Colleen Hroncich
Luba Vangelova had been homeschooling for more than a decade, running in-person groups that blurred the line between co-ops and microschools before the term microschool was widely used. But as her daughter and the other kids hit their tween years, things got complicated. Everyone developed their own interests requiring specific classes at specific times in specific locations.
“When it’s in person and trying to get everyone in the same place at the same time, it just became much more challenging during the tween years,” she recalls.
Luba had been writing about education and visiting alternative programs around the country. She “pieced together a little of this, little of that” and came up with the idea of an in-person hub with many options in one location. “Kids could see each other like they do at school every day, but yet do their own thing,” she says. “They could choose how many days a week they came and so on.”
She started down that path, and then COVID-19 hit, and DC shut down. Rather than just moving an in-person program online and hoping it worked, Luba says, “We decided to leverage the strengths of the digital and not try to just copy everything that you would do in person.” She tested concepts during summer camps, talked to people, and researched best practices.
In fall 2020, The Hub launched as a part-time online microschool for homeschoolers—though she’s quick to note it’s not like any kind of school. “We don’t have a set curriculum. We don’t have grades. It’s very emergent and organic, and the kids play an active role in deciding what to do,” Luba explains. “The concept has remained largely the same since the very beginning. It’s been a way for kids to have a consistent cohort experience with kids their age, but in a way that was curiosity-led rather than studying specific subjects.”
Now in its sixth year, The Hub serves about 20 kids from across the US and overseas in cohorts of 8–10 students. The program has three goals: intellectual stimulation, the development of soft skills such as communication and creativity, and fostering community. As long as cohorts meet those goals and do a mix of shorter activities plus one large group project each term, they decide how to use their time.
Each cohort meets for three hours a week with two facilitators. Since there isn’t a preset plan, each day can look quite different. They may start with 20–30 minutes of informal chatting. They might jump into an activity like a geography guessing game, a logic puzzle, or a math escape room. If not everyone wants to do the same activity, one facilitator opens a breakout room so kids can split up.
After a break, they come back together and typically work on the big project for the term. Here, the sky’s the limit. One cohort is creating a documentary about The Hub, interviewing past and present facilitators and students. Another is building an imaginary city and deciding its governance and design. A third is producing an animated retelling of a Norse fairy tale with original art and scripts.
Previous projects have included video newscasts with fake news, sports, and weather; websites for imaginary island worlds with different countries and cultures; and an 80-page novel written collaboratively—one student would write for a bit and then pass it on to the next to continue. Students who were living in France led a choose-your-own-adventure walk through a historic village.
While The Hub is online, kids who live near each other meet up in person. Last April, kids from Maine to Virginia organized their own meetup in DC—they planned the logistics, itinerary, everything. Parents just came along.
Most of the students have other in-person and online activities, such as theater, arts, music, and sports. But The Hub fills different needs. For one, Luba says many homeschool programs have a lot of turnover, but most kids stay at The Hub for years, providing continuity. “It sort of feels like a grounding thing in their week,” she says. “They get to know the other kids and the facilitators. And you know, they bond. They feel an attachment to them. And they want to keep seeing them.”
Another difference is the amount of autonomy the kids have. “It’s also structured in a way that few other programs are, because it gives them so much leeway in what they do, and they really have a much more active role in it,” she adds. “A lot of homeschool programs are more like classes where ‘this is what we’re going to do, and this is how we’re going to do it.’ And the teacher is going to tell you what to do.”
Luba isn’t trying to have The Hub be everything to everyone. “The Hub just fills a need that a lot of kids have at these ages, in the tween and teen years, for connection with kids their age. But not just a random connection, but a meaningful connection that builds over time. And so we provide that in a way that’s engaging and fun,” she says. “We’re trying to basically have the community element while letting kids still retain the flexibility of homeschooling.”