Tallgrass Sudbury School

My son is 7.5 and has been going to Tallgrass for almost a year and he absolutely loves his school. He did two years of public preschool and he told me he hated school. He had trouble transitioning between activities and sitting still and resented any attempt by the teachers to make him read or write. He was starting to hate learning or at least what he understood learning to be. The local kindergarten had a class size of 32 with one teacher. It was definitely not going to work. Prior to going to Tallgrass he did a year of homeschooling (mostly freeschooling) but he as an only child he was lonely and not getting enough social interaction.
At first, I was looking into Montessori & Waldorf schools but there was just too much restriction and expectation for our personalities. My husband and I are young parents, technology lovers, and ADHD runs in both of our families (though neither of us nor our son has had a full formal diagnosis). So, really, we’re just all always forgetting things and running late.
Honestly, I didn’t think we’d be able to afford to send him to a Sudbury school or that he would be accepted or that the scheduling would work because we’re in the city and the school is in Riverside but everything really worked out. The variable start time has been great for us and the school gave us financial aid so we could afford his tuition.
I have less of a hard time accepting the whole no-​curriculum thing because the last grade I completed was 8^th grade, and I REALLY didn’t like math, but today I am one class away from a BS in computer engineering (and I love math now, of course). But for other parents (including my husband), I get it, it’s scary, because there’s not a ton of examples around of people who didn’t go to «normal» school.
My son mostly plays and seems at the surface to spend way too much time on the computer but he’s slowly catching on with reading because he’s frustrated that some of his friends can do it and he can’t. Many of the games he wants to play require reading so he’s got more of a fire under his butt to work at it.
Many of the kids might appear to be «behind» but they’re really ahead in a lot of ways. As a group, they’re pretty mature and know they have to go for what they want. I’ve been working on math with some of the older kids who want to try public school or college and that desire to do something is such a crazy motivator. They can fly through the material, covering years of material in a matter of a couple months. It seems that they do all pretty much learn that if you want to do X, you have to figure out the Y and Z of what it’s going to take to get there.
But don’t get the wrong impression, these aren’t narcissistic «indigo children» or power-​hungry mini CEOs; they’re just normal kids who run their own school.

Both my children have graduated from Tallgrass after three and five years enrolled there, and we have been very happy with this unique educational approach. We loved the way the school embodies trust and respect by giving students an equal voice in the governance of the school in addition to the freedom to pursue their interests. Both my children are now successfully attending the colleges of their choice and we credit Tallgrass with providing them the time and space to mature into happy, capable adults.

My daughter (age 8.5) has attended Tallgrass for the past 4 years and we could not be more pleased with the skills that she has developed. She is a self-​directed learner with interests in math, art, and science and often seeks out structured work in these areas on her own time. She taught herself to read when she was developmentally ready (about 7.5) and within weeks was reading for pleasure at her grade level (which she continues to do). She has been an active member of several committees at the school (party planning committee, judicial committee, etc.) and has invested herself in the democratic process of the school. As such, she has a far richer appreciation for her civic role in society at large than I did at her age. She has learned how to manage conflict in a healthy and independent way and has generally felt empowered in essentially all aspects of school life. The friendships she has made have been lasting and she has benefited in many ways from the mixed age setting!