Colleen Hroncich
Teacher Jenna Hill loved Montessori education, but she wanted to incorporate other approaches as she worked with students. When the pandemic hit, she and a fellow teacher, Maria Casco, took the opportunity to create a new learning community, CASCO Learning, in St. Louis.
“We took the best of Montessori because we are very rooted and have been in that world for a long time, but we were able to suddenly use whatever tool that we needed to use to meet the child’s needs,” Jenna explains. They dove deep to learn about homeschooling, unschooling, and microschooling, which opened their eyes to the flexible options that were available.
Up to that point, they thought you had to be a public school, a Catholic school, or an independent private school—you couldn’t just create something new and unique. However, as they spoke with other founders and learned about these alternative models, they realized their new learning center could be whatever they wanted it to be. “We can be this hybrid microschool, we can support homeschooling families, and we can be in that gray area,” recalls Jenna. “So we started to just take all these ideas and put them all together.”
With encouragement from a supportive family who offered them space, the two transformed a 7,000-square-foot building into something magical. “Half of it is movement and play and gymnastics, and half of it is the learning environment,” Jenna explains. The result was a school that valued curiosity and flexibility.
And families found them—families who wanted partnership in their children’s education, who valued the flexibility a hybrid model offers, and who believed childhood shouldn’t be spent entirely within conventional school walls. “It really was exactly what so many families needed,” Jenna adds. “Their child is a part of a learning community. They’re here for interest-based work, self-directed work, collaborative work, group work, and then every family does all their own different homeschooling at home.”
There are no traditional lectures; instead, educators provide mini-lessons throughout the day and work closely alongside students. “We meet with the children, we introduce lessons, we help them manage their time, make choices. And so really it’s just like open learning time all day,” Jenna explains. “Our job is to keep them motivated and connected to the work in the classroom.”
The approach balances freedom with accountability. “They have all this freedom, you have all this choice, but with that comes a great responsibility,” Jenna notes. While CASCO incorporates self-directed learning, there are also expectations that the students are working and engaged in educational activities. Choice boards display available topics and activities, and educators check in regularly. Students maintain learning journals to document their accomplishments in various subjects.
Now in their sixth year, the school serves approximately 45 learners, aged 4 through 15, with roughly 90 percent attending on a hybrid schedule. Families typically choose two or three days per week, with Fridays becoming their popular “Field Fridays” when they load up their 15-passenger adventure van and meet homeschooling families at locations around the city. Families pay tuition based on the number of days their children attend. Jenna says they’re working to get on the list for Missouri’s tax-credit education savings account program so families can use those funds toward tuition.
When asked what she’d tell someone considering a similar venture, Jenna’s response is enthusiastic and encouraging. “It’s just been so freeing for these families to have this safe community for their kids to be in, and that they get to spend time with their families,” she says. “The families that are here, they’re building it with us. And that’s really been great—that they believe in this. And when everyone feels the same way, it really makes for a strong community.”