Does Lowell offer too much 'freedom'?

[Anonymous]

I love the mission of Lowell, and completely embrace their progressive, diverse, etc. philosophy. My concern is whether or not my son would thrive there. He is easily distracted by too many kids in motion, yet does well when his school environment is child-directed and decided. When I visited Lowell, I got the impression that the young children (kindergarten) are allowed a lot of freedom to roam from room to room. I think my son would enjoy that freedom, but may spend too much time roaming, and no time focusing on one task/subject. Anyone with experience with the early grades at Lowell who could either confirm or disagee w/my observations. Thx.

[Anonymous]

Current Lowell parent here who has been through the lower grades with two kids. While Lowell certainly is "freer" than some other schools in keeping with its progressive philosophy, I don't get the sense that there is a lot of roaming going on. In fact, if I remember correctly, the kindergarten classrooms are set up with bathrooms in each classroom, so the kids do not even go down the hall to the bathroom. The kindergarten in particular tends to be very classroom focused with its own area of the building and with only a few activities (dance, etc.) involving moving out of the classroom. The class sizes are small so that there is a lot of attention for each child and there are definitely efforts at the K level in particular to work on things like focusing on task, sitting still in morning meeting, things like that. Although there are some kids who can't handle the freedom offered to Lowell kids, if your child has been functioning well at a regular preschool, he should be fine.