Reflections on Friday Night, Our Second Community Meeting
On Friday evening, a wonderful group of families and children gathered to learn more about Sacramento Community School and to continue shaping this project together. There were many new faces in the room, alongside returning families who have been walking with us for months. The energy felt steady and thoughtful, conversations were generous, and the shared enthusiasm for this vision was deeply encouraging.
Parents engaged in the silent conversation we set up around the room. Large posters invited reflection on belonging, curriculum, school grounds, fundraising, and what families hope their children feel at the end of a school day. People moved quietly from question to question, adding ideas, responding to one another, and building on what had already been written. We were grateful for the care and intention in those responses and spent time the following day reading through them closely. As promised, you can view the compiled reflections here:
Reading them afterward made it clear how much insight and commitment families are already bringing to this school.
Several questions surfaced that deserve more space than a brief response during a presentation allows. Sara asked how we plan to teach history and what materials we would use. It is a question that goes to the heart of the kind of thinkers we hope students will become.
Before answering directly, it is worth acknowledging that conversations about curriculum at this stage can feel somewhat abstract. In a progressive school, detailed curriculum planning does not happen in isolation or years in advance. It develops in collaboration with teachers and with the pioneering families who choose to build the school alongside us. Progressive schools are responsive to the people in the community, their interests, their expertise, and their aspirations for their children’s learning journeys.
At the same time, responsiveness does not mean the absence of structure or rigor. Foundational skills are intentionally taught, practiced, and revisited. Students build fluency in reading, writing, and mathematics through direct instruction, individualized guided practice, goal setting, feedback, and application. They develop core academic competencies alongside deeper inquiry. Depth and skill development are not in tension with one another. They are mutually reinforcing.
For example, progressive schools typically do not rely on traditional grades or frequent standardized tests as measures of learning. At the same time, some families care deeply about their children feeling prepared for high school placement exams or college entrance tests. Many progressive schools respond to that community need by offering optional afterschool or weekend workshops focused specifically on test taking strategies and exam preparation. In this way, the core philosophy remains intact while practical skills are intentionally supported.
The same responsiveness applies to faculty strengths and passions. If, in our search for a teacher, we meet a gifted environmental educator, a lifelong pianist, or a theater arts major, those gifts would not sit on the sidelines. They would be woven into the life of the school and offered to students as authentic extensions of the adults in their midst. Curriculum, in this sense, is not a static document but a living expression of the community’s knowledge, curiosity, and care.
Within that responsive framework, our approach to history is clear. We do not treat it as a sequence of facts and dates to memorize. Instead, we aim to cultivate a historian’s habits of mind. Historians investigate the past by searching for evidence, asking meaningful questions, and constructing interpretations grounded in context. In the classroom, this means analyzing primary and secondary sources, weighing multiple perspectives, and developing arguments supported by evidence. Students learn to ask who created a document and why, to place events within broader social and political contexts, and to compare differing accounts in order to identify agreement and contradiction. Through close reading, they learn to detect bias and perspective. Art, making, literature, and culture are woven into these studies so that the past becomes vivid and multidimensional rather than abstract.
Students will work with letters, speeches, photographs, newspaper articles, oral histories, memoir, and historical fiction, rather than relying solely on a single textbook narrative. They will examine whose voices are centered in dominant accounts and whose stories have been marginalized or excluded. Seeking out nondominant narratives becomes part of the discipline itself. History is understood as an ongoing conversation shaped by evidence, interpretation, and power.
In terms of materials, we will draw from a wide array of texts and tools. On Friday, I mentioned OER Project, an open access world history and civics curriculum grounded in inquiry and analysis. We will also use resources from the Zinn Education Project and the Southern Poverty Law Center to support thoughtful engagement with complex history. Literature will complement document analysis by helping students understand lived experience and human context.
Our goal is for students to see themselves as investigators who gather evidence, weigh perspectives, and construct careful interpretations. These habits extend well beyond history. They are foundational to civic participation and critical thinking across disciplines.
Another parent asked whether we would follow state standards and how we determine what to teach if we are not operating within a traditional structure. It is a fair and important question.
As seasoned educators, we are informed by state frameworks but not driven by them. Standards can offer useful reference points, yet they are not the engine of our work. We look to national professional organizations such as NCTM in mathematics, NCTE in literacy, and NAEYC in early childhood education for guidance grounded in research and practitioner wisdom about how children learn best within each discipline.
We also look outward to national and local nonprofits for connection and real world engagement. Organizations such as Soil Born Farms, Sacramento Splash, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and STEM Generation offer opportunities for place based learning, environmental stewardship, and applied science. These partnerships help students experience knowledge as something that lives beyond classroom walls.
Because we are responsive to students’ interests and developmental readiness, there will be flexibility in what topics are covered in a given year. Deep thinking cannot flourish when learning is rushed across too many disconnected units. We prioritize big foundational ideas and explore them thoroughly, guided by learning progressions that help us understand where a student is, where they are headed, and what experiences will move them forward. This approach allows us to scaffold learning intentionally rather than simply covering material.
Our aim is not to deliver information and facts as efficiently as possible. It is to help students learn how to access information, ask stronger questions, evaluate sources, and build understanding. There is room to choose topics thoughtfully, to follow curiosity, and to teach students how to find answers rather than simply receive them. Teachers serve as guides who help students navigate disciplines and develop habits of mind that will serve them long after they leave our classrooms.
For families who are curious about what this kind of curriculum looks like when it is fully lived out, we encourage you to explore the schools that have helped shape our thinking. Visiting in person or spending time on their websites offers a clearer sense of the depth, intentionality, and coherence that emerge when progressive curriculum is thoughtfully designed and sustained over time.
Park Day School in Oakland, Peninsula School in Menlo Park, and Brightworks in San Francisco each carry a slightly different flavor. One may lean more deeply into long term thematic study, another into democratic governance and environmental education, another into design and maker culture. Yet beneath those differences, the core elements remain consistent: meaningful project based learning, a deep commitment to social emotional and whole child development, experiential and real world connections, and careful attunement to the interests and developmental readiness of the child.
These schools are guiding lights for us. They remind us that this model is not theoretical or vague. It is practiced, refined, and alive in real classrooms with real children. We are not attempting to reinvent education from scratch, but to carry forward a tradition of thoughtful progressive schooling and adapt it responsibly to our Sacramento community.
Beyond curriculum, Friday night reinforced how central Community is to this project.
Sacramento Community School does not see itself as a stand alone institution, but as part of Sacramento’s broader educational and civic ecosystem. Public schools are neighbors carrying an essential democratic mission. Universities are potential partners in research and mentorship. Libraries, museums, parks, neighborhood businesses, and civic leaders are collaborators in the shared work of raising thoughtful young people.
We imagine research nights at local libraries, art exhibitions in cafes and cultural institutions, collaborations with neighborhood businesses where students learn how organizations function and how ethical decisions shape communities, time in local parks and at the river, where science and stewardship are practiced outdoors. We also envision our campus as a shared space for Sacramento, hosting seasonal gatherings, family workshops, exhibitions, and community work days where neighbors help plant gardens, build outdoor classrooms, and care for shared grounds together. Relationships can extend beyond the school day.
Friday evening, we also spoke candidly about the practical realities of this project. Because we are choosing to remain small and flexible rather than operate within a traditional private funding model, sustainability will depend on thoughtful fundraising and carefully chosen partnerships. Community in this model includes shared investment of time and resources. When families contribute time, when businesses collaborate, and when donors invest in the vision, they are participating in a civic effort.
I want to return briefly to the fundraising goal I mentioned on Friday evening. When I mentioned needing to raise $100,000, I was referring specifically to the minimum capital required to open our doors in September with a lean, seedling program serving a small cohort of pioneering families. That figure represents a careful calculation of what it would take to begin responsibly, not the full cost of building the complete school we ultimately envision.
A fully built model with expanded programming, deeper staffing, and long term stability will require significantly more investment, closer to $1,000,000 in start up funding. We are holding multiple horizons at once: a short term goal that allows us to begin thoughtfully and modestly, a mid range plan that strengthens and stabilizes the program, and a long term vision for a fully realized campus and community resource. Communicating across those timeframes can be complex.
One parent offered an imaginative idea that captures the spirit of this stage. If a family owned a rental home and felt called to lend it to the school for a year, it could serve as a temporary home for our seedling program while potentially offering the family meaningful tax benefits as a charitable contribution. Stephanie has generously offered to begin researching zoning considerations and overall feasibility.
We share this not as a finalized plan, but as an invitation to think creatively with us. Schools often begin in borrowed spaces before they grow into permanent ones. If someone in your extended network might be open to exploring this kind of partnership, we encourage you to start the conversation. Sometimes the path forward appears when a community dares to imagine it together.
After the presentation ended on Friday, many families stayed to talk. Parents introduced themselves and shared their hopes, and children moved easily between spaces, adults, and new friends. The atmosphere felt unhurried and relational, and we were grateful for that connection.
The night felt like another meaningful step forward. The questions were thoughtful, the circle widened, and the school continues to take shape through conversation, partnership, and shared responsibility. If the engagement in the room is any indication, we are building something together that feels both real and possible.
