What's a day like at Mirkwood School?

At Mirkwood School, students have the option to design their own schedule (with or without the help of a staffer), or to pursue activities as they like throughout the day without a schedule. Some students may choose to use a "work plan" to design their activities for each day or each week. Different students will follow different needs and interests in different ways, so there's no "typical" or "average" structure to a student's day. For the school as a whole, though, it's possible to get a general picture of what a day is like.

Students can arrive at a time that's comfortable for them, starting at around 8:00 AM. As they arrive, they can begin to pick up on projects they may have left off before, grab a staff member to help with a project, read together, begin planning their day, etc.

After everyone has arrived, we have our morning meeting. Here we have announcements, concerns, coordinating schedules and plans for the day, a chance to check in with one another, a chance to show new materials, invite others to join in activities that students, staff, or visitors will be doing, and visitors are introduced.

After the meeting, some students may go to scheduled classes that they've chosen to take part in, while others work on other things. Scheduled classes continue throughout the day for different groups and subjects.

Classes often involve mixed ages and may be in any number of forms: traditional lectures, round tables, project-based learning (a group is publishing a newspaper or building a car or doing a series of experiments with a microscope), interdisciplinary projects, field trips, community learning (for instance, apprenticing with a computer programmer or builder, etc.). Classes might be cooperatively run, or run by one person or a team, whether staff, students, or both. Each class has a regular time slot, with a specific start and end time. In some cases, some students might stick around after a class and continue what they've been working on, independently or in small groups. The class schedule is arranged around a weekly schedule, so a given class might meet anything from once a day to once a week. Homeschoolers may come in for specific classes or activities during the day, or may sign up to attend half-days or full days on a regular basis.

At least one staffer is available at any given time throughout the day for unstructured activities. Students may be engaged in play, one-time or ongoing projects, research, reading, outdoor activities, conversations, artistic activities, etc. Staffers help with resources, answer questions, help secure materials or spaces, are available to talk, help plan new activities or classes, and so on. Essentially, staff is available to facilitate learning as needed by students. Staff may sometimes take a leadership role in an activity students have opted into, for instance an impromptu nature hike.

At this point, students will be bringing their own lunches. However, we hope to be able to provide healthy, hot lunches in the future. After lunch, some students may take part in activities around Meadowdance Community, for instance, apprenticeships, building projects, meetings, artistic projects and activities, trips, stewardship of natural resources, outdoor activities, sports, etc. Other students will go back to the school for classes or other structured or unstructured activities. Throughout the afternoon, students may go back and forth between the school and other activities around the community, within bounds set to ensure that students, parents, staff, and other Meadowdance community members feel safe and comfortable with the arrangements.

Mirkwood School is governed equally by the students and staff that attend the school. The group holds regular meetings to conduct the business of the school. These meetings are open to all members of the school. The meetings follow the Formal Consensus process (see http://www.meadowdance.org/consensus.htm). Topics for the consensus meeting can be any number of things: materials to purchase, use of resources, agreements about how we'll do certain things, problems or concerns that have come up, disagreements to resolve, general discussions of school direction, and so on.

Some students and staff members volunteer to take on special roles in the school and attend to them as needed throughout the week. These include things like

• Caretakerships of certain areas (the arts area, the computers), or kinds of equipment (microscopes, skis). Caretakers take on the responsibility of making sure everything flows smoothly within their area. For instance, they help ensure that materials are kept in good working order, requisition needed materials, help organize aspects of their area that need organization, answer questions from students and staff, etc., and
• Specific jobs on a one-time or ongoing basis, such as potter, Webmaster, coach, etc.

The school day ends at 3:00 PM.