SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. – Imagine a society run entirely by kids, including writing their own constitution, electing their own legislators, and running their own businesses. That’s the idea behind MicroSociety, a project-based learning model in schools around the world.
Seminole County’s Stenstrom Elementary became a MicroSociety about two years ago, and now Microviedo is up and running.
“It’s exciting because we’re offering kids the opportunity to be future leaders in our community, and that’s what is really neat to me,” said Principal Jake Novak. “So we’re teaching them skills that you’re not going to get in a normal elementary school setting which allows them to be those future leaders.”
Novak gave News 6 anchor Julie Broughton a tour of “downtown Microviedo,” which also doubles as the school’s media center. Businesses like the Stallion Supply Station, Addition Financial, Stallion News Network, and Stenstrom Harvest line the community’s hub. The businesses are managed by students in the third through fifth grade.
Holton Mills is a partnership specialist with Addition Financial. He was a student teller in high school, so said helping with Microviedo is a full-circle moment for him.
“We have a loan officer that’s handing out mortgages to these kiddos and our HR team came in and actually did customer service training with all of them. So, they all have our customer service training that our HR team does to all new employees,” Mills said.
Students attend “micro” three days a week.
“To see the kids and how much they enjoy coming to micro. We have kids, they say I wasn’t feeling good today, but I knew we had micro today, so I came anyway. It’s really a great part of our school and our community. We just love it,” said Assistant Administrator Kristin Hodges.
Novak says the most challenging part for the faculty is taking a hands-off approach.
“So, we want kids to make mistakes because you’re going to learn from those mistakes and it’s a lot easier to explain when you have project-based learning like this, and it’s real life and there are actions and consequences to every single decision that’s made,” Novak said.
Novak tells News 6 the school is always looking for community volunteers and business partners to mentor the students.
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