{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Pitch Playground","title":"One Size Doesn’t Fit All: How Danette Buckley’s Dream Tech Academy Offers Personalized Education ","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1878,"description":"How do you create a classroom that meets students where they are? For Danette Buckley, the answer was to build it herself. Dream Tech Academy, her microschool in Petersburg, Virginia, was born from a personal mission to support her daughter during a difficult medical journey. Today, Dream Tech serves 42 students and is rewriting the rules on what education can look like. Many classrooms fall victim to teaching to the middle—large class sizes necessitate a one-size-fits-all approach to education, leaving students who are excelling or who need additional support without adequate resources. Danette’s school empowers students to thrive on their own terms.Danette is a lifelong learner who fell in love with school at age four and never looked back. After immigrating from Jamaica and witnessing the challenges of U.S. classrooms, she maintained her passion for education but saw that traditional schools often fail to meet the needs of every student. A family challenge brought her back to the classroom—this time as a homeschooler—and her vision evolved into a flexible, tech-enabled school designed to serve kids of all abilities and interests, where students could learn at their own pace. Dream Tech is a place where students are grouped by comprehension, not just age, and where learning is personalized, and joyful.In this episode, Danette pitches her microschool to Kelly Smith, CEO of Prenda. Kelly has helped over 1,000 people start microschools. Together, they explore how Danette can create a sustainable structure for Dream Tech, stick to her policies without losing her compassion, and bring her unique, student-first model to more families. It’s a conversation full of heart, strategy, and hard-earned wisdom for anyone reimagining what school can be.Episode Highlights:02:16 Challenges in the U.S. Education System04:08 Returning to Education as a Parent06:00 Homeschooling and Developing a Curriculum07:18 Growth of Dream Tech Academy09:55 A Day in the Life at Dream Tech12:30...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/RHUvVCiJgJMSGBHcrSAokswObgokSFYeF2yzaGy3ask/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS80M2Mx/ZmU1NGI4NDhiZDFh/NmM3NjhmMjlhYzY0/MWE2OC5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}