Zena Democratic School

07/17/2026

Zena Democratic School (ZDS) is located on a parcel of 67 wooded acres in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains in the Hudson Valley region of New York State. Our campus is adjacent to the Bluestone Wild Forest and Onteora Lake recreation areas, which feature thousands of acres of public lands.

Our Main Building was constructed by the school in 2004. It is 5,000 square feet and contains 16 rooms of various sizes and shapes. A second building affectionately referred to as “The Box” adds 1,000 additional square feet of space and offers a distinct space for groups to pursue formal activities without interruption.

Space may be allocated to organized groups (the “Art Room” to the Art Cooperative), to individuals and informal groups via a Room Reservation process, or to school officials, or it may be left as a “commons.” These arrangements, as well as the furniture, layout, equipment, and other resources of the school vary from year to year at the behest – and by the effort – of the current student body.

Students are always free to go outdoors at ZDS. Our outdoor area features a blacktop area, a small playing field, grassy hills, picnic tables and lawn furniture, and a wooded natural playscape approaching an acre in size.

Ultimately, our campus is limitless; students are free to explore activities, internships, apprenticeships, classes, or other opportunities throughout the Hudson Valley during the school day.

Want to learn more about Zena Democratic School?
– Visit our website
– Attend an Open House
– Schedule an interview

Link in bio or comments.

07/09/2026

The primary aim of democracy is to reflect the will of the people in governance and to protect individual rights and freedoms. Democratic structures do not sustain themselves; they require an active, informed, and community-minded citizenry. They require continuous upkeep and rigorous checks and balances. They require a commitment by elected and appointed officials to govern ethically, honestly, and transparently. The Founding Fathers of the United States warned of degradation if any of these elements were to decay.

At ZDS, our participatory democracy operates on a majority-rules system (some issues require a larger majority). However, our school culture values working towards consensus and finding solutions that work for everyone. In the absence of such solutions - but in the presence of a genuine effort to find them - voting in the minority tends to be a cathartic experience. School Meeting Members respect the decisions of the Meeting even if they themselves did not agree, because they were heard, and often decisions were adjusted based on their input. Our democracy succeeds because it is practiced sincerely.

One of the most important set of decisions we make is how we want to be together and in the space; most schools conceive of these decisions as authoritarian “rules,” but given the democratic nature of our school it makes more sense for us to consider them agreements. Our Agreements speak to how we approach our experience at school, how we treat each other, how we keep ourselves and others safe, and how we want to show up.

Every Staff and Student has a right to collaborate, deliberate, and vote on all our Agreements and Boundaries, and joining the community requires one to agree, by signature, to follow whatever Agreements and Boundaries are current. Over the summer, we will be posting our Agreements along with comments and examples to describe what they look like in day-to-day life at school, to explain their importance to us, and to offer them, and the system behind them, freely to anyone who may be inspired.

Art collaboration with Christopher Sears

07/02/2026

Summer, fall, winter, spring. Whatever the season, we love our amazing staff.

This is Iliana (through the years!).

Our generously approachable, warmly present, and keenly observant Art Coordinator. Students love and appreciate both her guidance in art creation and her ability to see, understand, support, and have fun with them.

Iliana grew up in the Hudson Valley and has been drawn to the path of art since she was a teeny-tiny; she studied Art Therapy and Multimedia Art during her university days and has experience working with children in therapeutic and educational contexts.

At Zena Democratic School, she has found a perfect match for her temperament and her beliefs about education, and she is excited to pursue Masters work in Art Therapy.

Also, she likes to read the last page of a book before beginning at the beginning.

If you like this staff profile, find more on our website.

Happy summer, all!

06/20/2026

06/04/2026

Join us in Supporting Special Programming at ZDS

We get many student requests for things outside the scope of our programming budget.
Can we add welding and woodworking equipment and instruction? Can we seed an adventure travel program? With your support, the programming committee can meet even more of these requests!

This year, we are aiming to raise $20,000 during our Community Fund Drive.

Thanks to a generous donation, every dollar we raise will be matched 1:1!

Link to donate in comments

06/01/2026

The school year is coming to a close but the celebrating has just begun. This week we celebrated the challenges of our diploma process and how our extraordinary graduates navigated through them and their self-directed experience at ZDS. We dug and built all sorts of castles, channels and creatures in our newly renovated sandbox, dove into a new comic in book club, made 35 cyanotypes for our custom hoodies, rested in hammocks, hugged our friends tightly, jumped, sunk and walked across a kiddie pool full of oobleck watched our new honey bees happily foraging, told lots of jokes thanks to the secret shop, hunted through the woods for dinosaur eggs and jewels, and sat under the grad tassels that hang from our office ceiling while reflecting on the intricacies of growing up and life in an ever evolving community.

We have two weeks left, and they are l big ones! There is sure to be more celebrating, many hugs, flowing tears, lots of sunshine, and a tremendous amount of gratitude.

05/23/2026

Playground Build Day 2026

This week we had our annual Playground Build Day!! Once a year the whole school community comes together to help build and renovate our playground! This year’s projects included updating our sandbox, building a new outdoor play kitchen, building bushcraft structures, renovating the yellow playhouse, adding a new mural and more!

05/17/2026

This week we sailed on the , play-acted, and just played. We sang sea shanties and Encanto, combined our broken Lego sets into one giant mech, and took pointed direction from each other (Louisa’s donkeys, line up over here! Don’t trail off after that note! Two steps aft when I say so!). We worked together from a place of choice, with the knowledge that ultimately we retain personal agency over our participation in any given activity.

Something vital happens when we get to engage in activities of our own choosing outside a framework of surveillance and near-constant evaluation of our learning. Joy in an affirming yes can bubble up— hearable in our harmonies, visible on our faces, clear as we raise our hands to answer a question, commit to an activity, or join a group. Other times we get to say a grounded no. We hold a boundary, choose something else, or choose quiet time— perhaps to slowly transform, take care or ourselves, work out a problem, or put some new idea into relationship with something we already know to be true. Learning is visible in all of our students every week. But attempt to coerce it, manage it, predict it, or measure it and student agency immediately diminishes.

The Hudson River had very low turbidity on Friday. Our gauge was filled to the brim, and still we could put our eye to the top and see the black and white fan pattern peeking up at us from the bottom. We slowly hauled in a net full of huge carp and hog chokers, gently felt their scales in both directions, and carefully released them back to that clear water. On top of that clear water, a mixed-age group shared a moment of silence just to appreciate the beauty of the place we share with fishes. It wasn’t a scripted SEL or SEEL circle. It wasn’t a scripted curriculum of mindfulness activities led by an adult with or without the choice or input of the kids and adults involved. It was just a group of people together on the river, enjoying ourselves and appreciating each other and our more-than-human kin in a way that we think Pete Seeger would have been proud of.

05/14/2026

What happens when kids direct their own education? Come find out! This Saturday, join us at the ZDS Open House from 1-4pm in Kingston.

Learn more and RSVP on our website. Link in comments.

16 likes. "What happens when a school gives students nothing to do?"

05/12/2026

A question we often get is, "how do students spend their time?"

At Zena Democratic School (ZDS), we offer students a rich menu of opportunities. They can sample here and there, see what their friends are trying, and witness older students, younger students and staff learning new things. Our students have the time and space to do deep dives into what interests them the most – for as long as the interest remains.

But the most important thing that we offer here is the time and space to come to know ourselves. Students at ZDS have unstructured time to be, to reflect, to create, to rest, to talk, to play and most importantly, to learn how they want to live.

They make choices for themselves throughout the day – how to spend their time and who to engage with. This is our magic recipe: time, freedom, a familiar and caring community, and a rich environment in which to experiment.

Whether students are making their voices heard as members of our democratic community, learning how to coexist in community with the help of the Resolution Committee, or navigating their own self-chosen challenges, ZDS kids are always learning. It’s our way of being.

While we don’t have a required curriculum, we do have plenty of formal and organized activities at school that students may elect to join. Field trips, classes, workshops, and coops organized around particular interests all happen at various times throughout each school year.

We offer nature-based programming, pickup soccer games, art workshops, river science field trips, and eight-week live-action role playing workshops.

Want to learn more? Join us this Saturday, May 16 from 1-4pm at our next ZDS Open House. It's the perfect opportunity to meet students, staff, parents, and alums. Ask all your questions, tour the campus, and see if your child would thrive at ZDS. It's our last Open House of the year so come on over and say hello.

Please RSVP, link in comments.