Unschooler recommended alternative schools in Philadelphia:

I started school at 2 years old.  I went to Toddlers and Twos in the Germantown section of Philadelphia.  My mom chose to work there so she could be with me.  I am not sure if she knew the term Attachment Parenting then, but that is what she did with me.  Her basic philosophy, as she told me during a recent conversation, was that “we were better together.”  Sometimes when I was in elementary school and she worked elsewhere, my mom would say, “let’s play hooky today.”  On our “hooky” days we would go to museums or to the park or visiting or out to lunch.  Over the years, I attended many kinds of schools in a few different states across the country.  Public, private and independent, predominantly Black and predominantly white, religious and secular, African-centered and standard American Euro-centric.  I did well at some and sometimes well at others.  As I grew, playing hooky with my mom expanded into me playing academic hooky (I still went to school, I just occasionally chose not to do my work) and educating myself by reading books and studying things that weren’t assigned or by petitioning my teachers to allow my independent study.  I knew before ever having children that I would homeschool them because I wanted to be their primary influence.  Years into it, I learned the term unschooling and realized that was  85% of what we were doing.  I’ll go into more detail about our life as unschoolers in another article because this one is really for people who (parent or child) may benefit from unschooling life, but for whatever reason don’t see it for themselves and choose to enroll in school. 

Please keep in mind that I have zero experience engaging with any of these institutions as a parent of an enrolled student.  Malachi and Assata both expressed interest in going to school for high school, so we initiated the process with a few, one of which is on this list, but ultimately each of my children’s first academic experience was college. From what I know through word-of-mouth, friends who are professional educators, my own education and distant observations, these are good options:  

Jubilee School—Pre-school-6th 

Poinciana Montessori— Ages 6-13

The Waldorf School of Philadelphia—Pre-school thru 8th 

PA School for the Deaf Community Pre-school—Hearing and deaf children ages 3-5

The Crefeld School—Middle and Upper School (7th-12th)

Friends Select School—K-12

Sankofa Freedom Academy Charter School—K-12

Imhotep Institute Charter High School—STEM 9-12

Boys Latin of Philadelphia—Charter/single gender 6th-12th  

If you could use support figuring out the best option for your child and family, please feel free to book a Discovery Call with me.