Ms. Michelle Cortes-Harkins

In the classroom at PTC, teacher Michelle Cortes-Harkins organizes art supplies while students get ready for snack by putting out the food and washing their hands.
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For teacher and parent, Michelle Cortes-Harkins, the decision to enroll her children and teach at PTC emerged from concerns that her two sons were not getting the academic stimulation they needed in public school.Plus there was bullying at the public school her sons attended in Providence, where the playgrounds are crowded and perhaps not adequately supervised.When she didn't feel the school could respond to her safety concerns, she pulled her children out and began home schooling.

At PTC, teachers, parents, and kids, are co-creators of the curriculum."Ours is a child-led classroom," writes teacher Michelle Cortes-Harkins in the school newsletter.Ms. Cortes-Harkins is the main teacher at PTC, and mother of two of the school's students, Chancellor, age 11, and Emory, age 9.As the school's teacher, Ms. Cortes-Harkins is responsible for helping students stay on task with their work and complete the assignments handed out at the beginning of each day.As a side benefit for the school, Ms. Cortes-Harkins is bilingual in English and Spanish, and so Spanish is part of the curriculum for the students at PTC.

While the students were working on tasks either individually or in small groups, Ms. Cortes-Harkins showed me a book project that the students will be completing over the course of several months in school.