“As long time homeschoolers, there are very few teachers I’d trust with Nate’s education. Melissa is at the very top of that list. She provides exactly the right amount of rigor, responsibility, and freedom for her students at SHL. Unlike many other homeschool programs SHL really fills a niche so that we are better able to utilize the rest of our week with other meaningful work instead of duplicating efforts.”

“School House Lane is a gem. Melissa gets her students and knows how to challenge each of them individually. Since my daughter started at School House Lane this year, she has become actively engaged in her learning inside and outside of class. She has begun to work on a school project that is due 5 months from now. She has even started writing a novel for fun. She loves attending SHL and is severely disappointed if she ever has to miss class. She adores her classmates and looks forward to learning and socializing with them each week. From her point of view, the only thing that could make SHL better would be if it met 7 days a week! All of the kids in her class enjoy each other and work well together inside and outside of class. They even formed a band and wrote a song together for the fall festival! Any child would be lucky to attend SHL, and I’m so grateful that my daughter had the opportunity to experience the magic of SHL first hand.”

“When we moved away from the Philadelphia area two years ago, I knew the content being taught in local homeschool classes wouldn’t match our values. We quickly considered the possibility of School House Lane, via Zoom, for our child. We have known Melissa for several years and knew that the content she curated would be focused on historical accuracy and very inclusive of the minority experience. Fast-forward a year and a half, and SHL has become the center of our child’s education. She has learning differences, and the atmosphere of encouragement, acknowledgement, and acceptance experienced at SHL is nothing short of amazing!”

“My daughter was lucky enough to be at SHL for 5th, 6th, and 7th grade. Melissa is a phenomenal educator and an amazing person. SHL was such a formative experience in my daughter’s life. She grew in maturity and confidence not only as a student but as an individual. Melissa is most definitely one of the most “influential persons” in my daughter’s life. She made learning fun and challenging, and provided direction and structure to learning while leaving so much room for personal creativity and expression. She created a space for kids to be in community and learn what it means to care for each other and themselves. I could not have imagined a better middle school experience for my daughter and we are forever grateful to Melissa.”

“My daughter started this program having done very little writing aside from free writing. Her writing improved so much in the first year of the program and continues to improve in her second year. She has become much more confident and capable in expressing herself both in speaking and writing. The books that Melissa chooses and the questions that she asks are wonderful! My daughter looks forward to school days and misses going to school during breaks. I’m so grateful for Melissa and this program!”

“SHL has been an incredible boon for my kids. They have both grown massively in their time with Melissa, and unbelievably quickly, too. I watched my daughter’s brain be given the room and scaffolding it wanted to explode with connection – with ideas, with history, with peers, with her thoughts. Her writing, which was already a strength, was pushed just the right amount and thereby massively up-leveled; her social capacity, which was already great, absolutely blossomed; her confidence grew enormously, and I have watched her grapple with science more enthusiastically than she did previously. My son, whose writing was not a strength, went from being nervous about SHL to feeling completely up to the challenge and getting on top of his own academic work in a way that was heretofore completely unseen! He, too, is pushed just the right amount, and growing exponentially because of it. He loves the independence, the challenges, the opportunities for creativity, and the socializing that he has because of SHL. At home, he erupts constantly with “Well, actually, what I learned at SHL is that…” Aside from all of the academic benefits, my kids just absolutely LOVE SHL. Most importantly of all, Melissa really knows my kids. She makes their grandparents cry when they read her narrative reports, because of how much she gets them in their own crazy uniqueness. Melissa is a phenomenal educator – incredible organization, deeply thoughtful curricular development, totally engaged, and loves and cares about the work; she is interested and invested in each kid, on their own terms. The cost does not even remotely express the value of this in our lives.”

“Our daughter loves School House Lane and counts down the days until each meeting. She has done both online and in-person versions of the program and enjoyed both. As parents we have been happy with the academic rigor, room for creativity, and opportunity to meet new friends that SHL provides. SHL is just what we had been looking for: a program with a deep and coherent curriculum where the students read full books, learn history, get writing instructions and plenty of opportunity to write, study science and art, and also have field trips and unstructured time to bond with their classmates. I’ll never forget overhearing some students express their excitement about the essay assignment they had just received, which tells you everything you need to know about the enthusiasm for learning that Melissa generates.”

“Having homeschooled and been involved in various alternative educational programs in the Philadelphia region for the last 15 years, our experience with School House Lane affirms that this is a rare, special, and unique community unparalleled in our area. Though very small, our child has found a warm cohort of peers who are as academically curious and engaged as she is, while also having formed a supportive and non-competitive social bond. Our family recognizes the value of this intimate environment that encourages connection with our city, scholarly challenge, engagement with arts and culture, while still enabling our child plenty of time to pursue her own personal interests outside of school. We are now in the position of wondering how we will build on this in the high school years!”