Maryland's first Sudbury School has been a unique learning environment for students since 1998.
Maryland's first Sudbury School has been a unique learning environment for students since 1998.
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Kat Schaeffer (Steigerwald)
2004 Graduate
“One thing that always stands out to me about Sudbury schools is the healthy relationships they create between children and adults. The Fairhaven staff were our allies and supporters, not separate, different, or more important than us. They spoke to us as equals and patiently allowed us to navigate our own paths – both in our personal and educational lives.
There is no doubt in my mind that I am the engaged and empowered person I am today because of my time at FHS. It will always hold a very special place in my heart.”
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Mary White (Brewer)
2008 Graduate
“I’ve been part of Fairhaven School from day one. I was a member of a founding family…I’ve had the freedom to decide how to spend my days for most of my life. This means that I was in charge of my education. To most parents this may seem like a risky move but my parents really believed in the school and trusted me to make the right choices. I’m so glad that my parents took that risk. Not being forced to take classes and have homework made me want to have classes and I chose whether or not I had homework. Because this was my decision I would really pay attention and learn a lot.”
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Zoë Woodbridge
2009 Graduate
“4:50 – that magic number. Each day we hear the page echo through both buildings telling us it’s time to go. We grab our lunches, backpacks, art projects or instruments, pack them in our cars and drive back home only to return the next day. I’ll miss the drive, to be honest. There’s nothing quite like rolling through the shade of trees on Queen Anne and pulling up to Amy on her little pink bike, little boys playing four square, then turning off the car no longer hearing Fugazi or Mewithoutyou or whichever CD Eli’s blasting that day, then putting the Camry in park and walking up the stone path into school.”
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Andrew Agner-Nichols
2006 Graduate
“I’d say the best ways to become acquainted with School Meeting were those times when someone wants to change a rule or someone wants something to happen, and they get their group together and say, “Guys, this means a lot to me. Let’s go to School Meeting.”
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Courtney Lennon-Wallish
2015 Graduate
“There’s a certain bond that all Sudbury students and staff share with one another, and although this connection can be difficult to pinpoint in one single phrase, it’s understood by all of us on a much deeper level that is borderline impossible to describe using words.”
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Erasing Any Doubt – A Parent’s Perspective
The candidates were prepared, genuine, intuitive in their interactions, and open to all kinds of feedback in a way that had to have erased any lingering doubt for any attendee about what Fairhaven graduates are ready for after graduation. They’re ready for whatever they can dream up, and they’ve had the gift of time, space, and access to unique resources to prepare for their own adult lives using approaches that the “gap year” after traditional high school is becoming so popular for these days. Fairhaven students have had “gap lives” in all the best ways. They’re so ready.
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Why Join Fairhaven School?
“Being able to have a voice at a young age is something I value a lot. At Fairhaven, I like being able to actually have an opinion and have that opinion matter. It’s different here, because my opinion impacts the environment—the rules, J.C. sentences, and so on. I actually have freedom of speech here, but in public school, telling someone who’s older than you that they’re doing something wrong or that you don’t agree with will get you in trouble. Here, my opinion matters.” Student, age 15
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Giving Radical Happiness
Fairhaven School students become ambassadors of radical happiness for everyone they meet. Strangers marvel at how articulate they are, their ability to entertain themselves, their desire for justice, their comfort occupying their own skin, and their ability to speak up and be heard. Fairhaven School students and graduates present an alternative childhood, where trust in oneself forms the foundation for a life well-lived.
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What’s Normal?
At a recent Talkabout co-hosted with visiting staff and students from Houston Sudbury school, staff member Mark McCaig began the discussion with some thoughts about “What’s Normal at a Sudbury School?”
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What I’ve Learned at Sudbury Schools
We all think our kids are special and brilliant and couldn’t possibly do the bone-headed things other kids do. As a staff member with two kids at school, I was able to see that my kids—although, of course, brilliant and special—were among peers who were equally brilliant and special, and that my kids were just as capable of spinning tales at the dinner table about why they’d been hauled into JC through no fault of their own.
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Twenty Year Celebration!
On Saturday, June 9th, we celebrated twenty years of Fairhaven School. In addition to joining our annual Capture the Flag game, about two hundred current students, alumni, founders, and friends of the school visited, shared stories, played music, ate brick oven pizza, and dug up the time capsule we buried in 1998. Founder and staff member Mark McCaig shared these remarks in the backyard at the time capsule ceremony.
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