Come & Feel The Difference
Meraki Academy is a K-12 school that turns traditional education upside down. Instead of sitting at a desk completing assignments and learning facts for a test, students engage in deep learning. Deep Level 4 learning only happens when learning is active, engaged, meaningful, and socially interactive. This means that children learn best by doing. This forms the core of our curriculum. By focusing on these four things, providing an environment for children to learn by doing, and taking the focus off of academic performance, several amazing things happen; not only is the deepest learning achieved, but soft skills and character are also developed. Then, the academics follow naturally after that, often more quickly and with much less effort.
The Director’s Message
Welcome to Meraki Academy! Thank you for taking the time to learn more about Meraki Academy. Each day at our school is an exciting new opportunity to empower tomorrow’s leaders, and we hope your child will join us.
Meraki Academy welcomes students regardless of race, gender, national and ethnic origin, and is non-discriminatory in all our policies. We accept children between the ages of 5 and 18.
There are no specific academic entrance requirements; however, we base admission decisions on many factors, especially your child’s age and suitability for our program.
We accept applications all year round. Because space is limited, we encourage prospective parents to begin the admission process in the January for the following academic year.
Please contact us regarding availability for your child, and to schedule your personal tour of our school. We will be happy to answer your questions and provide additional information about our educational programs.
Kind regards,
Jennifer Granger
Parents who do the following will probably be a good fit for Meraki Academy
✔️ Put a lot of effort into creating and maintaining a positive relationship with their children
✔️ Explain the reasons behind their rules
✔️ Enforce rules and give consequences but take their child’s feelings into consideration
✔️ Invest time and energy into preventing behavior problems before they start
✔️ Incorporate positive discipline strategies like praise and reward systems to reinforce good behavior
✔️ Validate their child’s feelings while making it clear that they are still in charge
✔️ Recognize that when their child makes a poor decision, it is important for them to take responsibility for their mistake and work to make amends
✔️ Want their children to learn to think and lead and take charge of their own lives.
✔️ Value strength of character over academic achievement.
✔️ Know that growing through failure is what develops self-confidence, resilience, and perseverance.
✔️ Are willing to trust their children with their own education, allow them to struggle, and encourage them to embrace the adventure.
✔️ See beyond academics and into the character traits that will really determine their children’s success.
✔️ Know that if character is developed first, the academics will follow naturally, and often more quickly than if academics are the focus.
Our Guides
Our guides are what make every day special for our children. Our guides are creative, understanding, and passionate. They are gamemakers who propose exciting challenges, set and hold boundaries, and invite children to embark on life-changing adventures. Guides have little in common with traditional teachers, and more closely resemble a coach or facilitator. Guides offer frameworks, systems, and boundaries within which children find their genius and develop it so that they can use their gifts to serve others and change the world.
+ Meet Ms. Jennifer Granger
Jennifer Granger’s passion is helping children learn, grow, and make a difference in the world around them. From a young age, she was fascinated by the science behind a child’s brain development and the philosophies surrounding how child learn on a deep level. She found Maria Montessori to be deeply influential and closely aligned with her own philosophy developed as a result of decades of observation. As the oldest of fifteen children and a dedicated lifelong learner, she comes to Meraki Academy with decades of firsthand experience in the science and application of how children learn.
She worked with children for decades while continuing her self-education. She furthered her education while starting a family of her own. While pursuing her B.S. Degree in Psychology with a minor Small Business Management and Entrepreneurship, she became frustrated with the inadequacies of the traditional school system, finding that it in many ways contradicted the science of how children learn. Meanwhile she also coached an award-winning Destination Imagination Team, finding that the child-centered and project-based approach closely aligned with her educational philosophy.
She embarked on an unschooling journey with her own nine children, all the while seeking to answer one driving question: if one were to start over with a clean slate and create the ideal school completely aligned with the science of how children learn, what would that school look like? Meraki Academy is the result of decades of research spent answering this question. Now with years of experience serving as a guide to her own children, Jennifer is excited to serve as a guide for other children as well.