Parents aim to open Sudbury school in 2015

Nicole Forsythe and Kate Hess are seeking a different option.

The two Iowa City mothers, alongside Don Arenz, founded the Iowa Sudbury Group in fall 2012 and hope to open a Sudbury school in the Corridor by fall 2015.

'It's based on the premise that kids don't need to be told to learn in a certain way. As human beings, we're driven to learn,' said Hess, whose two daughters, Isabella, 9, and Violet, 14, are home-schooled. 'Kids will naturally follow their interests and learn what they need to learn.'

Sudbury schools operate on based on the original model pioneered by staff at the Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, Mass. in 1968. Students and staff form a council that votes on each decision involved in running the school.

'Really, the only 'buts' in Sudbury are the school rules, which are determined by choice in the school community,' Hess said. 'The focus is on allowing students to learn what they are interested in, in their own needs with the trust that they can go on and learn other things.'

Instead of a principal and teachers, the adults are known as 'staff,' and students learn through a process of discovering their interests.

'There's no limits,' Forsythe said. 'No one tells you what to do.'

According to the Sudbury Valley School's website, there are 20 Sudbury schools in the country and none in Iowa. Forsythe and Hess are working to change that. Their plan is to have 20 learners between the ages of 5 and 18 -- they don't want to segregate students by grade -- and have discussed setting tuition at between $7,000 and $8,000.

'The reality is it's going to have to be a private school,' Forsythe said, noting that tuition may narrow the pool of potential students and somewhat contradict the model's open and democratic intent. 'It's going to start small and may be small forever. There's going to have to be tuition.'

Forsythe, who said she's also interested in potentially home-schooling her 3-year-old son or sending him to a Sudbury school depending 'on how his personality develops and what's best for him,' and Hess are both products of the traditional kindergarten-through-grade 12 education system and said their advocacy for the Sudbury option is not a rebuke of the status quo.

'I'm not doing it because it's radical and different,' she said, noting that it's an alternative and by no means the right educational option for everyone. 'I'm doing it because it's a great way for people to learn, period, and a great way for people to learn to be in groups.'

Hess and Forsythe are looking to hire staff who are in-sync with the Sudbury model and ideals. Their vision is that students will apply to the school and spend a week there, determining if it's really the right environment for them, as opposed to weeding learners out based on grade-point averages or test scores.

Another thing the Sudbury model sets aside is the notion that certain skills must be learned at particular times.

'Is every kid going to learn cursive by age 8 in a Sudbury School? Probably not,' Hess said. 'Will every kid learn what they need to be successful? Absolutely.'

They plan to operate the school through permissions afforded to home-schooling under Iowa Code.

Hess and Forsythe said they're aware of the criticisms and fears that students will choose play instead of learning the three Rs, but that hasn't scared them.

'I've never encountered a kid who wasn't curious about everything,' Forsythe said. 'There's this weird perception that you have to take a class in order to learn something. ... It's totally not true.'

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