Find your path
Want something different for your child?
Rising Hill Learning is a microschool in Altadena, opening this fall!
The mission of Rising Hill Learning is to provide hands-on learning about our community and the constructed and natural systems that comprise our shared world.
We invite inquisitive five to nine year olds into our learning community, where wonder and reaching are encouraged, and mistakes are opportunities to improve.
Our program educates the next generation of thought leaders who will contribute to healthier communities, systems and world.
We’re curious people. We love to learn about how kids learn. We watch carefully, we listen. We read and learn about what’s new in how scientists understand kids’ brains and bodies. We ask a lot of questions!
It’s no surprise that our favorite kids are curious kids. And we love parents who are open to new things. The world is huge and there’s so much to discover—there’s no intelligent and unintelligent, only curious and incurious.
We’re also grade free! No grade levels, no report card grades… Just a bunch of kids learning at individual paces. Each kid is has strengths and needs, and can be motivated by curiosity, and that powerful feeling of knowing they grew stronger, more skilled, and ready for a new challenge.
Kids learn best when they have meaningful, authentic relationships with the people around them. Kind of like a modern one-room schoolhouse, we have kids of different abilities and a range of ages. But research tells us that mixed ability communities can thrive in some special ways.
And because we’re small every kids is seen and heard by a caring adult who knows them well. We want kids to form healthy and respectful relationships with themselves, their classmates and their environment.
We are diversity affirming. Not everyone learns the same. Or sees, or hears, or thinks the same way. Some kids want a calm, quiet place to do their best work, others need support with social and emotional engagement. Lots of kids master new concepts when working with a friend. We have experience with neurodiverity-affirming teaching practices, including differentiating for asynchronous (gifted) learners.
And we love all kids, from all backgrounds, ethnicities, religions and identities. Thank goodness we’re different! When we learn about others we learn more about ourselves.
Rising Hill is for parents who want
Choice in what and how their child learns
To expand their child's learning community
To ensure a meaningful relationship with their child’s teacher
Core subjects taught at their child’s individual level
Rich, real-world science and social studies programing
Science-informed, strength-based, and neurodiversity-affirming instruction
Lots of joyful, real-world, hands-on learning in the day
Rising Hill is for kids who
Are curious, compassionate and ambitious
Want to deeply explore science and social studies topics in connection to the real world they live in
Connect to other children with a variety of skill levels in a multi-age setting
Have a variety of learning strengths and needs, and are ready to be challenged at their ‘just right’ level
What is a microschool?
Microschools are an emerging model of alternative education. They are a response to the need for a customized school experience, and a desire parents have for a meaningful whole-child learning experience.
As a mircoschool, Rising Hill offers a small, flexible learning environment of multi-age students, who have a shared interest in hands-on, strength-based instruction and focus on personalized, blended and project-based learning.
We support to homeschooling parents with a la carte classes and bundled learning blocks. Parents can choose where they need support in teaching their child. We can enrich a homeschooling program, either by providing the core learning experience, through tutoring or small group instruction, or with special enrichment opportunities. We can also provide a structured and social option for families looking for an alternative to conventional school.