We are trying to find 60 ninth grade students for the fall of 2013. We’re out talking to West Philadelphia K-8s and Middle Schools this week. If you are interested in our program, please check out our information sheet here:

Workshop Student Information Sheet

Questions, please send an email to info@workshopschool.org.…

Thanks to our awesome friends at Fresh Direct for sponsoring this challenge!

Thanks to Newsworks for this great story! …

ABC is here.

Fox is here. …

We’re expanding!  Here is the press release from the School District of Philadelphia:

Excerpts:
The District will also expand three high-performing schools – Hill Freedman Middle School, Science Leadership Academy and the Sustainability Workshop – through a $6 million investment from the Great Schools Fund, managed by the PSP.
“This is a valuable opportunity for us to work with principals to provide schools with the supplementary resources needed to serve incoming students and replicate our most successful schools and programs,” said Superintendent Dr.…

It’s been such a busy year that we haven’t had nearly enough time to keep up with the website and blog. But our students have done some amazing work! Check out two of our projects from this year, Teens Intervene and Land RAFTS, on the projects page.…

Today I spent an hour at my daughter’s school watching five 5th grade classes do their orignal performances at an event titled “Expressions.”  For the last several weeks the students in each class have been spending their “specials” (meaning physical education, Spanish, music and art) on creating an original performance that incorporates these classes, which I think are called specials because they are not tested, which means they are nonessential.…

At the Workshop, we spend about the first month of the school year building community: Defining what we value as a group, exploring what makes us who we are as individuals, and learning to share that with one another. We’re getting to know one another, and trying to send and reinforce the message that our students have a lot of say in what kind of community we become.…

I give thanks…for inspiration

For many years, my friend Coco and I went out and cheered at the marathon.  Then Lisa and I went with Coco.  Now my kids know that they’re going to spend one Sunday morning in November standing first at 34th and Powelton and then at the edge of Kelly Drive until their hands crack, listening to Mom and Dad encourage anyone who runs close enough for us to see their name on their bib.…

It’s a worn out cliche, I know. But the other analogy people usually draw in this situation is to chaos theory. And the truth is that I’ve read quite a bit about that and still don’t really understand it, so I feel like a poseur using that metaphor. So wildfire it is.…