Founded in 1969, The Free School in Albany, New York is the longest running inner-city independent alternative school in the United States. We offer a unique alternative to traditional models of education by giving children complete freedom over their learning. Students at the school, many whom have slipped through the cracks of today’s increasingly regimented school system, flourish in a nurturing environment that allows them the freedom to chart their own course of learning while fostering their emotional growth.

More Than Book Learning - Responsibility, Democracy, Problem Solving, & Relationships

At our school students not only learn the traditional academic subjects, but also valuable lessons about responsibility, democracy, problem solving and most importantly about how to relate to each other. We have always placed great emphasis on our student’s emotional well being and the fostering of loving, caring relationships. Observant visitors frequently comment on how closely connected the students seem and how carefully they look out for each other.

Truth be told, we are a community far more than a school - a safe, nurturing, open space where everyday about sixty kids ages three through fourteen, eight full-time teachers, a cook, a steady stream of interns, volunteers and visitors work, play, learn and eat together. Yes, there are certain traditional school trappings: some rooms have desks and blackboards; there are lots of shelves with books and teaching materials of all kinds in others; and throughout the building there is a state of the art computer network, thanks to Time Warner Cable and a very generous local business. Although students are organized into homeroom groups by age and have a specific teacher to check in with during the day, mixing of ages is frequent and fosters a true sense of community amongst our students.

Practicing Democracy

Here the kids also share responsibility with teachers for resolving conflicts and working through difficult school problems through our student-led council meeting system. The meetings are run by Robert's Rules of Order and afford the opportunity to explore matters in great depth if necessary. When the issue is an interpersonal conflict, the meeting becomes a supportive circle where real emotional healing takes place. Between monthly all-school meetings and council meetings, kids at The Free School quickly become fluent with the ins and outs of real participatory democracy.

Free To Learn

At The Free School there are no grades, no mandated curriculum, no standardized tests, no homework and unnecessary rules are generally avoided. One of our motto’s is "trust children and they will learn," and we operate from the basic belief that learning happens all the time and everyone learns in different ways. Some kids tend to be more visual and others more auditory, some learn best from books and others need to be more hands-on.

Experience has shown that when you entrust children with their own education they will learn continually, each in their own way and rhythm. Students are free to choose how to spend their days and on any given the day the building is bustling with activity. Some kids spend their days playing and hanging out with their peers while others might be found writing poetry and short stories, making movies, magazines and works of art, rehearsing and performing plays, or learning French or Spanish.

There are also daily reading and math classes for kids who choose to tackle their basic skills in a more orderly, directed way, and classes in areas like history and science depending on student interest. There are a couple of other distinctive features to the school: In the spring of each year Free School seventh and eighth graders undertake a major two-week trip built around one or more community service projects. In recent years students have traveled to New Orleans to help with post-Katrina cleanup, and Puerto Rico to help clean beaches and learn about coral reef conservation. The experience represents a rite of passage for them, not only because they have to cope with being far from home in unfamiliar surroundings for an extended period, but also because they have to figure out how to raise all of the funds themselves.

Additionally, we also own two tracts of land about twenty-five miles northeast of Albany, where students go for day trips and extended stays. One site, known as Rainbow Camp, is a rambling former inn set on a small lake. Here we fish, swim, boat, take long walks in the woods, and spend overnights. The second site consists of an old farmhouse, barn and 250 acres of mostly forested land that was given to us in 1995, where we have developed a satellite program for environmental study and wilderness activities.

The Albany Free School is located in the south end of Albany, at 8 Elm Street between Phillip and Grand Street. Approximately half of our kids come from the inner city neighborhood the school is located in, and the remainder coming from other parts of Albany and from outlying suburbs and towns. The school operates by means of sliding-scale tuition and no one is turned away for financial reasons. If you are interested in considering The Free School please the next step is to fill out a short form of interest.