Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0009-0008-9400-7073
Defense Date
2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Department
Education
First Advisor
Dr. Jesse Senechal
Second Advisor
Dr. Mike Broda
Third Advisor
Dr. Meleah Ellison
Fourth Advisor
Dr. Kurt Stemhagan
Fifth Advisor
Dr. Kamden Strunk
Abstract
This dissertation examines how one microschool interprets and enacts the purposes of schooling through a qualitative case study of Summit School, an Acton Academy affiliate in a mid-sized Southern city. Situated within broader debates about school choice and alternative education, the study explores how Summit’s vision, structures, and participant experiences illuminate enduring tensions in schooling: civic versus economic aims, public good versus private benefit, and innovation versus institutional continuity. Drawing on interviews, focus groups, observations, and school documents, the study treats Summit not as representative of microschools broadly, but as a bounded case through which larger questions about educational purpose can be examined in practice. Findings suggest that Summit understood schooling as learner formation as much as academic development, emphasizing responsibility, belonging, and increasing independence. These aims were supported through strong routines, accountability systems, and family alignment. Rather than removing structure, Summit reorganized it around learner autonomy and responsibility. This study contributes to scholarship on microschools by showing how one alternative school makes longstanding tensions in schooling especially visible. Summit is significant not because it resolves those tensions, but because it reveals how they are lived and organized within a contemporary microschool setting.
Rights
© Cammie Justus-Smith
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
4-23-2026