Imagine you’re a kid who’s super into skateboarding, but not so interested in anything to do with school.

One day, your parents say “Hey, we just heard about a school you may be interested in going to,” and you think “Um, yeah, right,” but then they say “It’s a skateboarding school.”

You perk up.

They tell you that at this school there’s a huge indoor skatepark, and it’s designed to help you progress rapidly. There are mini ramps that are 2 feet, 3 feet, 4 feet, 5 feet, and 6 feet tall. There’s a 13-foot vert ramp. There are bowls, flat bars, and ledges. There are sets of stairs going from 2, to 3, to 4, all the way up to 9, with all sorts of rails and ledges going down them to do tricks on.

“Yeah, but do I only get to skate for a half hour a day, or what?” you ask.

“You get to skate as much as you want,” they tell you.

“Wait, what?! What about classes? Like math and stuff?”

“What, you’re worried about missing out?”

“No, I just can’t believe there’s a school without that stuff. It would be illegal.”

“You’ll pick it up while you learn about other stuff. I mean, you can’t run the skate shop at the school if you can’t count, right?”

“I get to run a skate shop?!”

Your parents tell you that in addition to skating as much as you want, there’s everything else a young skater might be interested in.

Want to make skate videos? They’ve got cameras and editing bays so you and the other students can film each other, edit the videos, and publish them online.

How would you like to learn how to design and manufacture your own skateboard decks, wheels, or other hardware? They’ve got the software and tools to do it, plus connections to factories.

Want to start a skate clothing brand and learn how to make shirts, pants, and more? They’re going to do silk screening on premises to test out ideas, and they have partners who have launched successful lifestyle brands.

How about an online magazine, maybe a print one? How would you like to publish a book?

And yes, there’s a skate shop at the school, plus the skatepark is open to the public and run by the students as a business in the afternoons and evenings, and on weekends.

In addition to skateboarding and entrepreneurship you’ll learn branding, digital marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, web design and programming, construction, and engineering.

Of course to get involved with all this you’ll need to know how to read, write, and do some math.

“You’ll pick it up along the way,” your parents tell you.

“Wait, but there’s gotta be math and English classes…” you say, you just can’t imagine school without classes.

“You’ll learn, but everything is voluntary, and most things you’ll learn as you need, in the moment,” your parents tell you. “If you need some geometry while you’re learning the software to design a skateboard deck then one of the guides will teach it to you on the spot, when you need it.”

“What’s a guide?”

“There aren’t any teachers, just guides,” your parents respond. “They’re all skaters or into skating.”

Your parents explain that while the guides may teach classes, you don’t have to go to them. It’s up to the guides to make classes interesting enough that you want to go to them. “After all,” your parents say, “If someone said ‘Tomorrow we’re going to have a class on they physics of an ollie,’ wouldn’t you go on your own?”

Your parents tell you sometimes the school will have a special guests. Maybe a pro skater will come by and talk about what it’s like to be a pro and how to get sponsored, or a skateboard deck artist will come by and teach an art class. Maybe they’ll get Danny Way on a video link to talk about how he designed the first mega ramp.

“How do I get graded?”

“Oh, there aren’t any grades.”

“What?! How do I get into college?”

“You’re worried about that? I thought you were going to be a pro skater and didn’t need college.”

“Well, yeah, but I mean, what if I get hurt or something?”

“If you get experience with all the other stuff then you’ll already know how to make money. Maybe you’ll start the next Supreme, Palace, or Hypebeast. Maybe you’ll do something totally unrelated to skateboarding, like get interested in fashion and go work for Dolce & Gabbana. Maybe you’ll take your skateboard video skills and go work in Hollywood like Spike Jonze. Maybe skateboarding will help you become an actor like Jason Lee.”

“But still,” you ask, “What if I want to go to college? Maybe I don’t, but maybe I want to leave that door open.”

“If you want to go to college there’s nothing stopping you,” your parents tell you. “You take some tests and get in. There are millions of homeschoolers in the US who do it all the time, and they don’t have any grades to show, either. Some elite colleges even say they prefer homeschoolers, so grades schmades.”

“That’s it?”

“No, you’ll also have a portfolio. Your portfolio is kind of like a collection of everything you’ve done and learned, but it’s better than grades because it shows what you really know and that you can do something with it. Instead of showing colleges that you got an ‘A’ in your photography class, you show them your photography and they can see if it’s good or not. Your portfolio might include a video of you talking about how you designed 20 different molds for skateboard decks, or how you used your graphic design and entrepreneurship skills to create a new t-shirt company. Colleges are relying on portfolios more and grades less, so by the time you graduate from this school you might be in better shape than a lot of other kids out there.”

“How many kids are at the school?”

“It’s small. Maybe 100. Maybe they’ll allow more kids later, but it will always be smaller than a normal school.”

“Where are they from?”

“Everywhere. With skateboarding in the Olympics now and tons of kids getting into skateboarding, some parents are taking this seriously and moving to where the school is so their kids can go.”

“What ages?”

“All ages, starting at 5 up to the year you turn 18.”

“But…,” now you’re thinking of a new problem. “What if I don’t want to leave when I’m 18?”

“Well…they’re going to open more skate schools around the country, and they’ll need guides.”

If you think a skateboarding context-based learning environment might be the right fit for your child, let’s talk.