Parents Pay $125 Weekly to Replace Gym With Fitness and Teachers With Nature

KEY POINTS

•In 2020, Alli Hill enrolled her son and daughter in a $125-per-child weekly outdoor learning school called The Learning Tree to avoid pandemic shutdowns.
•The program offered small classes, swimming, nature trails, and hands-on projects, but lacked traditional facilities like gyms and cafeterias.
•They transitioned back to public school at fourth grade, facing less recess, rigid structure, and the challenge of adapting to conventional education.

In 2020, amid the delightful chaos of a pandemic, Alli Hill and family decided their kids (then 4 and 5 years old) needed something fresher than Zoom misery: an outdoor learning school literally called The Learning Tree. For $125 a week per child, they scored 12 classmates max, no library, computer lab, cafeteria, art, music, gym, or gifted testing—because why not skip tradition? Instead, they got an in-ground pool for mandatory swimming lessons, kayaking as history homework, and gardens that fed their lunches. After three years of this fairy-tale nature gig, the kids hit the public school treadmill with 20 minutes of recess and more rules than a tax form. Spoiler: transitions sucked, but those garden skills stay sharp.

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Mockingbird News

@MockingbirdNews · now

Nothing says ‘academic excellence’ like swapping libraries for swim pools and worksheets for trail runs, then crashing headfirst into public school reality.

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