Colleen Hroncich
When both of Amanda Lucas’s daughters were diagnosed with serious medical conditions within the same month, conventional school became impossible. They were spending too much time at hospitals. She was already running a homeschool pod for her younger daughter, so she pulled her tenth grader out and started homeschooling her, too.
That year changed everything.
Her high schooler thrived with autonomy over her learning. She studied Puerto Rican history alongside American history. She interned at family court. She volunteered with seniors discussing music. She joined a girls’ empowerment program. “It was just such an enriching year that I was like, ‘What are we doing? Why is this not happening for everyone?’” Amanda recalls.
Meanwhile, the younger kids in her learning pod were each working at different levels, using different curricula. Academic work took 20 minutes. The rest of the day was spent on fun and enriching learning.
When her husband’s job moved the family to New Jersey, her older daughter returned to public school for her senior year. Amanda didn’t want that for her younger daughter, but she wanted a community. She found a microschool 30 minutes away, got hired as their teacher, and her daughter attended. That’s where she discovered KaiPod and applied for their Catalyst program. Seven months later, she opened her own school, Lucas Literacy Lab.
“Before meeting them, I didn’t think that there was anyone crazy like me,” she says about finding the microschool community. Her husband had been supportive but skeptical. The KaiPod network proved invaluable. “There’s a huge community of people who get it. They get it,” she adds.
Lucas Literacy Lab operates Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., in a house that’s been zoned for educational use since the 1970s. The homey atmosphere is intentional. “I wanted them to feel like they were the home away from homeschool,” Amanda notes. Kids take their shoes off the minute they walk in. They spend an hour or two at recess. They read on couches, drinking hot cocoa.
The school year starts with discovery month in September—no regular curriculum, just observation. She watches how kids learn, when they focus best, and what levels they’re really at. At the end of September, she meets with her parents, and they choose a curriculum together.
One kid might be doing third-grade English and seventh-grade math. Another uses one curriculum for English and another for math. Whatever fits. “They’re all working on what works for them based on real observation and intentional learning,” says Amanda.
Academics happen from 9:30 to 11:30—two solid hours split between math and English in groups of no more than seven kids. After lunch and 30 minutes of independent reading, “the place explodes” as they get into active learning, projects, and research.
Recently, they wrapped a six-week Jane Goodall unit. Kids learned how she conducted field observations, then went outside to do their own. They studied primates, split into groups, and each group got a room to transform into their primate’s habitat. Rain fell in the rainforest room. Snow dusted the mountains of China. Madagascar had vines everywhere.
Flexibility is key. Families can come for half days or full days, one day a week or four. They can choose the morning academic block, the afternoon enrichment block, or both. This comes directly from her hospital experience—she knows firsthand how life can upend schedules.
The building situation has been her biggest headache. She signed a lease for a property with two buildings, hired staff, and had 15 families ready to start. Then the township shut her down. “They didn’t know what a microschool was,” Amanda explains. “They said, ‘This is approved for school use, but you’re not a school.’” Months of fighting followed while she paid rent, utilities, taxes, landscaping, everything on a triple-net lease she couldn’t use. She lost families. She’s still dealing with code issues that have temporarily relocated the school.
Despite the building headaches, Amanda says, “I’ve never been happier in my life.” Her daughter agrees. She loves it so much that she’s always trying to recruit the neighbors who still go to conventional school. And when families ask Amanda to add a high school program because they don’t want their kids to leave, she knows she’s onto something.