The annual meeting of the National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools (NCACS) met April 30th to May 3rd, 2009 at Upattinas School in Glenwood, PA.
One young girl said, “It was like a tent forest, no, a tent city!” There were over 200 people who traveled from as far away as Japan at the conference.
The NCACS has been meeting for over three decades. Students and staff from all the schools in the NCACS travel for long distances to gather all in one place, go to workshops, see old friends and meet new people. You might be thinking, “Why do these people want to get together? What do they have in common?” They all go to alternative learning schools, which means the learning isn’t quite the same. Students have some control over what they do. This conference is about knowing there are other people who own their education.
A group of people at the conference were talking about the schools they taught at. A lady said, “At the school I used to teach at, when the kids heard the bell for the bus, they would literally scatter into the woods and run away because they loved school so much!” Another man said, “At a school I taught at, once, they had a meeting and the staff said ‘We need a longer winter break.’ But the kids argued back, ‘We don’t need breaks at all! We’ll just keep going all year long!’”
People of all ages learn and play together at these alternative learning schools and at the NCACS conference. The NCACS conference will explode again next year at another alternative learning school!
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