Community Conversation Follow-Up: Cultivating Robust Reading Lives

Several times a semester we gather together—parents and teachers—to talk on various topics of interest. This is an opportunity to consider how to support one another better, to offer ideas that might help families at home, and to discuss timely educational issues.

In November we focused the conversation on cultivating and sustaining a positive and robust reading culture in our learning community. It was a great discussion, anchored in these three reading-related articles. The conversation was also contextualized by a reminder of the goal at Long-View: we want our learners to “read ambitiously.” More clarity on this goal is captured here.

Some reflections shared by parents and teachers present at the Community Conversation were:

Reading diet and modality evolve: Young readers read for enjoyment and can grow in complexity over time, changing their book selections from primarily fiction to more of a balance of both nonfiction and fiction. Through this evolution, many learners lean on rereading comfortable fiction texts because they are familiar with the story elements. Research shows that this type of rereading is beneficial for young readers' fluency and deepening their understanding of story elements. To ensure balance in learners' reading diet, several parents expressed….

It’s Not About The Birds: Long-View’s Birding Club

On Tuesday mornings in the hour before school this fall, the Long-View building has been unusually quiet. That’s because a sizable chunk of our learner population can be found down the street, at the park, with binoculars in hand, looking for birds.

Birding Club meets once a week, but every day in the Science Block for this year’s younger bands, Marigold and Indigo, avian themes are guiding explorations of all kinds. Because many older learners experienced a first iteration of these themes in their own Science Blocks several years ago, birding has begun to feel like an important part of Long-View’s culture. Learners and teachers alike can be found quizzing each other with bird identification cards before or after school, or hanging out on the porch by the feeders, debating whether the bird that just perched on the railing was an Eastern Phoebe or a Northern Mockingbird.

As Ms. Zapalac – one of our co-founders and an avid birder – pointed out, birding at Long-View isn’t really (or, only) about the birds. In a recent conversation, Mr. Cooley, who leads Science for Marigold and Indigo, discussed the practices and concepts that underlie this curricular work, as well as his own fascination with the study of birds. Here are some excerpts from his remarks: We’re starting off with observational skills, like drawing birds and field notebooks, as well as identification….

generalLisa ZapalacNovember 11, 2025Long-View Micro Schoolbirding club, science, field skills

Long-View Student Wins 1st in the Nation for Mathematics and Wins Team Award for Collaboration at the Science Fair

Yesterday, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Society for Science announced the winners of the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge (Thermo Fisher JIC), the nation’s leading middle school science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competition.

Tobias (Toby) Lam, representing Long-View Micro School, won the First Place Mathematics Award, as well as the Team Award!

Toby demonstrated exceptional skill and promise in mathematics as evidenced in his project, titled “The Effect of Nintendo’s NES Tetris Theme Music and 28 Hertz High Beta-Frequency Binaural Beats on a 233 Hertz Carrier on Attention Span,” and was awarded First Place in Mathematics. Listen to Toby describe his project here.

Furthermore, Toby’s Finals Week challenge team won the Team Award because they best demonstrated an ability to work together and solve problems through shared decision making, communication and scientific and engineering collaboration.

Exceptional math skills and strong collaboration skills sound exactly like what we are teaching at Long-View Micro School!

"Spend a Day" With A Band: Instagram Highlights As A Way to Experience Learning At Long-View

“Long-View develops thinking skills, agency, curiosity, and investment in learning. We focus on constructing robust knowledge structures and facilitating the development of conceptual understandings that promote transfer and connections. “ That’s the big picture of what we are working to do. But what does that look like on a daily basis? If Long-View is a transformative educational experience, one that is built upon a cohesive experience across weeks, months, and years, what does one day look like?

To answer these questions, we’ve put together four highlights. In each highlight, we follow one group of learners for their day at Long-View.

Before you watch these highlights that follow each band, you might be wondering about how bands are formed. Each band typically has a spread of 2-3 grade levels. Mixed-age bands allow us to let go of assumptions related to ages and grade levels and ensure all children are stretching toward the highest expectations. We have four bands, which are created in the beginning of the year and typically have color names (ex. “Indigo Band”). The band operates as a learning community across all subject areas. If you’d like to learn more about how we think about band placement, you can see our most recent blog post….

generalLisa ZapalacOctober 20, 2025Long-View Micro Schooljoin a band, life at long-view

Bigs Reflect on Their Mathematical Journeys

It’s Day One! This morning kicked off the 2025-26 iteration of Long-View’s Big + Little Math. For the past six years, a group of Long-View’s older mathematicians (known as Bigs, typically 7th and 8th graders) have met with a group of the youngest (known as Littles, typically 2nd and 3rd graders) in partnerships every Thursday morning from 8:30-9:30. As detailed in an earlier post by Astrid, one of Long-View’s first Bigs, the partners work through a studio set together, and then, with support from teachers, they reflect and debrief on the experience in their respective age groups.

The benefits to Littles in this scenario come easily to mind: a younger learner builds mathematical understanding in conversation with an older learner whose experience and dedicated mentorship are sure to inspire. For the Bigs, it’s also easy to recognize how this experience in the cognitive and emotional work of teaching can be so beneficial. But what does being a Big do for these older learners as mathematicians themselves?

One week ago, the new Bigs gathered in Moontower for a characteristically Long-View form of training: an extended conversation about their role in this tradition. Prompted to speak about how to help their Littles build understanding, the Bigs’ comments ended up illuminating their own development as mathematicians. Here are a few short excerpts from their talk:

mathLisa ZapalacOctober 9, 2025Long-View Micro Schoolmentorship, big/little math

Band Placements: Moving Beyond “Moving Up”

It’s that time of year again—when we all, kids and adults alike, get excited about all things back-to-school. At many schools, finding out what homeroom class a child gets placed in is central to the experience. At Long-View, we don’t have “homeroom classes”; instead, we have mixed-age level “bands” that we work to shape into a learning community.

Here, on the first day of school, children find out their band placement in an unceremonious procedure: we simply read out names and tell children which room to go to. Once arrived in that room, we reveal the name of the band (usually named for a color), and rather than placing emphasis on which band the child is in, we emphasize the responsibility of the individuals and the group to create the kinds of growth and learning opportunities they want for the year.

Though it’s not our intent, we inevitably hear students talk about “moving up a band.” It’s natural—most school systems (and many extracurriculars, like sports) structure advancement as a ladder, with clear steps up and down. But that framework doesn’t really capture how growth works here….

generalLisa ZapalacAugust 18, 2025Long-View Micro Schoolbands, learning, learning community

Introducing The Red Couch Review: The Literary Magazine of Long-View Micro School

We are thrilled to announce the debut of our very first literary magazine, The Red Couch Review. This 81-page collection features original fiction, poetry, and memoir, all submitted by our talented learners. The magazine was thoughtfully assembled by a student editorial board led by Ms. Weller, and features cover art created by one of our own. We invite you to explore and celebrate the creativity, writing talents, and voices of our community—read The Red Couch Review.

All Hands on Deck: Creativity Floats at the 9th Long-View Cardboard Boat Regatta

Every spring, there’s a singular energy that builds in our community—a blend of anticipation, nervous excitement, and the unmistakable rustle of cardboard. On May 2, the Loop 360 Boat Ramp Park came alive as we held our ninth annual Cardboard Boat Regatta. Seventeen boats, each thoughtfully crafted by our learners, took to the waters of Lake Austin in a spirited event that highlights creativity, problem-solving, and collaboration.

We’re especially grateful to Travis County Parks for providing this beautiful park as the perfect setting—open space and sparkling water—for our event. This treasured community resource created an inspiring backdrop for our students to put their ideas to the test.

But the regatta is about much more than launching boats on the water. It’s a hands-on exploration of physics, problem-solving, and resilience. Over several weeks, teams worked together to design, build, and refine their boats, learning firsthand about buoyancy, balance, and resilience….

Rethinking “Soft Skills”: Why the Hardest and Most Enduring Skills Need a New Name

Walk into any classroom or workplace today, and you’ll likely hear talk of “soft skills.” Communication, empathy, collaboration, adaptability—these are the qualities that shape how we relate to one another and navigate the world. Yet, the term “soft skills” does these abilities a disservice. Not only are these skills among the hardest to master—and teach—but they are also the most durable, especially as technology, including artificial intelligence, rapidly reshapes our world.

The Case for a Rebrand of “Soft Skills”

The phrase “soft skills” suggests something secondary or optional—a nice-to-have alongside the so-called “hard” skills of math, science, technical expertise, or other “academic” knowledge. But research consistently tells a different story. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report (2023) identifies analytical thinking, creativity, and resilience—alongside empathy and collaboration—as the most in-demand skills for the future workforce. These are not peripheral; they are central and it is a disservice to call them “soft”….

generalLisa ZapalacApril 2, 2025Long-View Micro SchoolSEL, soft skills, durable skills

Build Week 19: Helping Malin Prepare for her 1st Birthday Party

Last spring, we were thrilled to make our first visit to Pease Park’s newest (and largest) resident: Malin, the troll. Designed and built by artist Thomas Dambo, primarily from reused and upcycled materials, Malin joins over 150 other trolls created by Dambo, his team, and local volunteers for locations around the world.

Pease Park occupies a special place in our hearts at Long-View. Every school day, we walk there for lunch and an hour of play, and often for special projects like nature writing or ecology studies. We were commissioned by Pease Park Conservancy to help Malin prepare for her 1st birthday party, and Build Week 19 was born! We were eager to help our beloved park by designating a week to build a set of colossal, upcycled decorations….

build week, parkElizabeth Bayer MorganMarch 11, 2025Long-View Schoolbuild week 19

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