Like its partners in the FAS middle school consortium, the Center City School provides a caring faculty, a diverse student body and a fully democratic learning community. Like the other schools, Center City's staff has also had extensive training in the 3Rs program, and all three school communities hope to one day serve as reform models for middle schools and high schools across the country.

Unlike its counterparts, however, Center City School has not been around for a long time. Established just three years ago, CCS has experienced both the best and the worst features associated with beginning a school from scratch. And, school co-founder Nancy Winitzky adds, “although all stakeholders support our charter to create a student-centered democratic learning community, we find that all too often we fall short and the overall principles break down in individual classrooms.”

That's why, as a First Amendment project school, the CCS community will focus on “learning how to establish First Amendment classrooms in order to apply the general principles of our school democracy more consistently in each and every classroom.” In addition, the staff at CCS will continue to work at fine-tuning their curriculum, which the school describes as “integrated, project-based academic service-learning.” To do so, CCS will look to provide its students with meaningful choices and tasks, consistent challenges, and active learning opportunities.

“The goal at CCS,” said the school's other co-founder, Sonia Woodbury, “is to create standards that promote intrinsic values in order to get out of the often ineffective rewards and punishments system. All CCS standards are measured in terms of ‘personal bests.'

“We believe that being equal does not mean being the same; rather, it means being valued the same regardless of differences. As a First Amendment project school, we will continue striving to create standards that value the individual and promote the common good of all students and adults in our learning community.”