Our Story
Throughout his life, Dr. Tyler Thigpen has seen how inspiring young people truly are. He has also seen how “school” too often gets in the way of young people finding their purpose and making an impact.
In 2018, Tyler was approached by developers to create a local school for makers, designers, and storytellers in the surging neighborhood of Trilith, home to one of the largest film studios in the world. Tyler worked with a team to create The Forest School as a place for children and families to explore life’s most important questions, learn together, and experience joy in the process.
In 2020, The Forest School offered online instruction as a response to COVID-19. In the process, the school discovered many benefits to providing its self directed learning model completely online and began considering a new, online school.
In 2021, The Forest School Online was launched to provide The Forest School’s families additional choice and flexibility in their children’s learning and to open the school’s self-directed model of online education to any family in the United States or abroad.