Like many education entrepreneurs, Ben Colas, founder of Forest City Academy in Cleveland, had several twists and turns in his journey. After studying finance in undergrad, Ben decided he wanted a career that felt like he was helping people. He joined Teach For America and taught in inner-city Cleveland for several years. But he often felt like he was banging his head against the wall because of the bureaucracy and the entrenched “it’s always been done” this way mindset. “I got pretty burnt out,” he admits.

He shifted gears and joined Stand Together, a philanthropic community working to transform K‑12 education, among other issues. “That was a time of seeing really innovative models and just people in organizations rethinking when, where, and how learning happens, thinking different about it,” he recalls. “It really opened my eyes.”

Ben moved back to Cleveland and completed a school leadership fellowship that included a principal residency in a district school. It confirmed that he’s not cut out for a conventional school. “I think the most disheartening thing was for a typical elementary student in a typical day, the only meaningful choices they got to make were what they did at recess and maybe who they ate with,” he says. “You were told what you will learn, when you will learn it, how you would demonstrate it.” If they’re interested in something else, that’s for after-school time. 

He also saw a mismatch between how children naturally learn and how schools often operate. Kids, he says, “are designed to move and be active and explore,” yet too often they spend their days sitting at desks and moving through the same material at the same pace. The system gave them no agency and was stifling their creativity and potential. Ben came to believe it was “built for the average rather than the individual child.” 

Armed with his experience and convictions, Ben joined the Drexel Fund’s Founders Fellows program and launched Forest City Academy with 13 students last year. Ben describes the first year as a chance to prove a simple proposition to families: “Your kid will be safe, your kid will love coming to school, and your kid’s gonna’ learn.”

This year, Forest City Academy has 33 students and a new home in a building originally designed for Montessori education. The school currently serves kindergarten through second grade and plans to add one grade each year until reaching K–5. Students have access to funding through Ohio’s EdChoice and Cleveland scholarship programs, which are state vouchers that can be used for private school tuition.

The school’s new location fits Ben’s vision of learning beyond the classroom. There is a large playground, garden beds, an outdoor amphitheater, and Cleveland’s Italian Cultural Garden across the street. The building also has a learning kitchen, which Ben hopes can be used for activities as simple as making boxed cornbread while practicing measuring, mixing, and cleaning up. “Learning is not confined to the four walls of the classroom,” he says.

Each morning begins with an “ESPN greeting”—eye contact, a smile, physical touch, and greeting each student by name—followed by a morning meeting intended to help every child feel welcomed and build up public speaking skills. Most of the day is organized around small-group instruction, independent work, manipulatives, read-alouds, outdoor time, and choice. 

Academically, Forest City Academy uses a mastery-based model. Rather than holding students to a fixed grade-level pace, teachers identify what each child has mastered and what comes next. The school uses a mix of Core Knowledge, IXL, Khan Academy, and an AI platform called StoryPie, but Ben emphasizes that technology plays a limited role. Students generally spend only 10 to 15 minutes per subject on a platform. “We take pride in being very tech-light as a school,” he says. 

Choice time at the end of the day gives students space to pursue their own interests, but it can also be used to practice social or behavioral skills. Recess serves a similar purpose. Ben sees those less-structured moments as opportunities for children to learn how to solve problems, work through conflict, and function as part of a community. 

This year, the school is also pursuing a playful goal: becoming “the strongest school in the city.” Students can log push-ups and squats toward a schoolwide goal of 100,000 of each. For Ben, the point is less about fitness totals than identity, belonging, and teamwork—helping children see themselves as people who make healthy choices and can contribute to something larger than themselves. 

That sense of community is a fundamental part of Forest City Academy. Ben’s own daughter attends, and every staff member with a school-age child who can attend has enrolled that child. “We all have a very vested interest in things working out well and it being as great as possible because we’ve got our own kids there,” he says. “All of us are chefs that are eating our own cooking.”