Grassroots Free School

2458 Grass Roots Way

Tallahassee, FL 32311

3 Reviews

School District
Grade

n/a
Type

private

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Reviews

Submitted by other on March 14, 2024

This school was incredibly beneficial to my understanding of the world and was overall good for my development. At Grassroots I came to understand things like: I have to change things that need to be changed instead of waiting for someone else, if I have an issue with a other person I have to step up and bring it to the Council of my peers to get their consequences, if no one saw [redacted] hit me I had to bring it up and tell someone instead of how I expected someone would just come and tell at them, and most importantly I learned how to lead others if I wanted something fixed I asked [redacted]and[redacted] but they would ask me to fix something as a trade. I even founded a company and we made a few hundred and gave it to the no-kill shelter as well as becoming a wonderful gardener learning all the things I could because *I* wanted to instead of being forced to I *chose* to read, pickup ukulele, start tinkering and, sowing. All of these I love because I picked them and grassroots gave me the freedom to do that and to go at my own pace especially with my variety of disables. I will always hold it in my heart even if i had some problems there it was the best place for me.
Submitted by parent on October 27, 2022

Although I do not regret unschooling my children, I do regret doing it with Grassroots Free School. I have gone from encouraging my friends and colleagues to unschool their children with Grassroots to warning them that Grassroots is simply too-good-to-be-true. In my experience, bullying is a majorly unaddressed, even encouraged failure of Grassroots. Among my many negative experiences with Grassroots Free School, teacher chased and threatened violence to my son, disparaged our family over the contents of their lunches, and blamed my 6 year old when she couldn’t get an 11 year old to stop kissing her. These and many other concerns where met with director’s characteristic dismissive shrug and refusals for mediations with the teacher. What I loved…* Unschooling is the best gift you can give your children. * Freedom to be uniquely individual. What I wish I had known…* Grassroots does not maintain and safe environment for students.* Student safety and wellbeing are not priorities at Grassroots.* Grassroots teachers are not required to treat students with dignity and respect.* Parent concerns will be met with excuses and misdirection or just a shrug. * If you are raising your kids to be fair, just, and respectful, you will find Grassroots counterproductive.* Grassroots students are largely composed of two groups: 1. last-resort behavioral students 2. neurotypical students with progressive parents. Many neurotypical students should expect to experience bullying.* Victim-blaming is a common strategy. * Views on sexual assault and bullying, like much at Grassroots, are stuck the past. * Grassroots allows a pervasive culture of violence and aggression.* Acts of violence have minimal consequences (such as 10 minutes of time out) while children have been punished for a week for leaving trash out.* Grassroots under-addresses and under-penalizes bullying, physical violence, racism, and sexual attacks.* Uses “boys-will-be-boys” defense. * Students learn to conform to a might-makes-right environment where the loudest and lewdest person, dominates through intimidation. * Students will be ridiculed by a militant vegan for the contents of their lunch. * Students follow special rules when a prospective parents visit.
Submitted by parent on August 27, 2016

Used to be a good school when Pat was around but not the school is awful. They don't teach children anything and they let them play on the computers all day. They don't teach basic skills which will leave your child so far behind. Great school for pre-k or kindergarten but beyond that it's useless. They don't practice writing, spelling, time or anything. What I can say is that they learn concrete social skills but that's due to the children alone not staff. There have been times I've gone there and no one knows where my child is. The staff is lazy and nothing more than glorified baby sitters. They will tell you they offer all these courses but none of the kids know what they are because they aren't exposed to them. You can't expect a five year old to know what yoga or reading comprehension is, so why would they ask for that on their own??? Other Sudbury and Democratic schools actually expose and teach their kids these things. This school just collects checks.