Alpine Valley School Podcast

In this episode of the Alpine Valley School podcast, we continue our Visionaries & Voices series with a powerful speech by Cassi Clausen, founder of The Open School in California. Cassi's journey fro…

Join us as we dive into the transformative world of self-directed democratic education with Larry Welshon, founder of Alpine Valley School. With 28 years of experience and a background in public educ…

In episode 59 of the Alpine Valley School podcast, we share an insightful interview with Addison Ault, a former special education teacher who has transitioned to a staff role at Alpine Valley School,…

In this episode of the Alpine Valley School podcast, host Marc Gallivan talks with conscious parenting coach Angela Young about how to set clear boundaries with your children while still supporting t…

Staff Members at self-directed democratic schools like Alpine Valley School are often asked what sorts of unique challenges students experience at places like this. While our students are free from t…

Most people involved in self-directed education know that staff are the adult members of the school community, but what is the actual role staff members play in the day-to-day running of the school? …

What are school wounds? How do they develop, and who do they affect? This is a topic we explore on episode 55 of the Alpine Valley School podcast, along with Akilah S. Richards, a podcaster, author, …

In mainstream education, parents and teachers are continually breaking down children into two separate groups: good students and bad students. In this episode, we hear from Tay Arrow and Marc Galliva…

It’s been a while, but Alpine Valley School is still here! In this episode Marc provides an update about what life at our school is going to look like moving forward, as well as the future of this po…

Introducing a new podcast from Alpine Valley School - Lockdown Learning

As COVID-19 swept the globe from east to west this year, so has home education. Millions of children woke up one morning to fin…

Like many schools around the world, Alpine Valley School is currently closed. Without a physical space where we can congregate, our self-directed learning community is figuring out how to come togeth…

In this episode, we sit down with the parents of three currently enrolled students. The Shannon family shares what brought them to Alpine Valley School, and what they’ve noticed after being involved …

To celebrate the milestone of our 50th episode, the Alpine Valley School podcast collected favorite stories from Sudbury Schools all over the USA. The…

Sudbury schools and Unschoolers have always had quite a bit of overlap in their philosophies, but how do unschooled students manage the transition to a self-directed school en…

Important decisions at our school are made, not by a central authority figure, but by the democratic process of voting. All students and staff at the school cast their vote on c…

Everyone at Alpine Valley School (students and staff alike) participate in doing cleaning chores twice a week. On this episode, we follow a Chore-Checker (the student responsible f…

This is the third part of our special series called Founding Stories, in which we interview founders of other self-directed democratic schoo…

This is the second part of our special series called Founding Stories, in which we interview founders of other self-directed democratic schools around t…

This is the first in our series of special episodes called Founding Stories, in which we interview founders of other self-directed democratic s…

The notion that self-directed schools, like Alpine Valley School, involve students only pursuing the subjects they find interesting is partially true, but it’s not the whole …