Harriet Tubman Free School

The Harriet Tubman Free School (http://www.tubmanfreeschool.org) is an offshoot of the Albany Free School. It is in its second year of operation and has 30 high school students, 3 full-time staff, and 2 interns. The school has 5 students that grew up going to the Albany Free School, but the rest are students that came from public school. There is a wide variety of reasons that the students have for going there and a wide variety of goals that they have. Some students were otherwise facing dropping out of school, and others hoped to graduate high school faster. The goals of the students vary: some want to graduate in 2 years and go to trade school and some want to take the regents exam and go to college.

The school day is scheduled loosely, but there are classes offered every day. However, the classes are not mandatory. The students meet with their advisor throughout the week to set goals and maintain them. The students are divided among the 3 teachers for advising, with each teacher taking a certain age range. The students are all working on building portfolio’s while they are attending.

I have spent quite a bit of time at the Harriet Tubman Free School. I teach math there once a week. I am one of two math teachers. I have a group of 3 students that regularly show up to my classes. They are all ninth graders and so far we have been working on percents, long division, multiplication, fractions and algebra. I have been pulling interactive mathematics activities off of the internet to do them with my class. My favorite so far was “How to win at Wheel of Fortune” which found the probability that letters will occur.

Another reason why I often go over to the high school is that they regularly host games of kickball, capture the flag, and whiffle ball. Many of the older students at my school like to go over and join the games there. The high schoolers are really great about including the younger students.