't know how.
Speaker 3:There's a handful in Austin. Yeah, there's five. Really, there's an academy in Austin.
Speaker 2:And part of that is because and I think, again borrowed from Montessori is that the ideal kind of learner-to-guide ratio is somewhere around 30,. I believe young learners, and so we don't want to overfill.
Speaker 1:So it must be really popular then in Austin, if so many people are going there that they need multiple campuses, I would imagine.
Speaker 2:That's great. It's good to hear. Yeah, there are lots of other campuses popping up.
Speaker 1:You have a website, actintopsilcom. People can go there and learn a lot of information that we may not have covered here today. In particular, there's a frequently asked questions tab. If I missed any questions that you didn't get answered, certainly go there. One of the questions I noticed on there which caught me off guard I didn't even think to ask it Is this a religious based school?
Speaker 2:Good question. So we are open to believers, searchers and non-believers alike, as it points out in our FAQs, but we expose children to the importance of mindful spirituality and stress the historical importance of Christianity in the development of Western culture. So we're not promoting any particular religion, but we ourselves are religious and we're not hiding that either. So, that's just the way we approach the religious question.
Speaker 1:It is time to wrap things up. Would you like to give out the contact information? Sure.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, phone number 385-210-7404. And the website is wwwactintopsilcom. You can email nick at actintopsilcom. You can also find us on Instagram and Facebook.
Speaker 1:I will have those links. They will be in my show notes, so I'll have all of your contact information listed there. I'll have your website, your Facebook and your Instagram accounts. I will have those hot and so all they have to do is click on that and go straight to your page. So if you missed any of this information, you know where to go and get all you need there. Just want to say thank you to my listeners who joined us today. We had a lot to cover and because this is so different from regular schools, I just felt like we needed to dive in on a little bit more serious note and if I didn't ask the questions that you wanted to hear, then reach out to Nick and Jessica, call email, check out their website. Please go, look at that YouTube video. I really encourage that as well. So thank you. Thank you again, nick and Jessica. Thank you so much, kristen.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you guys coming in here and just being subjected to someone who's like I don't trust, I don't know what am I going to do with my kid, believe it or not, it's been fun for us, so thank you.
Speaker 1:Okay, good. Thank you so much, both of you. Hey, if you enjoyed today's episode of Top Soul Insider, please show your support by clicking the follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast listening platform. You can also follow us on Facebook, instagram, twitter and YouTube. Please also go to topsoulinsidercom and join our mailing list by clicking on the Make Me a Topsail Insider button. While you're there, you can click the Send Me a Voicemail button and let me know exactly what you're thinking your message just might be on an episode of Topsail Insider. You can email me at Krista at TopsailInsidercom, or call or text me at 910-800-0111. Thank you for listening and supporting Topsail Insider and our local businesses and nonprofits. These are our neighbors and our friends, and together we build a mighty and a beautiful community I'm super proud to be a part of. I'll see you around, topsail.
People on this episode
Eden Mills
Host
La Rhea Burke
Host
Mari Backus
Host
Marlon Weems
Host
Savannah Price
Host
Tony Sampogna
Host
Trevonn Caesar
Host
Trudy Solomon
Host
Leah Norman
Co-host
Christa
Producer
Ernie Mezich
Editor
Jim Mendes-Pouget
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