Coolest School In America

book ISBN:1578861861 about the creation of the EdVisions Minnesota New Country School

Aug'2010 - included in Ladies Home Journal profile of 13 "amazing" schools in America.

summary of school structure

• Charter School

• 150 students total (Small School), grades 7-12

• rural Minnesota

• run by teacher's CoOp (EdVisions) - no principal or managing administrators. Teachers take on committee roles. (Though they do hire some paperwork people for things like dealing with state standards)

• no classes, no bells, no Curriculum.

  • hmm, how close is this to UnSchooling? Not really, since kids have to pick something and state standards have to be met. But still, pretty cool.

• everything based on Project Based Learning

  • I thought I'd found their forms online, but none of the links work. I'm asking them directly for copies...

  • they use Project Foundry http://www.projectfoundry.org/

• students group into "advisory" of 18-20, with 1 advisor who facilitates project creation, progress, etc.

  • in EdVisions video, see 2:40 and 3:45 (and backdrops for interviews at 5:30) on physical layout

• every 6 weeks there's a Project Presentation Night which parents and others can attend, for any student having a finished project to present.

• project documentation includes process of identifying what bits of state required Curriculum are being covered.

• each student has her own personal workspace which includes a computer (DeskTop?) - there are lots of shared spaces for group projects, science labs, etc.

Book is 3 different sections

• chapters by the people who started it: 40 pages - this is the best part by far.

• essays by "critical friends":

• testimonials from students: