The Circle School
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The Circle School is an Integral school located in Harrisburg, PA and founded in 1984, and is aligned with the Sudbury model. The term Sudbury School means that it is modeled after the Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, Massachusetts. It enrolls pre-kindergarten through high school aged children. The Circle School currently has over 70 students enrolled (a record high) and 5 fulltime staff members. It is the only Sudbury School in Pennsylvania and one of the oldest in the world.
[edit] Educational method
The Sudbury Valley model of schooling has two defining characteristics. First, the students are free to spend their time as they choose. During the hours they are in school students can spend their time engaging in any activity they wish (reading, playing video games, climbing trees, watching TV, conversing, studying, playing trumpet etc). The only requirements placed on them are that they must follow the rules and that they must do a chore each day (the school has no custodian). There are no grades or evaluations, the idea being that every activity students engage in, they engage in because they wish to do so. The second defining characteristic is that the school's administration is placed principally in the students' hands. All the "day to day" affairs of the school are governed by a democratic body called the School Meeting. There, decisions are made concerning such things as student admissions, creating, repealing or amending a rule, suspensions and expulsions etc. The School Meeting is composed of all students and staff members (teachers) and since the students greatly outnumber the staff members most of the administrative power lies with the students. This model of education receives a great deal of skepticism as it is very different than the other methods of teaching.
[edit] History
The Circle School was founded in 1984 by Beth Stone, Jim Rietmulder and Sue Narten. They were soon joined by dee Holland-Vogt. The school was not originally founded as a Sudbury Valley School but as a liberal elementary school intended partially as an alternative for the children of the founders. As the students attending got older The Circle School expanded to an elementary and middle school and finally to a full pre-kindergarten through high school enrollment.
