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The Role of Staff at a Sudbury School

"Availability Without Continuous Presence"

The staff, by being attentive and caring and at the same time not directive and coercive, gives the children the courage and the impetus to listen to their own inner selves. They know that we are competent as any adult to guide them, but our refusal to do so is a pedagogical tool actively used to teach them to listen only to themselves and not to others who, at best, know only half the facts about them. Our abstaining from telling students what to do is not perceived by them as a lack of something, an emptiness. Rather it is the impetus for them to forge their own way not under our guidance but under our caring and supportive concern. For it takes work and courage to do what they do for and by themselves. It cannot be done in a vacuum of isolation, but thrives in a vital and complex community, which the staff stabilizes and perpetuates.
-Daniel Greenberg, Co-founder, Sudbury Valley School

Staff Members

Staff Responsibilities: Work with students, keep campus going, help clean it, take care of public relations, meet with parents, tend to administrative work, etc. When staff is not needed by students, they focus on making sure all other aspects of the school's operations are looked after, or they follow their own passions.

Every spring, staff member's names go on a secret ballot and eligible students and staff vote to determine which staff members' contracts will be renewed for the following year. Staff are elected based on their usefulness to the students, how well they fit within the school's philosophy, and how well they help to manage the school's affairs. Staff are elected because only the students at Blue Ridge Sudbury School can determine who best serves them.

At Blue Ridge Sudbury School, staff members are not responsible for the constant and direct supervision of students although they will intervene where safety or legality is an issue. Blue Ridge Sudbury School students must be capable of being responsible for themselves, and whether under the direct supervision of adults or not, students are expected to be responsible for themselves and to look out for each other.