Lehman Alternative Community School

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The Lehman Alternative Community School is a nationally renowned public, alternative, combined middle and high school in the Ithaca City School District in Ithaca, New York. Serving grades 6-12 with approximately 305 students, the school is known for its small class size, non-traditional curricula, and focus on active student participation. Demand to attend the school greatly exceeds available space, and the waiting list to enter the school generally exceeds 240 applicants. Analogous to Brown University, the academic philosophy of the school is based on the premise that students should be influential in shaping their education.HistoryIn 1974, parents and teachers in Ithaca, New York, rallied support on the school board to create a junior high school that would provide students with an educational experience that would be empowering, relevant, and democratic. David Lehman was recruited to be the school's first principal and to help develop the curriculum. The resulting program was the New Junior High Program (NJHP) for grades 7 through 9, and was housed in the old Markles Flats building on the corner of Court and Plain Streets in downtown Ithaca. In 1977, the program was moved to Ithaca High School's E-Building, and in 1978, grades 10–12 were added. The original configuration for the expanded school was two programs with the senior high named the Alternative Community High School (ACHS). In 1981, grade 6 was added and the school was unified into a single 6–12 entity called the Alternative Community School (ACS). NJHP, ACHS, and ACS all embraced democratic shared governance by the students, staff, principal, and parents. In the early years of NJHP, staff and students would gather at the beginning of each "cycle" (quarters) to hammer out a schedule of classes together. Students could offer classes and teachers could take classes. As the school grew from the original 60 or so junior high students, the scheduling by consensus became prohibitively time consuming, but to this day one of the center pieces of the school's educational philosophy is its commitment to participatory, democratic decision making.