Ember & Root owner seeks to spark student curiosity

Life took Jessica McConnell out of the school library, but it didn’t take the school library out of her. Now, she’s channeling her love of teaching into Fayetteville’s new Ember & Root Learning Enrichment Community, which provides educational activities for both homeschooled and public school students.

As of Nov. 6, Ember & Root was serving 15 homeschooled students from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, and nine public school students in an after-school program from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. It also offers weekend workshops and events.

Located at 385 E. Sunbridge Drive, Ember & Root features organized, choice-based programming, with “sparked curiosity” as one of the goals. The homeschool enrichment program, which serves students ages 7-14, centers around a theme such as circuitry or decomposition. After McConnell teaches a lesson on the theme, she offers opt-in activities that explore the subject in greater depth. Students can choose to participate or engage in other learning activities facilitated by Ember & Root.

The after-school program, Spark Club, serves students in grades 2-6 and is less structured. McConnell leads a group session in which she exposes students to the same theme as the homeschoolers, but she doesn’t deliver a formal lesson. Students can then engage in their own chosen activities.

McConnell started Ember & Root after working as a kindergarten and first grade public school teacher, then as a librarian. She saw the school library as a hub for all students and created a maker space to enhance the learning.

“I was always thinking of programming and thinking of things to add to the space,” she said. “It’s a lot of what I’m doing here.”

While she loved her job, she and her husband, Jacob, decided one of their children would best be served in a homeschool environment. Still, the passion for reaching other students remained. She wanted to give other children the same kind of opportunities she was providing her son at home.

“Ember & Root happened because I was really aching to find another library job, but I just knew I didn’t have the capacity,” she said. “We weren’t in the space where I could do that, so I was like, how would I create something that I could offer to kids either after school or to this homeschool community that is like what I was kind of doing in my library?”

McConnell had a passion for creating a space that would enrich a wide range of students, rather than appealing to a single type with a particular interest. She was inspired by her often-curious, public school-educated daughter, who likes to engage in activities and projects at home. McConnell wanted her daughter to do those activities with others.

“The dream is that kids get to have those curiosities, they get to run with their ideas, whatever they’re inspired by, but they do it in the context of community,” she said. “So there’s the ember, which is the spark, and there’s the root, which is the community. And those two things together I think is what makes us different, is that you can follow your own curiosity, your own interests, but you don’t have to do it in a silo. You do it among friends and among really, really invested facilitators.”

McConnell is starting small with limited programming that doesn’t detract from her own homeschooling responsibilities. Even though Ember & Root is new, it already has a staff of two who work with her during homeschooling enrichment, and two who work in the after-school program. She hosted a community open house, Spark the Season: Ember & Root Launch Party on Dec. 5.

Tuition at Ember & Root is $165 a month for one day a week of homeschooling programming and $285 a month for two days a week. After-school families pay $150 for one day a week over six weeks.

She said with a laugh that she’s “not a businessperson.” Her background is in education. But she’s enjoying the freedom and autonomy that come with building her own company. She hopes to create a community that young people consider an extension of their home. She might open another location someday.

“It’s been wonderful to own my own thing and create something that to me is outside the box,” she said. “I couldn’t do this and work for a different business. It had to be my own.”