On August 1, 2023 the Hudson Valley Sudbury School became Zena Democratic School!
“Zena” is the name of the road on which we are located; it is also a Greek word meaning “welcome,” which fits seamlessly into our dedication to being accessible to our community. We chose to include the word “democratic” in our name to underscore our commitment to democracy in our governance as well as our ethos; everyone here is fundamentally equal and celebrated as unique members of a dynamic collective.
This change reflected a transition, that had been underway for years, in our philosophy and practice; we shifted from an emphasis on individual autonomy and development towards an equal emphasis on proactively building caring and vibrant community. To that end, we created programs that offer more opportunities for engagement and connection at school. It is only natural that a vigorous participatory democracy would evolve in its own direction over time! We are deeply grateful to the Sudbury Valley School and will maintain our commitment to individual autonomy, democratic process, and personal responsibility for students; Sudbury values will remain at the heart of our school.
For years, our School Meeting had wrestled with questions regarding philosophy and practice. The Sudbury Model, as we understand it, emphasizes the freedom and agency of the individual, refraining from actively building community. In this singular emphasis on individual freedom, the model also leaves those individuals largely on their own to obtain resources at school as well as to utilize them, but it in our own discussions and experiments it has become become clearer and clearer that our community wishes for the freedom to experience a vibrant and caring community as well as the freedom to easily and reliably access resources. To School Meeting, a vibrant community is one in which there is a variety of lively and interesting activities on campus within a rich school culture, and a caring community is one in which individuals are aware of, curious about, and supportive of each other, and we believe that in order to easily and reliably access resources, those resources have to be readily available at school. School Meeting created structures to support these freedoms such as the Programming Clerk, the move from a Judicial Committee to a Resolution Committee, limiting screen time, the hiring of Supplemental Staff, and an Advisor Program.
Moving forward, the other potential new program there’s been a lot of buzz about is a slate of Winter Offerings, classes and activities the School Meeting would organize and provide for the community.
As we began making these changes we realized that we needed to take steps to become more organized about a general transition. To that end, we formed a Strategic Planning Committee in September 2022 to evaluate the state of the school and chart an intentional path forward. The Strategic Planning Committee’s top priorities are finding pathways to financial stability, increasing community engagement, campus expansion, and program implementation.