Philly Free School looks to empower students

Tucked away in a former Catholic school on the corner of 20th and Christian streets in South Philadelphia, the Philly Free School is a new private school championing the virtues of true democratic education and the importance of childhood play.

It’s 11 a.m. on Tuesday and 4-year-old Zoey sets her blue lunch tray on the all-purpose table in the brightly lit play room. Next to her sits Pepper, dressed in a red polka-dotted dress, already well into her bag of grapes. In an opposite corner, two 14-year-old boys hunch over a computer set. Three girls run in one door of the room and out through another.

“Look what’s in my lunchbox!” Zoey says excitedly, pulling out three tiny Polly Pocket dresses from her bag.

“Is it lunch time already?” I ask.

“No,” she says matter-of-factly, munching on a baby carrot. “We can eat whenever we want.”

“Yeah, it’s the Philly Free School,” Pepper adds.

At the Free School, there are no classes. There is no bell schedule, no mandatory gym class, no tests and no quizzes. There aren’t even teachers, just adult staff members who hang around on standby.

Michelle Loucas, the former coordinator for Secondary Education at the Graduate School of Education, and her husband, Robert Loucas, opened the school in September to around 20 students between the ages of four and 14.

Both Michelle and Robert began teaching at inner city schools in Baltimore and continued their education experience in Philadelphia.

Michelle spent five years at Penn coordinating teaching placement for GSE students. Loucas’ experience with local Philadelphia schools combined with her time in Baltimore set a firm foundation for her to create Philly Free School.

But the deciding moment happened five years ago, when one of Loucas’ trainee teachers approached her for advice.

“He told me he wanted to run a democratic classroom,” she said.

A noble endeavor, but Loucas realized it was close to impossible to accomplish. Loucas’ graduate student taught at Simon Gratz High School near Temple University, a school that in October was listed as “persistently dangerous” by the federal government.

“Even if he got support from the administration — which he didn’t — it would’ve been hard to integrate in such a hierarchical [school environment],” she said. “How are we going to teach these kids about democracy if they can’t even do it in [the classroom]?”

This was the defining moment for Loucas. “You spend so much time teaching to tests that you don’t have time to teach what matters,” she said. “Here, we start with justice, fairness, inter-personal relations, [the] sharing of resources.”

Democracy in action

What Loucas’ GSE student couldn’t accomplish, she set out to make possible in the Philly Free School. Besides holding a weekly school meeting where everyone gathers to vote on school initiatives like allowing reporters to visit the school, PFS also holds regular judicial committee, or “JC,” meetings.

“You don’t want to go to JC,” Zoey warned me over her lunch, kneeling up on her chair to sufficiently clear the table. Pepper nodded in agreement.

JC is the school’s disciplinary system, the equivalent of going to the principal’s office. Students and staff members can write each other up for breaking the rules or exhibiting hazardous behavior. Three people sit on the committee — a staff member, an older student and a younger student — and hear the complaints and defenses of the plaintiff and defendant, just like in the real court of law.

“Date: 10/24/11. Time: 4:00 p.m.,” Johnny, a 14-year-old student, read. “Complainant: Mark. Defendant: Sophia. Sophia hid from her mother when she came to pick her up.”

The committee asked Mark to speak: “Sophia kept on playing even when her mom came,” he said. What made matters worse was that last week, the judicial committee had already helped Sophia set an alarm clock 30 minutes before the end of the day, so that she could clean up and be ready when her mom arrived.

Six-year-old Sophia — whose name was changed to protect her identity — took her right to respond, “There’s one thing I have to say,” she said. “I was looking for my flag, and I didn’t hear the alarm clock ring.”

“We know that,” the committee acknowledged, “but this isn’t the first time it’s happened. What could we do to help you?”

“I don’t know,” said Sophia, exasperated. Here, Johnny chimed in, “How about we have Sophia help Mark with attendance at the end of the day?” That way, Sophia could make sure she is ready to go well before her mother arrives.

Sophia’s charge? Not being ready at 4 p.m. Her plea? “Guilty.”

“I just want to say though,” she added, “the flag was important to me, and I made it at church.”

On Tuesday, the judicial court met for an hour, covering four other cases: Pepper was charged for dropping a pink wand out of the second-floor window — a safety hazard and a detriment to the school’s public image. Fourteen-year-old Josh broke a ping-pong paddle after a particularly intense game in the basement. As a punishment, he will have to find the school three new ping-pong balls.

No class, no curriculum

Philly Free School is also unique in the amount of trust it puts in its students. Older students are free to sign in and out of the school during the day, with permission to walk down to the corner store for lunch or to buy materials for their projects.

Fourteen-year-olds Johnny and Josh are the oldest students at the school. Since the majority of their schoolmates are 4-to-7-year-olds, they don’t have passions that are as clearly defined as the duo’s.

“I’m a filmmaker,” said Johnny, as they walked back from May’s, a Chinese takeout restaurant two blocks away from the school.

“I can shoot movies here. I write movie reviews,” he said, adding that the school gives him more time to work on his own projects.

He attended a similarly democratic school, Upattinas School in Chester County, Pa., before enrolling in the Philly Free School.

But what about learning math or science? When it comes time for Johnny to take the SATs or the ACTs to apply for college, how will he handle subjects he has devoted little time to?

“I won’t need to know a lot of math for what I’d like to do in my life.” Johnny responds, referring to his passion for film. He says he’s learned math at his previous school, “but you’re never going to have to do that much. No one’s ever going to ask [you how to solve a hard math problem].”

Since students in the Free School interact closely with those of other ages, Johnny says he has learned things that his friends who attend more traditional schools will never have a chance to experience.

“I don’t have a big tolerance for little kids, but here I’m learning to manage them,” he said.

Josh, on the other hand, attended a traditional public school in southern New Jersey before transferring to the Free School after his family moved to Philadelphia.

“They were searching for a bunch of schools, and they heard something about Philly Free School on This American Life,” he said, referring to the nationally syndicated NPR show.

During the day, Josh will play video games, a game of chess and several rounds of ping-pong. “I mostly study what I like to study at home,” he added.

As for the younger children, “I kind of see them starting to do stuff they like doing,” Johnny said. Sophia tried coordinating a school play a few weeks ago, but it broke apart because the younger kids wouldn’t cooperate, he recalled.

“We start with the important stuff,” Michelle Loucas said. “The nature of a conventional school is just to get kids to a conventional level. [Here, they learn] skills that’ll serve them well in adult life.”

“This isn’t a school for special kids,” she added. “It’s for kids whose parents are ready to start rethinking education. Many kids are fit for this, if their parents trust them. If they believe that kids want to learn, I think they can.”

This article was updated from a previous version to reflect the correct spelling of Zoey.

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