The Online School Behind Our Business Insider Story

Big news around here: Business Insider just published my first-person story about Colt, our 13-year-old who has spent the last six years doing school from Zodiacs, jungle trails, airport concourses, and one bedroom in Denver that houses a suspicious number of geckos. You can read the whole thing here: I let my son do online school while traveling the world.

Within hours of it going live, the same question started landing in our inbox and DMs: okay, but what school? Which is fair, because that’s the load-bearing detail of the entire edu-sitch. A kid can’t collect water samples in Icy Bay on a Tuesday morning unless something very specific is true about how his coursework operates.

Funny thing, though: the one detail readers wanted most is the one detail that didn’t make the final cut.

Why the article doesn’t name the school

No scandal here. Major outlets like Business Insider routinely trim brand and product names from contributor essays. It keeps their editorial independence tidy, and honestly, it’s the right instinct. Their house, their rules; you don’t get to pick the curtains in somebody else’s living room.

So the published piece describes the school without naming it, and every parent who read it was left googling “flexible accredited online school” into the void. That’s a rough way to find something this important, like choosing a surgeon by vibes.

But this is our site. Nobody edits me here except Erin, and she’s fine with this one. So let’s fill in the blank.

Meet Ignite Learning Academy

The school is Ignite Learning Academy, an online private school based in Arizona, and I want to be upfront that it took us three tries to get here. Colt went through two other online programs first. They were fine. Fine is not the same as fit.

Here’s what fit looks like. ILA is a fully accredited K-12 program with the same curriculum you’d find at the school down the street: math, literature, regular exams, even science experiments, scaled down from bunsen burners to what can be built from everyday materials at the kitchen table (or, in our case, a galley table somewhere in the Pacific). What it skips is state-mandated testing, which we have yet to miss.

The mechanic that changes everything is when the work happens, not whether. Assignment deadlines are flexible, and as long as everything is completed within the semester, credit is credit. So Colt works ahead whenever he knows we’re about to lose connectivity, which is exactly how a 10 a.m. Zodiac ride in Alaska doesn’t cost him a grade.

And it’s not just Colt. His sister Brooklyn did a year at ILA before choosing in-person high school, so we’ve watched it fit two very different kids in two very different ways. The accreditation matters more than anything: it keeps every door to higher education open, which is no small thing when your youngest is on track to graduate at 16 with plans that involve wildlife programs on other continents.

We wrote up the full details, how enrollment works, what a typical week looks like, what it costs, in our complete Ignite Learning Academy review.

Is ILA right for your family?

Profesh scout honesty: not automatically. Two of our three kids ultimately chose a brick-and-mortar school four blocks from our house, and that was the right call for them. Online school rewards a particular kind of kid: self-directed, comfortable working solo, with a social life that doesn’t depend on hallways, and a particular kind of family rhythm, whether that’s full-time travel, competitive sports, or just a kid who does better outside a classroom’s pacing.

We vet schools the same way we vet expedition operators: accreditation first, flexibility second, and actual humans behind the curtain third. ILA cleared all three, which is why our son’s education runs through them and why we’re comfortable putting our name next to theirs. As the proverb goes, the best school, like the best itinerary, is the one that fits the traveler you actually have, not the one in the brochure.

The fastest way to find out if it fits yours is to skip the brochure entirely and talk to a human.

Talk to ILA yourself

Bring them the weird questions: your travel calendar, your kid’s grade level, credit transfers, how mid-semester enrollment works. That call costs you nothing and answers more than ten review posts ever could.

Schedule a call with an ILA administrator

Full transparency: Ignite Learning Academy is an Always Be Changing partner, and that link tells them we sent you. Our opinion of them predates the partnership; Colt’s transcript is the receipt.