Bungalow Lane ALC
Fresno, CA 93704
United States
Description
The Bungalow Lane ALC (formerly known as Mrs. Nosworthy’s Nursery School) was originally the longest running self-directed nursery school program in Fresno, having been open since 1952. When the proprietors of this nursery school expressed interest in retiring, three founding families (and eight unschooling children) began plans to transition the school into a cooperative, self-directed learning community for all ages.
The Bungalow began its journey as an Agile Learning Community in January of 2018 as an enrichment program for homeschoolers and continues to expand according to the community’s evolving needs.
The Bungalow is a fully mixed-age community and provides support in developmentally appropriate ways. For the youngest students at The Bungalow, the SDE experience is built around free and spontaneous play, supported by nurturing facilitators and daily rhythms. For the older students, the focus is on daily intention-setting, self-organization, intentional culture creation, and building authentic relationships.
SDE Optimizing Conditions
- Responsibility – Personal responsibility and shared responsibility for the community are implicit in our structures. Students decide how to spend their time and co-create as much of the community as they want to with the facilitators
- Youth Autonomy – Freedom and Responsibility are two sides of the same coin. At The Bungalow, young people are free to spend their time however they please within the context of our community and its agreements.
- Access to Tools and Technology – We focus on providing resources, tools, and materials that are relevant and inspiring to students. We approach the use of these tools from a partnership perspective and do not place arbitrary limits on the use of technology.
- Adult Allies – When classes or activities are organized, it is because someone is either requesting it or someone is passionate about offering it. In both cases, all participation is voluntary. There's no grading or testing involved in these contexts.
- Free Age Mixing – Age-Mixing is the magic sauce that makes our community hum. We welcome children ages 2-18. While we do implement agile tools and practices differently for developmental ranges, age is never used to sort children.
- Community – Weekly plans are made collaboratively by students and facilitators at our Set-the-Week meeting. Similarly, community agreements and cultural practices are created, implemented, and iterated at our (usually) weekly Change-Up meetings.
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