Homeschooling

The Rise of Florida's 'Microschools'

Florida will pay $8,000 to cover tuition for any child who opts out of public school. The program is transforming k-12 education—and creating budget problems.

Zach Weissmueller | 8.17.2026 10:45 AM

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There's a quiet revolution happening in K-12 education, driven by parents and teachers who say they've had enough.

Jessica Zivkovic knows the feeling. "Ultimately I got to a point where I knew that we needed a whole overhaul," she says, "and I could not bring about the change within the system."

A handful of states are pushing school choice to the max. "There are a lot of eyes on Florida right now," says Tiffany Thenor. "We are kind of the pioneers of this universal voucher."

In the Sunshine State, about 14 percent of students attend a charter school and roughly 15 percent use state vouchers or education savings accounts, and traditional public schools are gradually losing students. It's like a slowly deflating balloon. And the teachers union says it's reckless.

"What we're seeing in Florida—it feels like an abandonment of public schools," says Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association.

But it's not slowing down.

Is this the future of American education?

The students at WonderHere in Lakeland, Florida, start their days with farm chores, gardening, and outdoor play. "I like my school. It's fun. I like that we have animals and we get to play outside," says Eva, one of the students. William, another student, adds that farm life "teaches you how to be more responsible"—that if you touch something you're not supposed to, "it could end up costing the lives of some of the animals."

WonderHere was started 10 years ago by public school teachers Tiffany Thenor and Jessica Zivkovic. Zivkovic describes the moment she knew the system was broken: "I was teaching second grade at a different school, and our administration said that they did not want any use of crayons, scissors, coloring pages, any sort of crafting in the classroom—like everything should be paper and pencil. And this is 7-year-olds."

She compares it to a scene in the film Matilda: "It felt like Ms. Trunchbull is coming down the hall and you have to hide all of your colorful things and all of the fun crafts and all the color. Because that's not allowed. Those are the moments that just really taught me that the system was so broken."

They started WonderHere as a private school. Today, it operates out of two converted homes on a 10-acre property. The curriculum incorporates teaching practices from Montessori, the child-centered educational philosophy known as Reggio Emilia, and academic standards from Finland. There are just 120 students on the Lakeland campus.

"We have a 12-to-1 student-teacher ratio," says Thenor, "and that allows for our teachers to be able to personalize each student's learning, to meet with them one-on-one each day, to make sure that they are taking notes and being observant of their learning behaviors and their interests."

WonderHere began accepting state vouchers in 2023 after Florida made them available to all students seeking an alternative to their zoned schools. Thenor says 95 percent of their Florida students now use a voucher.

"It's been a huge blessing for us to be able to accept students with the Florida Empowerment Voucher," says Zivkovic. "When we started WonderHere, we never wanted it to be a place that was only for families who could afford it."

Florida's vouchers, worth about $8,000, almost completely cover WonderHere's $9,000 annual five-day tuition.

Colossal Academy in Fort Lauderdale is also part of the "microschool" movement, replicating the feel of the one-room schoolhouse, with kids of different ages together in one setting. State vouchers enable more families to send their kids here.

"It's been a godsend, literally," says parent Sadiqa Glusman. "We wouldn't be able to afford going here."

The vouchers cover about half the cost of Colossal's full-time tuition. The average secular private day school tuition nationwide is........

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