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Writer's pictureJoanne Jacobs

A la carte learning in Florida



Alicia Garcia was a part-time cooking teacher before the pandemic closed Florida schools, writes Ron Matus on Next Steps. Now the former chef and home ec teacher is a full-time educational services provider, providing customized lessons in cooking, farming, culture, and everything else food related.


Her enterprise, called Project Flourish, works with microschools, homeschool co-ops, after-school care centers, community gardens and more in South Florida.


At one school, which was teaching about the Lunar New Year in some Asian countries, students made dumplings with bamboo shoots and water chestnuts.


For a lesson at Colossal Academy, Garcia focused on zucchini to celebrate the end of the summer growing season. Students "grilled the zucchini to their liking; chose what other veggies to include in the filling; sliced and diced according to their preferences; figured out on their own what ingredients to include in the dressing; determined at each table how to accommodate each other’s likes and dislikes; and on and on," writes Matus.


All four of Garcia's children started as home-schoolers, then attended "traditional public schools, magnet schools, charter schools and private schools, depending on the best fit," he writes. "Multiple-choice" families are increasingly common in Florida.


In a  conversation with Mike Goldstein of Pioneer Institute, Garcia talks about the logistics of using Educational Savings Accounts for her own children and working with homeschoolers using ESAs to build an arrray of learning opportunities for their children.

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