Friday Feature: Ascend Micro School

Colleen Hroncich

Elizabeth Watkins, director of Ascend Micro School in Colorado Springs, didn’t set out to run a school. She set out to find the right one for her son.

The oldest of five kids, Elizabeth grew up homeschooled in northern Maine and credits that upbringing with giving the close family bonds she still values today. She always assumed she’d homeschool her own children. What she didn’t anticipate was how hard it would be.

Her oldest was “very independent, very wanting to do things his own way,” she says. He also had some learning challenges that meant his way of learning was “180 degrees different than the way I learned,” she adds. After two years of homeschooling him, which left them both in tears, Elizabeth enrolled him in public school. That wasn’t quite right either.

Then she stumbled onto Ascend, which had recently opened on a 300-acre camp property in Colorado Springs’ Black Forest area. (It was founded by Sarah Lavezzo, who later founded Scholé Center for Innovative Education.) Ascend’s model—hands-on, project-based, student-led, and faith-based—was nothing like what her son had experienced before. Elizabeth enrolled him immediately, even though the school was brand new. “There’s something here,” she thought. 

She was right. The shift was immediate. A kid who had come home from first grade saying he hated his teachers and hated school was suddenly, in her words, telling her they had to go. “It was like a 180-degree shift in learning for him,” she says. “It still makes me emotional.”

Elizabeth came on staff the following year as an electives teacher, handling what she calls “the fun classes.” She had started teaching ESL online to Chinese students around the same time and discovered, to her surprise, that she loved it. One thing led to another—she became the middle school math and science teacher, then director of the middle school program, and eventually, three years ago, took over the full program.

Ascend operates on Tuesdays and Thursdays, two days a week, on the camp property where it has been since the beginning. Students arrive for the morning meeting—a mix of community-building, character development, and light academics—then move through literature, writing, math circle, and science. Students spend hours outdoors, building forts in the pine needles, exploring nature, and incorporating the environment into science and other subjects. Afternoons are for explorations, including electives like PE, art, and gardening. This spring, the kids are painting two murals on the walls of the building they lease at the request of the camp owners. 

The school serves mixed-age groups—K–6, starting this fall—narrowed from K–8 to allow for more focused instruction in the younger grades. Parents cover math, spelling, and grammar at home; Ascend handles science, history, writing, and electives. 

For most of its existence, Ascend has been tuition-funded, which limits its accessibility. Families loved the model but couldn’t always afford it, so enrollment declined over the past three years as some chose state-funded alternatives. Elizabeth feared she would have considered closing. 

Things changed this February when Ascend was approved to receive Colorado state funding for homeschool enrichment programs. The result was immediate. “The interest that we’ve had this spring has just blown my mind,” says Elizabeth. The school now has a wait list of more than 50 kids and is considering opening a Monday-Wednesday cohort to meet demand, capping each cohort at around 40 students to preserve the tight-knit community feel that makes the model work. “Community is one of our values,” she explains.

While this wasn’t a path Elizabeth ever expected to follow, she’s embraced it. “It has been just a joy to provide a space where kids who learn a little differently, they can still have a place to belong,” she says. “These kids are amazing.”

Her advice to anyone thinking about starting something similar is find people who’ve done it and ask them everything. “Don’t be afraid to ask for help,” she says. 

Source: https://www.cato.org/blog/friday-feature-ascend-micro-school