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This story is part of our SPOTLIGHT series focusing on the state of education in Missouri. Read more here.

LIBERTY, Mo. 鈥� Up until high school, Zach Herzog had never really thought about highways 鈥� why they鈥檙e built where they are, or what they replace.

In ninth grade, he started digging.

As a new student at EDGE Microschool, a small school-within-a-school at the comprehensive Liberty High, he began tracing how the region’s roads developed. He found a city that had rebuilt itself around the car. The starkest example, he found, was , a major artery that took three decades to build and, in the process, destroyed 2,000 homes, displacing thousands of Black residents.

鈥淣obody really thinks about what the roads that you’re driving on replaced,鈥� said Herzog, now a senior. 鈥淚t really just kind of got me invested into city planning and how we make everything that we live in.鈥�

That kind of exploration is by design at EDGE, where teachers 鈥渘ever shoot anybody’s ideas down,鈥� said Herzog, 18. 鈥淭hey want you to question everything.鈥� 

Once Herzog was deep into the highway project, history teacher Tim Baldwin pushed him to connect it to the United Nations’ , which guide the school鈥檚 curriculum. That sent him further into car-centric infrastructure, pollution and pedestrian deaths, then into studying the city’s streetcar system as a possible alternative. 

鈥淸Baldwin] questioned me and he challenged me to think deeper than just, 鈥業 like using highways.鈥� 鈥� Instead, he suggested, Herzog should explore how they got there, how they affected neighborhoods and how things could be different. 鈥淗e’s actually made me think like an urban planner.鈥� In fact, Herzog this fall is moonlighting with Kansas City鈥檚 planning department as its first high school intern. He hopes to study city planning and transit in college.

鈥�100% about the learning鈥�

Though it took shape before COVID, EDGE owes a measure of its approach to pandemic school restrictions in 2020 and 2021. While the common wisdom about the pandemic was that it unleashed uniformly bad schooling on students, educators here saw something different: With the right incentives, a small group of high schoolers could actually thrive under less supervision.

That began a series of conversations among teachers and administrators that culminated in a visit to the interdisciplinary in San Diego, which is largely structured around projects. At the time, Liberty l, which enrolls about 1,700 students, was undergoing remodeling, and where its auditorium once stood was an open space without a purpose. Consultant , who has long championed alternative high school models, was touring the site with its then-principal and suggested it would make a great microschool.

Six years later, EDGE stands apart from most microschools, which are typically private programs, often funded by taxpayer-supported vouchers or Education Savings Accounts. EDGE, by contrast, is run by a traditional public district, housed inside a comprehensive high school with the district鈥檚 full support.

EDGE students enjoy more control over their time and the luxury to demonstrate what they鈥檝e learned via competency, for the most part, instead of by seat time or exams. Notable exceptions are the Advanced Placement math and science classes it offers, which still use more traditional schedules and assessments.

In exchange, the school鈥檚 teachers 鈥� five full-time and one part-time 鈥� typically cover less content but ask students to think more deeply about it and find ways that ideas in one class might fit into another, and into larger, interdisciplinary projects.

鈥淭his place is like what would you do if there were no rules about how you would make school, and the school was 100% about the learning,鈥� said Baldwin, the history teacher.

EDGE, short for Empowering Discovery of the Global Experience, this fall enrolls 82 students in grades 9 through 12 in the Liberty district, just north of Kansas City. Students take, on average, five courses inside EDGE and two in a comprehensive school 鈥� either here at Liberty or at the crosstown 鈥� all while enjoying those schools鈥� extracurriculars like band, football, speech and drama. 

The model is not easy to copy, depending on a small, stable team of teachers and daily time for them to plan together 鈥� they typically meet for a first-period prep time and at lunch, as well as once a week after students are gone.

Each spring, students vote on the focus they鈥檒l bring to their six-to-eight-week projects for the following school year. This fall, they鈥檙e investigating invasive species around the world. Senior Elissa Ketcham said she鈥檚 researching stoats, the weasel-like predators introduced to New Zealand in the 1880s to control rabbits that were sheep pastureland. 

The week begins with a Monday 鈥渒ickoff鈥� and all-school meeting, after which students build their school week. Using scheduling software, students piece together a schedule that somehow fits in all of their academics and extracurriculars, with plenty of 鈥淔low鈥� time for studying, conversation and relaxing.

The final product typically resembles a college student鈥檚 schedule. Instead of seven or eight identical classes each day, five days a week, an EDGE student might attend English class just three times a week, and with different classmates 鈥� often from different graduating classes. Imagine a one-room schoolhouse, but with teenagers huddling on couches, carpets, or at clusters of worktables. It鈥檚 radically different from life among Liberty鈥檚 larger student body or, as an early EDGE student dubbed it, 鈥淕en Pop,鈥� borrowing a for the area that houses the majority of inmates. The label somehow stuck.

The one-room-schoolhouse spirit often takes the form of students seeking and offering help in ways that wouldn鈥檛 otherwise happen in a traditional high school. Junior Jillian Comegys recalled a younger student approaching her for help during Flow time. 鈥淚 don’t think you would ever see a freshman go up to a junior and be like, 鈥楬ey, I’m lost on this assignment. Could you help me?鈥� 鈥�

One recent Thursday, language arts teacher Serena Comegys 鈥� Jillian鈥檚 mother 鈥� taught back-to-back sections of a 鈥淟it Chat,鈥� with students discussing the short story 鈥淭he Interlopers.鈥� In first period, just nine students sat around an L-shaped couch and comfy chairs. The following period, 24 students arrived and had to pull together two tables. After that there were 22, then 12, and finally six.

Seven students signed up for Eric Langhorst鈥檚 Global Literature class last fall, but on a recent Thursday he sat with just three juniors discussing the graphic novel Maus. In most schools, three students signing up for a class would get it canceled. Here it鈥檚 ideal, he said. 鈥淎s a teacher, it’s awesome having a smaller number like that. We can really get in-depth.鈥�

In that lesson, students also read the minutes of a Tennessee school board meeting in which board members banned the Pulitzer Prize-winning book. In their free time, they prepared arguments for or against the ban, composing speeches that would come in under two minutes, the required limit at most school board meetings.

Students plan a big international trip every other year 鈥� in the microschool鈥檚 short life they鈥檝e already been to Guatemala to build a playground and to Greece, where they volunteered at a refugee center for unaccompanied boys. They plan to travel to Belize this Spring to help with an elementary school infrastructure project and ead lessons for students. 

Despite the free flow of the proceedings most days, students said, EDGE is no slacker鈥檚 paradise. Junior Zooey Pacubas, who is taking three AP courses this year, bristled at the idea that the freedom she and others enjoy makes EDGE somehow easier. 鈥淚 wouldn’t say it’s more relaxed,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t’s definitely intense in its own way.鈥� 

Arguing back

For many students, EDGE鈥檚 defining feature isn’t the unusual schedule but its relationships. Because it鈥檚 small and teachers work across grade levels, virtually all students have the same handful of teachers for four years.

Instead of accumulating points, students are assessed on skills along a four-step scale, submitting evidence from any class: a chemistry lab report for writing skills, for instance, or a debate performance for argumentation. The result, Comegys said, is that students 鈥渉ave to defend and say, 鈥楬ere’s where I am on this skill. Here’s proof of where I am on this skill, and then also here’s the area that I need to work on.鈥� 鈥� They鈥檙e often hard on themselves, she said, in a sense curing the school of the kind of grade inflation that plagues many programs.

Comegys, the microschool鈥檚 lead teacher, said that if students aren鈥檛 happy with the results, they can keep working, deciding for themselves when they鈥檝e learned enough. 

Pacubas, the junior, remembered the moment she decided to stay at EDGE. In freshman year, her group was designing a model desert city. She was in charge of zoning. Part of the challenge, she recalled, was that the fictional city had developed a wild hog infestation. She and her classmates proposed building a sanctuary for the hogs, but science teacher Elise Carpenter pushed back: Wouldn’t a sanctuary just let the hogs repopulate faster, allowing them to someday break loose and make the problem worse? 

It's definitely intense in its own way.

Zooey Pacubas, junior

Pacubas countered that keeping them contained was more humane. The discussion grew from there.

鈥淭he moment that I knew I was going to stay in EDGE all four years was when I was able to argue back with my teacher on that project,鈥� she said. In classes outside of the microschool, she recalled, teachers sometimes 鈥渢hink that you’re just arguing for no reason.鈥�

The group eventually compromised, settling on a sanctuary with controlled hunting.

Junior Coralyn Young, 16, said she barely spoke in EDGE鈥檚 Socratic seminars as a freshman, worried about saying the wrong thing. That changed as she came to know her teachers and classmates. Now she can nearly lead a small-group discussion. 鈥淭here doesn’t need to be a 鈥榬ight thing,鈥欌�� she said. 鈥淭hey genuinely just want to know what I think.鈥�

I'd rather have my kids be able to analyze a source and identify bias than name a general from World War II.

Eric Langhorst, teacher

Less coverage, by choice

The emphasis on developing such skills comes at a cost, said teachers. While students get plenty of key content, the structure of discussion classes and the microschool鈥檚 focus on multidisciplinary learning means they typically end up covering less than in traditional classes. 

鈥淢y kids are not going to know every single bit of content that you might in Gen Pop,鈥� said Langhorst, 鈥渂ut they’re also probably going to forget that in a year. I’d rather have my kids be able to analyze a source and identify bias than name a general from World War II.鈥�

Baldwin, who trained as a historian, agreed: He can skip the traditional march 鈥渇rom Reconstruction to Vietnam鈥� and still turn out students who think like historians. Teaching students to investigate the world, communicate ideas, recognize other perspectives and take action, he said, 鈥渦nlocks the historical universe to them.鈥�

The approach depends on teachers willing to give up some control, said Comegys. And just as EDGE isn鈥檛 for every student, it鈥檚 not for every teacher, but for one 鈥渨ho doesn’t view their content as being more important than someone else’s,鈥� and who can admit to colleagues what they aren’t good at.

The payoff, said art teacher Garrett Brown, is a kind of freedom that few high school teachers enjoy. 鈥淚t breaks education as we know it, but it also fixes education as we know it, because we can be reactive and responsive to what students need, almost, like, to the hour.鈥�

After six years, the experiment shows signs of working, with EDGE students holding their own academically and in some areas outperforming peers. 

Demographically, they鈥檙e comparable to Gen Pop classmates: similar percentages come to class with Individualized Education Plans, 504 Plans and diagnoses of neurodiversity. But EDGE students attend school more consistently: 91.6%, compared with 85.2% for the larger school, according to the district.

It breaks education as we know it, but it also fixes education as we know it, because we can be reactive and responsive to what students need, almost, like, to the hour.

Garrett Brown, art teacher

On the most recent Missouri’s end-of-course exams, 75% of EDGE students scored proficient or advanced in English II, compared with 65% of non-EDGE students. In Algebra I, the figures were 55% and 43%, respectively. They also turn in slightly higher ACT scores.

Comegys said the program鈥檚 benefits shine in unexpected ways: She noted that her eldest son, who attended EDGE for four years, is now a sophomore at . Invited to interview for Truman’s , which covers tuition, room and board for about a dozen students a year, he sat for an interview and talked at length about his EDGE projects. 鈥淚 think it comes down to your ability to articulate it,鈥� Comegys said.

He won the scholarship over about 100 classmates.

For teachers, the harder adjustment might be going back to teaching at the bigger schools. Brown, the art teacher, works part-time at EDGE and part-time at Liberty North. 鈥淭here’s fluidity here that I鈥檝e just really come to value,” he said. 鈥淚n fact, it makes it tough to work in normal spaces sometimes. Why can’t it always be like this?鈥�

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