Photo Credit: Highland Street Photography

In June 2016, Interlochen Community School closed its doors after 65 years of educating northern Michigan children. While it seemed like the end of the beloved school, the building didn’t sit vacant for long. Today, the school is fulfilling an educational need for the homeschool community.

Last year, the former Interlochen Community School became home to the Northern Michigan Partnership: a free Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) program offering non-core classes like art, music, and foreign languages to K-12 students living in the five-county area of the Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District (TBAISD) and any contiguous ISD.

While many schools already offer non-core classes, TCAPS discovered that a subsection of local students, like homeschool children, may not have access to these elective opportunities and could benefit from such a program.

In October 2016, Rose Zivkovich, director of the Northern Michigan Partnership and homeschool parent, began working with TCAPS to put together the program. “This program was designed by homeschoolers and is led by homeschoolers,” said Zivkovich. “In partnership with TCAPS, we offer a unique opportunity for homeschool kids to learn and socialize with others like them in a comfortable environment,” said Zivkovich.

While core subjects like math, science, and English are still being taught at home, homeschool children through the partnership have a chance to explore elective classes and learn from the teachers and community experts who’ve made these subjects their specialty.

“We are all about learning through our community. In this school, the faculty, staff, and parents collaborate with each other in the education of our students,” said Zivkovich.

Cherryland right-of-way engineer and homeschool parent Dan Grignon and his wife, Sarah, enrolled their children in the program this past September and have experienced the benefits for their family firsthand. “This program gives our kids a break during the week to learn things that we as homeschool parents can’t teach from home,” said Grignon. “It also has been a great opportunity for us to connect with other homeschool families.”

Today, the Northern Michigan Partnership has grown to an enrollment of over 180 students with 100 families participating. “In the long term, I would love to see my kids graduate from here,” explained Zivkovich. “I see us in Interlochen becoming the model for similar programs across the state.”

With the cooperation between TCAPS and the homeschool community, the former Interlochen Community School has been given a second life and continues its history of educating our area youth.