1KHO 842: The Daily Grind Is Optional | Lindsay Meredith, Little House Farm

**Ginny Yurich** (0:00)
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Welcome to The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich, the founder of 1000hours Outside. And I have someone here today who is doing such a tremendous job about helping get kids outdoors. You're going to get so much inspiration from her. Lindsay Meredith, welcome.

**Lindsay Meredith** (1:29)
Hi, thanks for having me.

**Ginny Yurich** (1:31)
OK, so you're going to have to tell us what you've done here. And people can find, well, I'll make sure I'll put the links in the show notes. But you have started your own little homeschool hybrid program.
OK, homeschool hybrid program. And it's called Little House Farm. It's in Fredericksburg, Virginia. And this has just been a couple years, you know, just three or four years you've been doing this, but it's already full. You know, when I was looking on your website, it was like, join the waitlist. So I would love for you to talk to us about being in the world of education for almost 10 years. You did public school, private school, and then then you left now.

**Lindsay Meredith** (2:08)
And then I said, see you later. Yeah, so I've been involved in education off and on since my early 20s. My husband was active duty military for a while in the Marine Corps. And so I started out working at a preschool on the base, and we moved around to different bases. Eventually, I was doing work at DOD schools on bases, and then I entered full time teaching in public school.

**Ginny Yurich** (2:37)
What are DOD schools?

**Lindsay Meredith** (2:39)
DOD is Department of Defense.

**Ginny Yurich** (2:41)
Okay.

**Lindsay Meredith** (2:41)
So they're on base schools.

**Ginny Yurich** (2:43)
Okay.

**Lindsay Meredith** (2:44)
All military.

**Ginny Yurich** (2:45)
Does every base have their own school?

**Lindsay Meredith** (2:49)
Usually, yes. I mean, there's super tiny bases that maybe don't, that will outsource to the school district. So I've been in a situation where, when we were in California at one base, they actually had it split into two different school districts. The base was large, but they still outsource to the school district. And then I've been at another base where it was the schools on that base, and they're part of DOD. It's called DODIA, Department of Defense Education Association, maybe.
And they have their own employment, curriculum that they follow, all of that.

**Ginny Yurich** (3:27)
I didn't know that at all.

**Lindsay Meredith** (3:29)
Yeah.

**Ginny Yurich** (3:30)
Do people like that? Do they like that because then you can build community easier or it's more accessible?

**Lindsay Meredith** (3:36)
It is very transient because of people living in and out so much. So it's hard. I have some former students that are at a DOD school right now, and they actually love it because it is really small and they've built a really sweet community of people. But I think it is hard because there's so much constant in and out with military moving. And you say bye to your friends in June and you don't know if you're going to see them in September. So I think that that would be probably hard for kids.

**Ginny Yurich** (3:59)
Do you think though in some ways you end up being with a lot of other children who have a similar life story as you have moved? And then the teachers and the administration can be more aware of that?