Start an Educational Alternative

AERO’s Online Start a New Alternative Course will start on September 22nd, 2023. AERO has helped start at least 100 educational alternatives that we know of, but there are many more out there! You can see a map a listing them above.

This year we again have the option of getting transferable graduate credit! Of course for many people this has not been an issue—the bottom line is that they wanted help to start their school. But for some people is could make a difference, for a variety of reasons. It can enable more funding. It can bestow more credibility for some people in their communities. The credit is given by the highly esteemed Antioch University New England Graduate School of Keene, New Hampshire. Chris Mercogliano will again help teach the course this year and we will be joined by Ken Danford of Northstar as a resource person.

There has been an unusual amount of interest in the course this year because of the COVID-19 virus. We will be helping people start a wide variety of alternatives including homeschool resource centers, micro-schools and what we are calling Progressive Pandemic Pods, or PPP! We also help people create new options within the public school system. The course is limited to 25 individuals or groups. The cost for the basic course is only $999 but for a short time registrants will be able to enroll at the early bird rate of $799. We do have a small grant to help those who need financial support. For those who want graduate credit the cost is $1499, $1299 at the early bird rate. You can still sign up for the Auditing/Consultation course. Those who sign up for it get access to all the resources in the completed 2021-22 course as well as all the posts. But it is not interactive on the site. It is only $249. It will end soon as the new course is starting. It is a rolling registration, so you can sign up any time until we are about to start the new course in September. Also, the fee can be applied to the full time course at that time if you wish. Those who enroll in the Auditing/Consultation program will automatically have priority for the Fall course if it is full. Even if you sign up for the payment plan now you save $100 over the full course price. It is still possible to join the course by becoming a sustainer at $50 a month, a 40% savings. Go here to select that option.

At a time when the U.S. education system is failing under the burden of the ill-conceived No Child Left Behind program and Common Core, it is crucial that we create alternative models, all across the country and around the world. AERO has decided to pour more of its energy into supporting the creation of a spectrum of new learner-centered alternative schools including home school resource centers. Will perhaps 50 million new homeschoolers in the USA and more around the world, creating homeschool resource centers is the wave of the future. Join us in this campaign and start your own programl! There is no better time than now!

The goal of our fifteen week course is to help educators assess the feasibility and find the resources required to turn the dream of a new alternative into a sustainable and nurturing educational environment. The course will prepare students to undertake the planning necessary to open a learner-centered alternative. We proceed at a pace that is comfortable for the group. It is almost entirely on a designated website that we will give you access to, so is mostly not in real time. You access it when you can and post when you can, within each section that we open up. This works for international participants.

But this year we will also be presenting a variety of mini-classes by Zoom in individual areas for those with more urgent needs, or who don’t have time to take the full course. Those who do sign up for the full course will have free access to all of these.

The course is designed to address practical as well as philosophical issues pertinent to the process. This includes clarifying the educational vision, building a suitable educational model, mastering the governance techniques, fundraising, legal set up and student and staff recruitment.

Auditing/ Consultation program Now open

Next Full Class Will Start September 23, 2024.

Click here to enroll.

Here are some recent comments from people who have taken the course:
I started Castle Island Bilingual Montessori in Albany, NY. The School Starters course was a valuable resource for me providing an international network of passionate, intelligent and hard-working educational innovators. My questions about HOW to get things going were answered by my new peers. Networking with people in same place I was offered the answers I needed. Thank you!
-Diane Nickerson de Feliz

I definitely sing AERO’s praises everywhere I go. You opened my world through the course. Couldn’t be happier with all that has transpired since then.
-Nancy Tilton, founder of Mosaic Agile Learning Center in Charlotte, NC

I was in the Start Your Own School 101 last year. I have been going through the approval stages to open an Approved Special Education Provider. Rose Academy School of Experiential Learning is located at 125 Border City Road, Geneva, NY. This is a private school for students with anxiety disorders, autism, emotional disturbance, and other special needs. I have rented a church that ironically was first an elementary school. I have four classrooms, an office, conference room, cafeteria and gymnasium. I am waiting for lists of students from neighboring schools and then we can start. Hopefully in three weeks. Think good thoughts and whisper a prayer for us.
-Lorraine Williams

The school starters program changed the course of my educational career. This course offered a new paradigm on learning, which was for me a breakthrough in my personal, parental, and professional development. AERO’s School Starter 101 lit the fuse of what I hope will be a lifelong personal experience of the dynamite power of democratic education.
-P.N., AZ

I took your start up for the high school and now have Iowa NET High Academy! I have graduated 13 in the past 2 years, with about 7 more finishing this summer!! Thanks for the help.

Dr. Cynthia Knight, Director

NET High Academy

All course materials (i.e. book chapters, articles…) are provided online free of charge. You will not need to purchase books. A free copy of How to Grow a School by Chris Mercogliano, School’s Ovder By Jerry Mintz and Turning Points, edited by Jerry Mintz & Carlo Ricci, are given to you as e books upon enrollment and receipt of payment. We will provide to you the link to our school starters website.

Brief Summary of Topics

Unit 1: Different types of democratic schools and governance

Unit 2: Clarifying educational vision

Unit 3: Different kinds of governance

Unit 4: Building a community around the idea of starting a school

Unit 5: Legal requirements of a school

Unit 6: Finding or building a school environment

Unit 7: Financial basis of the school, including fundraising, budgeting and insurance issues

Unit 8: Recruiting teachers and students

Unit 9: The first days of school

Unit 10: Recap and Action Plan

What other former participants have said

What an amazing, diverse group of people! I told my husband last night that I feel that I’ve found my tribe, in a way. It’s really the first time in my life that I’ve been surrounded by people who are thinking about all of the things that I am, who are concerned about the same things that I am, who are passionate about the same things that I am, who are dedicated to putting their thoughts into action like I am. It is truly wonderful! –Mary

I just finished reading all of the posts in the introductions thread, and I have to say I’m at awe with everyone here and grateful to be here. Even just reading your fascinating stories and following the links or looking up concepts has already given me incredible new ideas and resources, and we’re just starting! Thanks everyone, and thanks Jerry and Chris–TG

This class has helped me spell out my ideas and put them out there in a safe place that is supportive and helps me see what potential they have. This class has also inspired me to discuss my vision more with others (in person) and let people know not only what I feel is necessary in education, but WHY I feel it is so necessary. I have developed more confidence in articulating my vision and by doing so, have gotten lots of valuable feedback and support in surprising areas. It is quite an exciting time for me seeing all of the ideas I have been playing around with in my head for so long finally come out and take shape into something that seems a little more realistically feasible each day! –Katie

I do feel the course has assisted in getting closer to my goal of opening my school. I have learned a great deal from the topics and the questions/comments posted by the collective group. I have a new sense of confidence and peace about this process. I do not see it as such a big thing now. I am already open for school everyday for my children and now I am just including some others with a little different twist. –Marianne

This course has been spectacular– it really has opened many doors for me and made a *major* step in the right direction for me opening my school– both in what it has taught as well as in the people I have met. –Alex

This course has been immensely helpful. Among other things, I’ve discovered that there is a considerable body of literature on the subject of alternative education, but the literature is NOT readily available. You won’t encounter it as required reading in teacher preparation courses. You won’t find it in most public libraries. One thing I could do, I suppose, and it would be tax-deductible, would be to purchase the available materials from The Education Revolution website and DONATE them to the library. — Robert

Syllabus and Other Information

Instructor Information:

Jerry Mintz

Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO)

417 Roslyn Rd., Roslyn Hts., NY 11577

800-769-4171 (domestic)

516-621-2195 (international)

jerryaero@aol.com

Chris Mercogliano

2 Wilbur St. Albany, NY 12202

518 449-5759

cmercogl@nycap.rr.com,

Course Description:

Welcome, school starters! Alternative Education Resource Organization hopes to help you start some new educational alternatives with this Start a School 101 online course. This is our seventeenth year.

One of the most frequent questions we get is what does alternative mean? What brings schools with different philosophical approaches together under the umbrella of ‘alternative education’ or ‘educational alternatives’?

Course Purpose and Objectives:

There are many schools that we think of as alternatives. What unites them all is that they are learner-centered and not curriculum driven. In many of them, democratic meetings are an important part of governance and school culture. In many ways, they are alternative because they are based on paths less traveled. But ultimately we’d like these learner-centered approaches to be available to all students

Course student learning outcomes:

Through reflection, discussion and inquiry, students will explore:

Alternative education through the lense of several different alternative schools in the United States and England. This movement is global and participants will come to understand that they are connected with many other people who share their beliefs about children, education, and human relationships.

- How participants think a school or center should be run

- Who will be making what kinds of decisions and how?

- How much power should the board of directors have if a school is an independent entity?

- What about the parents?

- How to put vision into practice – how to get out there and bring more people on board.

- The legal and financial issues around building a sustainable learning community.

- Developing funding strategies and partnerships

- Finding (or building) the right school space

- Recruiting teachers and students

- Planning and managing the first days of school

Surviving the first year

Textbooks/Materials:

Required: None

All instructional materials will be provided online in digital formats

We will also send course members Chris Mercogliano’s How to Grow a School, as well as AERO’s Turning Points, edited by Jerry Mintz and Carlo Ricci.

Course Outline and Assignments:

Week 1: You really aren’t alone!

So far, we know you want to start an educational alternative. You may not be sure what kind you want to start, you just feel it that there has to be a way to do it differently. You may feel like few people around you understand what you are trying to do and sometimes you feel alone. We are here to tell you that you are not alone. Many people have wanted to change the traditional education system and the most famous alternative school still running to this day, Summerhill, dates from 1921.

In the next section we will learn about several different alternative schools in the United States and England. This movement is global and you will come to understand that you are in this with many other people who feel the same about children, education, and human relationships.

We will start with two shared readings on Summerhill – The Idea of Summerhill and Freedom, Not License! by A.S. Neil where he introduces in a clear way what the school is all about and what the difference is between freedom and license.

We continue with a brief history of Albany Free school by Chris Mercogliano, long time director of the school, who is helping us with the course this year. We also have an excerpt from his first book about the school Making It Up As We Go Along in order to get a feel for the inner working of a free school. We also have a piece by Daniel Greenberg on Sudbury Valley School and thus we give you a quick lay of the land.

Also, we have links to the full Albany Free School documentary as well as a link you probably can’t get anywhere else to the drama that was on BBC about how Summerhill School won its fight with the education bureaucracy in England.

Topic 2: Power, Authority, and Decision Making

AERO helps people start alternative learning environments of all kinds. One of the core issues that defines the type of alternative your vision will become has to do with governance: who gets to have a say in the creation of rules and policies, what is the process by which decisions are reached, and how is conflict resolved?

One of the attributes that makes a setting “alternative” is that it doesn’t distribute power in a pyramid shape in the way conventional schools do, with almost all of the authority placed at the top in the hands of high-level board members and administrators. Instead, to varying degrees and in a variety of ways, it shares power and authority among the participants.

The spectrum of possibilities, for instance, might extend from a Debbie Meyers-type public alternative school, which has no principal and instead is staff-run, to a Sudbury Valley-type school that is entirely governed by the school’s democratic meeting. In the first example, teachers have far more power than in conventional schools, but students and parents still have virtually none; whereas in the second, everyone who attends the meeting, regardless of age or status, has an equal voice.

The purpose of this section will be to address how you think your school or center should be run? Who will be making what kinds of decisions and how? How much power will your board of directors have if you are an independent entity? What about the parents?

Topic 3: Putting Vision into Practice

For the next unit we will start thinking about how to put vision into practice – how to get out there and bring more people on board. Hence the theme of this unit: building a community around the idea of starting a school. It may seem that every step in this process is crucial. That is true and it is very true of this particular step. There are pitfalls to be avoided – compromising your mission while you are reaching out. This is where unit 2 (non-negotiables) meets unit 4 (community building).

Probably the first thing we do when we come up with a good idea – such as starting a school – is to talk to our friends about it. Building a community around an idea is not much different from that except in scale. You need to be talking to a lot of different people and in different ways about your school.

The work that you did in last two units was in part intended to prepare a platform from which you will address your potential partners. The work on clarifying the things that you would not compromise on is of particular importance here.

As the support group and the future/young school’s community grows, the project sometimes stretches and the initial vision undergoes changes. Points of importance to you should not get lost in this process. If they do, the school will become something different, something you may not be happy with.

The readings include Katharine Houk’s very practical tips on how to do community organizing around the idea of a learning center. Also, we have an article by Yaacov Hecht, the founder of Hadera Democratic School in Israel, on Pluralistic Education. You can read from Ron Miller’s What Are Schools For and hear an interview with him. There is also an excellent interview with Alan Berger of BFS. Let us know if you are not able to hear the interviews.

Heads up for those who have not had a chance to visit an alternative school yet: at some point you should make a visit to an alternative school near you. We can help you plan for that and often give you contacts.

As for the assignment to locate new partners, friends and allies, go out and talk with as many people as possible about your idea, and then tell us how it went. Listen to their feedback and note their concerns and ideas, and try to identify what they can do for you and your school in the future. (Most of you have already started doing this.) Note that this should be an exercise in getting new people on board, so old friends don’t count.

A simple way of doing this is to convene a community meeting around the idea of starting a school. This is where unit 2 may be of help (democratic meetings). It is easier than it sounds to start and more difficult than it sounds to keep things going. We will help you with the process of keeping it going.

Topic 4: LEGAL SET UP OF A SCHOOL

While philosophy and various visions of alternative education kept us busy till now, legal and financial issues are just as important for building a sustainable learning community.

In terms of the overall structure of your path to the school now is the time to figure out whether you want your school to be either a for-profit LLC or a non-profit organization. Each one comes with different pros and cons.

This unit is a bit different from the last four in that we have guests who are available to answer your questions.

If you haven’t yet done so listen to the interview with Alan Berger in the last section.

The are a few documents we suggested all School Starters take the time to read carefully this week, including the IRS’s publication 557. The link is below. We encourage you to be proactive and ask questions in the discussion topic.

http://www.irs.gov/publications/p557/index.html

Other materials posted are of interest in that they relate to the two main ways one can set up a school. Every jurisdiction is different so you will need to research the laws in your area.

Topic 5: FUNDRAISING

When opening your school you are part of an ongoing revolution in education. This revolution will probably not be funded by large corporate donors. The alternative educational projects require alternative fundraising strategies. The strategy will depend on the community you serve and the legal set up you establish. This is why the question of raising funds comes after we have discussed both of those issues. Of course, those who want to start public alternatives will have their own set of financial considerations. But these techniques and concepts should be useful to everyone.

One of the take home points of this unit is that you don’t need to have cash in order to provide opportunities for your students. Jerry’s travel stories are filled with ideas on how to enable your students to problem solve and do what they want to do while employing all the resources (not just cash) available in the community and beyond.

Thank of ways you can widen the options of your students and enrich your school in ways other than paying for everything in cash.

The second point is that students can be valuable partners in thinking about fundraising. If they care for their school they will care to keep it going and thus will be likely to cooperate with adults in making it happen.

Think what you can do and how much of what you read applies to your future school.

Topic 6: FINDING OR BUILDING THE RIGHT SCHOOL SPACE

Having a good space for the school is very important as it can make a big difference for how staff and students feel and how the community views the school.

If you are opening a school in an area where the neigbors are known to be wary of noise and the presence of children, you may be setting yourself up for failure. Neither the neighbors nor the kids will be happy and the students won’t have the freedom to play and move around as they need to.

At the begining you have several options: buying a property, building your own building, or renting an existing space. Many have started in a temporary space and moved on to a good permanent one. Brooklyn Free School, after renting space in a church for 5 years has bought a five story building for 1.75 million dollars! Also we will go into the question of what would be an ideal space if you could design it from scratch. Hopefully this will get you started looking for a good space for your school.

Topic 7: Wrapping Up

Here are three more areas to cover for the course:

1. Recruiting teachers and students

2. The first days of school

3. Surviving the first year

Each of these optional discussion topics for this section. You can add any others you want. Those who are trying to catch up with past classes can work on the things they have not completed yet and participate in these discussion topics as they wish. If there are other discussion topics you would like to bring up, this would be a good time to post them.

You should also start working on your final project.

The final assignment depends on your target opening date and where you are in the process. Our suggestion is that those who want to open in the fall of 2024 write their road map through the first school year. For those with a target date further away, the task could be to write an Action Plan addressing all the aspects of the process: the vision, the non-negotiables, the legal framework, the fundraising plan and choice of space, the student and staff recruitment strategy, and a description of the strategy to get a school space. Including the progress to date and the timetable from February 2024 to the opening of your school would be useful. We would like to remind you that the presentation should not only address the teaching philosophy but walk you and us through what you will do in order to get the school open.

Due Date: TBA in the class discussion area

Refund Policy

Course fees will be returned at a rate of 90% if withdrawn by 5:00pm eastern standard time September 30th, 50% if withdrawn by 5:00pm October 7th, and 0% after 5:00pm October 7th.

Withdrawal notice must be sent by United States Postal Service certified mail or you may contact us by e-mail or phone. Certified letter must include your full name and contact details, indicate your desire to withdraw, and must be post marked by the withdrawal deadline dates.

E-mails must be sent to jerryaero@aol.com and the phone number is 516-621-2195. If you elect to withdraw via these two methods, you must do so a full 48 hours prior to withdrawal deadlines.

If you have not received confirmation within 24 hours of cancellation, you must send the certified letter. If you are not a resident of the United States, your withdrawal notice should be sent by mail and e-mail. It must still be postmarked by the withdrawal deadline. Any questions regarding this policy should be sent to the above e-mail.

Jerry Mintz

Jerry established and for eighteen years ran a free school based on the principles of Iroquois democracy. He is the author of School’s Over and is currently Director of Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO).

Chris Mercogliano

Chris is the author of How to Grow a School: Starting and Sustaining Schools That Work, In Defense of Childhood, Teaching the Restless, and Making It Up as We Go Along and long time director at The Free School in Albany. See www.chrismercogliano.com for a complete bio.