How To Start You Own School

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Those remaining form a Board which forms a very relaxed "plan-it-each-day" school, hires six teachers for 50 children, can't pay them, the teachers "strike", parents struggle to keep it going, and finally they are evicted from a rented hall for non-payment.

SCENE 2

Several suburban families meet at a PTA meeting and decide (over drinks, afterwards) to form their own school. Their first decision is to have an encounter group among themselves every Friday evening. This uncovers the usual rocky marriages, sexual attractions, adult needs.

The women decide to form a nonprofit corporation and to raise money through foundations "for the school." For a proposal they write a description of what they want the school to be, based on John Holt, A.S. Neill, and Sylvia Ashton-Warner. It becomes their founding charter, built into a "corporation" which a lawyer friend helps them draw up.

They announce public meetings after forming a Board consisting of themselves, and several professional friends. Their first meeting attracts 20 families with 55 children. Later at a series of town-meeting-like events (voting, motions, etc.) they decide on "policy" which the board is supposed to oversee, on hiring six paid teachers, six volunteers, and on holding monthly pot-luck meetings to raise issues and decide new policies. The meeting is friendly but superficial—the original families retain power, the "newcomers" defer to them with considerable awe.

The board begins looking for teachers, finds only one with experience for $250 a month, hires two mothers for $150 a month (plus free tuition for their children) and three college seniors "with some teaching experience" from the nearby college. Money needs seem critical, so students spearhead a rock-concert benefit to raise money, which loses $400 but a good time is had by all amidst much publicity.

The "teachers" have their first meeting the day before "opening" and find themselves locked in bitter debate over time schedules, room space in their rented building, whether to have classes at all.

The children are pretty much free at first and they seem happy playing. They soon get bored, however, and begin complaining at home. Parents get very uptight, feel only bad vibes from visits to the school, call a series of crisis meetings. The school falls apart by January. The parents blame the one experienced teacher who wanted to coordinate things and arrange compromises between diverse approaches.

SCENE 3

Six Native American families in an urban ghetto decide they must have their own school. Their children are becoming Americanized in a particularly revolting way and are falling behind in all academic subjects as well. They are desperate and they pull their children out of public school without fanfare or much discussion.

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