This story was updated on Nov. 9.
To Luna Ojeda, flipping over on a surfboard feels the same as riding a roller coaster.
"I couldn't breathe," said the 6-year-old on a sunny afternoon this spring, hardly shaken up after a wave overwhelmed her tiny frame, knocking her into the ocean. "But I took a breath, and I felt okay."
Her teacher was with her in the water, and her mom watched from the shore. Her classroom was the sand and sea of Deerfield Beach.
Luna and her 8-year-old brother Apollo — whose only complaint that day was getting saltwater in his nose — participate in Surf Skate Science, a Broward County-based homeschool co-op that teaches science through surfing and skateboarding.
When they're not balancing on long wooden planks, students ages 6 to 16 learn about waves and local marine life and design their own skateboard decks. They can earn science and physical education credit for their college applications. The program costs $475 for a 14-week semester.
About 250 kids from Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties are attending Surf Skate Science weekly this fall, and more than 2,500 have participated in related field trips and online courses.
Before the pandemic, the program had only 40 students.
That sixfold enrollment increase illustrates the explosion of popularity in homeschooling statewide. Throughout Florida, enrollment in home-based education has jumped 60% since before COVID-19, according to the most recent available state data. Nearly 155,000 students are homeschooled in the state, with more than 25,000 of them here in South Florida.
And now thousands of those homeschool families are paying for educational programs like Surf Skate Science with vouchers. This fall, more than 350,000 students are receiving taxpayer-funded vouchers to attend private schools or pursue other educational options, including homeschool.
That record participation was fueled by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature expanding eligibility to all students. During a November special legislative session, lawmakers approved increasing a cap on a voucher program for students with disabilities, because of demand.
READ MORE: Once the alternative, homeschooling could become mainstream
"They're both loving it so much," said Gaby Ojeda, mom to Luna and Apollo.
Her two kids attend a micro school in Fort Lauderdale some days, and other days, they do activities like this surfing lesson.
"I feel so lucky that we have those alternative options for education," Ojeda said on that day in March.
As some kids prepared to follow surf instructors out into the water a few at a time, others built beach volcanoes under the direction of Toni Frallicciardi. She founded Surf Skate Science with her husband, Uli, and she generally handles the science of it all. Kids buried bottles of Diet Coke in the sand and found out what happens when you drop Mentos candies inside.
"Everybody back up!" one boy yelled. "It's gonna explode!" His classmates screamed and scurried away from a geyser of sticky soda.
"A lot of people have misconceptions about what homeschool is. Especially through COVID, they thought it was just sitting in front of a computer. And I think that whole concept is starting to change," Toni said.
Toni echoes a sentiment shared by other school choice advocates: That this moment feels like something of a golden age for educational disruption in a state long known for pushing the envelope.
"We keep calling it the educational renaissance," Toni said. "People are looking at education differently."
After then-6-year-old Luna caught her breath, Uli Frallicciardi came looking for her, eager to get the little girl back on her surfboard.
"I'm gonna take Luna out. I promise she's gonna be alright," he told her mom, Gaby Ojeda.
"Yay! Okay!" Ojeda replied.
"I trust him. I know she's all good," Ojeda said. "She's my fearless child."
School shootings, pandemic contribute to homeschooling surge
The Frallicciardis' decision to create Surf Skate Science — and the homeschool program's growing popularity — reflect the profound impact of two crises on public education in Florida and throughout the country: The 2018 Parkland school shooting and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Throughout the quarter century of Toni and Uli Frallicciardi's marriage, the couple has traveled the world building skateparks. For years, their three kids attended a private Christian school in Fort Lauderdale, and the parents frequently dismissed the suggestion that homeschool might fit their lifestyle better. Toni said she didn't think she would be good at teaching.
But several years ago, when the family moved to West Texas for a skatepark project, Toni enrolled the kids in Florida Virtual School.
"We did a lot of activities. We went and visited museums. We got to go to the SpaceX facilities there and go into the zero gravity chamber. Just fun stuff you wouldn't do if you were in school," Toni said.
A medical crisis pulled the Frallicciardis back home. Toni's father had terminal brain cancer. She wanted to be close by to help her mother care for him, and she wanted her kids to be able to spend precious time with him. She continued homeschooling them.
"Not even a month or two after we got home is when Stoneman Douglas happened," Toni said.
The family lived three miles from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and knew kids who attended at the time of the February 2018 shooting that claimed 17 lives.
Some families in the neighborhood went to the beach for surfing and a science lesson. "We did a lot of activities with the kids, just to get them out and get them talking to each other," Toni said.
"And that's kind of how it started, just pulling our neighbors together," she said, "because everybody was scared to go to school. There were a lot of families newly homeschooling."
"And so that's when our first boom of our program was," she added. "And then after COVID, then it just grew again."
Unconventional learners
Uli Frallicciardi loves teaching surfing and skateboarding lessons almost as much as he loves his wife. It sounds corny, sure, but to be fair, he is pretty corny when he talks about Toni.
"She's always been my girl," he said. "Listen, once you find the person that completes you — it doesn't mean you're always going to make them happy and going to get along. But that's your girl. That's the person you're supposed to be with. So I've had the privilege of being with her for almost 26 years."
Toni and Uli both grew up in the Fort Lauderdale area.
"My dad surfed," Toni said. "So when there's no waves, pretty much everybody skateboards. And down in South Florida, there's not waves often."
In the early '90s, Toni owned the Soul Kitchen Skate Shop and Collective Souls Art Gallery in Fort Lauderdale. "My skate shop had an art gallery in it and a music store, as well," she said.
Toni and Uli connected through mutual friends, and she encouraged him to visit her store.
"So I went, and she gave me a skateboard, and I fell in love with her," Uli said. "I'm like, this is the chick, bro. I like her so much. And she got me skating again!"
They married in 1997. Their three kids are now in high school, college and graduate school, respectively. Toni said their kids, especially their youngest, excelled outside of a traditional school environment.
That made sense to Uli, who didn't like math as a kid but now designs skateboarding bowls. "And I'll tell you, man, the math on that — it will make you want to slap someone, you know," he said.
"But because you love it, you learn it, right? So that's the thing with Surf Skate Science. We get to see the way these kids are learning, in an unconventional way."
