History of the Greenfield Center School

Greenfield Center School, under the umbrella non-profit organization,Northeast Foundation for Children,was founded in 1981 by a group of public school teachers who wanted to create a new educational model. Among the founding members were Ruth Charney, Jay Lord, Chip Wood, and Marlynn Clayton, who pooled time, resources and energy to create the first Center School class. They shared a philosophical belief that the social, emotional and cognitive development at different ages of childhood should be the key factor in deciding what and how to teach each age group.

The Conway Street building was its first home housing grades K-8. From the beginning all classes were mixed aged groupings with now characteristic Center School names: Pre-Primes, Primes, Middles and Uppers. All School meetings were held on a stairway; children casually sitting in a jumble with, and sometimes on, each other. Students presented their sharings at the foot of the stairs.

As the school and staff grew in these early years, the teachers wanted to share their educational philosophy with the wider world. The staff began developing and offering workshops on literature, block- building, room design, and classroom management. Some teachers wrote books on these topics, and the Center School's work began to gain a wider audience. A publishing division was established. The first book to be published was A Notebook For Teachers.

In 1989 the organization decided to move. It purchased the Abercrombie School in Greenfield and soon purchased the 'Yellow House,' an ajacent building on the property. About this time, Ruth Charney’s book, Teaching Children to Care  and Ellen Doris' book Doing What Scientists Do were published to great acclaim.

Over the next ten years, the foundation grew and as it did, the three different types of work, consulting, publishing and classroom teaching began to crystallize into three distinct divisions.

In the mid-nineties, the consulting and publishing divisions expanded enormously. Another house in the neighborhood was purchased to accommodate the growth. The school, too, was growing. A new building (The Marion Bliss Finer) was built on campus to house the Uppers program, and to serve as an all-purpose room for assemblies and school functions.

The Northeast Foundation for Children and the Greenfield Center School separated into two independent entities in 2001. The Greenfield Center School incorporated as a non-profit in January of 2002. In 2004 it purchased the school buildings (Brick Building and Finer Building) and the adjacent residence (Yellow House) from NEFC.

The Center School is governed by a board of directors made up of parents, alumni parents, staff and community members.