Kerry McDonald
“Mom, I can’t do it anymore,” said Iman Alleyne’s four-year-old son about his pre-kindergarten program. Plagued by anxiety-induced stomach aches and daily crying episodes over going to school, Alleyne’s son was sending clear signals that he needed a different learning environment.
At the same time, Alleyne was also feeling dissatisfied in her job as a certified special education teacher and school counselor in a Florida public charter school. She saw kids being bullied by other students, as well as being yelled at by teachers. Dismayed but determined, Alleyne began plotting what would eventually become Kind Academy, an award-winning microschool, or small, mixed-aged, co-learning community, in Coral Springs, Florida.
Centered around kindness to oneself, others and the world, Kind Academy …