Last week, 13-year-old Ash Blakely decided to switch schools, and his mom thinks there’s been something different about him since.
“There’s just a little bit more of a smile on his face,” Melanie Ford said.
Ash decided to enroll at the Queer Blended Learning Center, a microschool being launched in August for middle schoolers. The school will be funded by Arizona’s education vouchers and housed at the downtown Phoenix headquarters of one∙n∙ten, a nonprofit that serves LGBTQ+ youth. The school’s founders aim to give young people who may feel uncomfortable in a larger school a safe space to be themselves and learn. LGBTQ+ history will be on the curriculum.
