The obstacles to overcome in creating this conference were very significant. Unlike other European countries, everyone had to obtain a visa who came from the west. Some people didn't make it. Although the Democratic School of Hadera brought seven people, their sister school, the Hope Flower School in the West Bank City of Bethlehem, was not allowed to send it's two representatives. The Ukraine consulate would not give them a visa. Two people from the Seedling School in Taiwan who wanted to attend were not given visas because Taiwan does not have diplomatic relations with the Ukraine. One Russian boy who has been living in the US for five years was not able to get a travel visa from the Immigration and Naturalization Service until a day after the trip left and was not able to attend.

So the seven of us who arrived in Kiev and took the train to Vinnitsa did not know what to expect from the opening day ceremonies. I looked at the large hall across from our hotel where the opening was going to be and were concerned that we'd be embarrassed by a turnout of 50 or 75 people in the large hall. As the hall filled up on opening day of the conference it was clear that our concerns were ill founded. The hall was filled to overflowing with more than 400 people and perhaps 75 people involved in the opening ceremonies with performances of a variety of folk-dance troupes, classical music and later on, presentations by the schools themselves that included original pieces that were written just for the opening day. In the end there were 9 countries represented with 35 schools. Two significant aspects of opening day were the presence of a number of teachers, principals and superintendents of schools from the area surrounding Vinnitsa who had been invited to the ceremonies. Some schools were so impressed with what they saw that they went back to their communities and gathered up students to come back and participate in the conference.

A Soros Foundation grant of $18,000 paid all the costs for the hotel for those who came from distant areas and all the food for the participants. It also purchased a copy machine, a modem for a computer and a VCR to be used for the conference and then afterwards for the Stork Family School. At the end of the opening ceremonies, I and Oleg Belin, coordinator of the conference form the Stork School, were interviewed by Ukraine television. After the interview, the woman around whom the Stork School was originally built and who continues to teach at the school (and who never wanted to be an administrator), came over to greet me with tears in her eyes. She said that had it not been for AERO's help and contributions AERO had solicited from the Edwards Foundation, she didn't think that the Stork School would still exist.

One of the student who came with the American group was Dimitri Klyuy. He had been a student at the Stork School in the first grade, when his family emigrated to the United States. He returned as a 13-year old and served as a very important and symbolic link.

On the second day of the conference, I was asked by the Stork School to demonstrate the democratic process to a group of some students from several countries. Although the teachers, parents and students have a close working relationship at Stork School, they have not operated as a democracy and wanted to understand how it worked. As a result of that workshop, the teachers and students asked me to lead the plenum of the IDEC in a democratic process. This was done for several days until a student took over the leadership of the meeting.

If there was a problem that could be cited with this conference, it would only be that it was so packed with activities, excursions, workshops, exhibits, competitions, crafts, and other events that there was hardly time for sleep. There was almost negative time. I never found the time in any of the days of the conference to even tape notes on the day's activities. For example, one evening a group of people stayed up till 2:00 in the morning, hammering out a proposal supporting democratic education to be presented to the plenum the next day. Every evening there were long, large organizational meetings. There were side trips that went on a tour of the Tchaikovsky home, around Vinnitsa to discuss its history, etc. There was even a table tennis competition which culminated in a final between me and one of the Stork School students. I lost the final game, 25-23 in overtime, the first time I've lost a tournament at an alternative school conference. But I didn't mind too much because, the Stork table tennis program grew directly out of the experience I had with them at the 1991 conference where I first met them in the Crimea. That was the First New School's Festival of the Soviet Union. It was held in the last days of the Soviet Union. Many strong friendships were established at that conference and the Stork School took me in as part of their family when they discovered that my grandmother was born in Kharkov in the Ukraine. From then on they considered me their "New York Ukrainian." It was also at that conference that I discovered the Eureka Free University. They invited me to three of their subsequent teacher training conferences. Those contacts in the Crimea have led to many exchanges. One example is the International Student Alliance Camp in California (see related story).

Participants came to the conference from Israel, England, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, the US, Bulgaria, Russia, and Ukraine. The largest group was 19 students from Key School, "Klutch" in Russian, from Moscow. Alexander Tubelsky, principal of the School of Self-Determination brought 12 students from his school, a public democratic school of 1200 students. Pat Edwards of the Tamariki School in New Zealand, along with one of her co-teachers, came the longest distance. The American group included Jesse Mumm of the Pedro Albizu Campos School in Chicago. He came representing the National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools. He arrived late, not having realized that he needed a visa to come to the Ukraine. He attended the last two days of the conference, making a presentation about his school.

One of the statements which was passed by the IDEC meeting concerned the fact that various Ukrainian governmental bodies actually take an incredible 85% of the school's tuition in taxes! As a result, the following was passed at the official IDEC meeting:

"The school which is hosting this conference is suffering under the burden of heavy taxes which take most of their funds. We deplore this confiscatory taxing of school funds which robs children of educational opportunities by threatening the existence of their schools. We call upon the legislative and other governmental bodies involved to relieve this and other non-state, non-profit schools of these taxes."

The overall thrust of the IDEC is to encourage schools everywhere to empower students, parents and teachers to design and control their own education

At the conference members the student caucus made the following statements about the ideal of democratic education:

"Students and teacher' rights are equal and their relationships based on mutual trust. Students are full participants in the regulation of school life. They are free to choose both their teachers and their course of study, as well as having a voice in all other areas of school life. In all matters everyone's opinion is taken into consideration."

The United States contingent also included Merrilee Santoro, a thirteen year old homeschooler from upstate New York, Angela Sevin, a founder and staff member at a small democratic school called Diablo Valley, in California, Avery Larned, from the Community School, in Maine, Fred Bay, Executive Director of the Josephine Bay Paul and C. Michael Paul Foundation, and Bay's daughter Meredith, 13, who has homeschooled. .

After the conference and some tearful goodbyes, the American group spent the last two days touring Kiev. One day they had a meeting at the Soros Foundation offices with Anatolii Oleksienko. They spoke about a proposal to have the Stork School become a training center for democratic education. At the IDEC meeting, people agreed to establish an IDEC listserve and a presence on the AERO website. Plans are underway to set up next year's IDEC conference. The committee is leaning toward an eastern European site so that the new Russian and Ukranian members will be able to participate. For more information on IDEC, contact the AERO office. One final sad note: the day after the conference ended, the school was planning to put in an alarm system in the secure room where they stored their new equipment, but sometime after the last worker left the office at 2 AM and when people came in the morning to prepare sandwiches for the people leaving, the school was broken into through the fire escape and between 6 and 8 thousand dollars worth of the new equipment was stolen, including the copy machine, the modem, the computer, and the VCR. Fred Bay and Jerry Mintz are working to try to replace the equipment. If people have any used equipment that could be useful for the Stork School, please contact the AERO office.

Sidebar: Moshem, a teacher from the Democratic School of Hadeira in Israel, left the phone number of the hotel for his wife to call; however, he got one of the digits wrong. When his wife called, he reached an old Jewish woman in Vinnitsa who had taught herself an old form of Hebrew and who had been translating important Russian works into Hebrew. She was very excited to have a conversation with someone in Israel speaking Hebrew. When she was told about the conference, she decided to go and meet Moshem. They subsequently talked excitedly about other translations from Russian into Hebrew.