Inside the circular classroom

FREMONT - Fremont STEM Academy has added two new outdoor yurt-cabin classrooms that school leaders say are redefining what a middle school learning environment can look like.

“We want them to love learning and be someone who is able to learn on their own and be ready for whatever the future brings,” Principal Don Ryan said during an open house at the campus last week. “We’re hoping to develop citizens that contribute positively to the community.”

The school for students in grades five through eight opened in the 2022-23 academic year with 12 students. Enrollment has since climbed to 37 students for the 2025-26 school year.

The academy operates as an instrumentality of the Weyauwega-Fremont School District, meaning it functions as a tuition-free public charter school under the district’s umbrella. The district and academy share resources for academics, extracurriculars and student enrollment.

The school initially operated out of a room inside the Fremont Elementary School building. As interest in its STEM-focused, project-based model grew, the students and staff needed more space. Some classes have now been relocated into the two new round structures on the edge of campus on Wolf River Drive.

The custom-designed yurt-cabins measure 30 feet in diameter and feature 17-foot ceilings. Inside, the open layout is meant to give students more room to move, collaborate and engage in hands-on lessons.

“Teaching in a yurt, because it’s a circle, the teacher is able to move around the classroom and see what students are doing easier,” Ryan said after observing a class in one of the new spaces. “You can go around the classroom really quickly and get feedback from what the students are learning, and then correct the students if something is off. It also lends itself to collaborative discussions.”

Rather than traditional rows of desks, the yurts are set up to support group work and discussions. One yurt currently houses a humanities classroom, where projects and book groups spill out across the space.

“Learning can happen anywhere. We embrace flexible seating,” lead teacher Jennifer Steidtman said, noting she temporarily used an outdoor pavilion as her math classroom last fall while waiting for the yurts to be completed. “We leave one classroom, we come to the next classroom, and we have to walk outside a little bit, and we get our own dedicated space to do that, which is really beautiful.”

The build

Although the buildings resemble traditional fabric yurts, they are engineered specifically for year-round use and are the first of their kind designed to meet state and local building codes for classroom use. They were built from modular kits produced by Nebraska-based Freedom Yurt-Cabins and assembled on-site by local craftsmen.

Freedom Yurt-Cabins President Ken Sawyer, who traveled from Nebraska to attend the open house last week, said the Fremont yurts are significantly larger than the company’s previous biggest model, expanding from 490 to 716 square feet, which required extra engineering work.

The new structures feature “the uniqueness of a yurt and the comfort of a cabin,” Sawyer said.

From the outside, the yurts maintain a familiar circular profile. Inside, they are built with high-quality rigid materials and upgraded insulation designed to withstand snow, cold temperatures and meet commercial building codes. Each yurt-cabin has independent heating and cooling through high-efficiency mini-split systems, which Ryan said impressed staff during this year’s severe weather.

“They stayed tight through all that rain that we had, and then also that big snow,” he said. “We have heating and cooling in both of them, so it doesn’t really impact learning when the weather changes.”

Fremont STEM Academy board member Adam Keller, whose son John is enrolled at the school, played a key role in bringing the new yurt classrooms to fruition. Keller’s company, Adam’s Specialty Products, designs and builds custom modular animal enclosures for clients nationwide and is based in the Fox Valley.

Keller built a career around designing flexible, transportable systems, a concept that carried over into the yurt classroom project. He said he identified the need, researched options and worked with Freedom Yurt-Cabins to develop code-compliant structures tailored specifically for Fremont STEM.

“These look like yurts, but they’re not quite the same,” he said. “They’re a little heavier duty construction. We needed something that would pass scrutiny for a commercial classroom.”

The expansion was financed entirely through a combination of federal charter school grant funding and private donations. No local taxpayer or Weyauwega-Fremont School District funds were used for the design, materials, construction or final setup, Keller said.

The new yurts in Fremont are opening doors for other schools.

“It’s already been designed, it’s already been vetted, it’s already passed scrutiny,” Keller said. “Any other school or nonprofit that has a need like this – it’s ready to go.”

Hands-on projects
Fremont STEM Academy focuses on project-based, experiential learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Students regularly work on long-term projects, often tied to real-world issues and community needs. Inside one yurt, teacher Brianna Lubbers is leading a humanities project on advocacy and community impact.

“They’re learning how to make a change,” she said. “We’ve had a couple of students reach out to our counselor to start a friendship group … and just really trying to encourage them to do things without being told and they can make an impact.”

In another project, students created sand art pieces to represent the emotions of characters from novels they were reading in book groups. Weekly field trips are also a core part of the program.

“We went to a place today and did an outside field trip where we grabbed flowers and stuff and put it on a piece of paper that’s sensitive to light,” said John Keller, a seventh-grader at the academy. “Then we dunked it underwater, and then you could see all the prints on it.”

The academy was among the first schools to regularly use a regional environmental learning center, Keller said, and continues to send students out into the community and surrounding natural areas as part of its curriculum.

For Keller, that hands-on approach was a deciding factor.

“He’s a very active child with a huge imagination that needs a different type of learning than just sitting in the classroom all day long,” Keller said.

Fremont STEM Academy is still accepting applications for the upcoming school year. Families can also arrange private tours of the campus and its new yurt-cabin classrooms.