About Us

We customize education to your child’s strengths, interests and talents.

Play Video

An Educational Approach that Feeds Your Child’s Natural Curiosity and Enjoyment of Learning

As a concerned parent, you know that a great educational foundation is one of the best ways to provide your child with opportunities for success in life. Through a quality education, students gain insight about their world, enhance their skills, and build the habits necessary for future schooling or employment.

The Learning Community International was created to address the weaknesses in the traditional schooling model. Traditional school settings often under-serve highly talented students, students with special needs, and students who simply don’t learn well in an assembly line type learning environment.      

TLCI uses a collaboration model to design an Individualized Learning Plan (ILP) with customized courses to suit each student’s interests, learning style, and strengths. Our goal is to maximize both a student’s ability to learn and their enjoyment of learning.

At TLCI, learning is an active process that engages the learner in adding and adapting new information to previous knowledge in order to create meaning. This approach prepares students for real life by nurturing the critical thinking skills that help students make wise choices in all aspects of their lives. TLCI students become independent thinkers and doers, problem solvers, and reflective thinkers. As a result, they are well rounded students who are as equally prepared for academic success as they are for life success.

Since 1984, TLCI has been a leader in meeting students’ needs and growing lifelong learners. TLCI is a unique private accredited school that has extensive experience combining this unique approach to curriculum, dedicated support for students and families throughout the learning process, and a focus on the development of learner success skills and learner self-awareness throughout the learning process. 

TLCI Founder and Principal Director, Manfred Smith, was a leader of the homeschool movement in the 1980’s. While he was teaching social studies in a local public school, Manfred was instrumental in drafting the Maryland homeschool by-laws. He also established the Maryland Home Education Association (MHEA) and supported the rights of parents to teach their own children in several Maryland court cases. Manfred’s leadership is broad-based and continues with his stewardship of TLCI.