Wayfinder Schools vs. Blue Hill Harbor School

In 1973 Emanuel Pariser and Dora Lievow founded The Community School, an alternative high school for Maine youth who needed a second chance at earning their high school diplomas.

Each year, sixteen students lived at school while focusing on jobs, academics and life skills.

In 1994, Passages was developed to serve teen parents through a home-based, self-paced high school diploma program.

The Community School grew to serve more than forty students each year.

In 2011, The Community School merged with Opportunity Farm, becoming Wayfinder Schools.

We now serve up to 65 students per year, through our home-based high school program.

Over the years, we`ve become a state- and nationally-recognized model of alternative education that has helped hundreds of Maine teens realize their goal of earning their high school diplomas. Using social justice, strength-based and relational strategies, we reengage youth who are over-age and under-credited and at risk of not earning their high school diploma. We work hard to create a learning environment that`s warm, safe, accepting, and challenging.

Our curriculum is tailored to individual student needs and is immediately relevant and practical to everyday life.

Blue Hill Harbor School is a small independent high school approved by the state of Maine to accept public school students.

Our individualized curriculum is based on the EdVisions education model featuring Personal Learning Plans.

Our vision of the best possible secondary education is exemplified by that developed by the Minnesota New Country School, founded as a charter school in Henderson, Minnesota in 1994.

This school has been named one of the best schools in the U.S., and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funds the non-profit organization EdVisions, Inc. to replicate its success in other schools.

There are currently over 40 schools using the EdVisions Model from coast-to-coast.

Blue Hill Harbor School is the first in New England.