Independent schools face mounting pressure to justify their existence amid questions about accessibility, relevance, and the fulfillment of their authentic mission. Many institutions respond with incremental adjustments to traditional models. Brooklyn Friends School has chosen a different path, one that challenges fundamental assumptions about how education should work and who gets to participate in learning conversations.
Head of School Crissy Cáceres confronts this reality directly when discussing the challenges facing independent education today. “What I would say is the biggest challenge for independent schools is their ability to face themselves in the context of their missions,” Cáceres explains. “So all missions speak about the need to provide access and respect the individual and engage citizenship, and think about a values-led experience. Every single mission statement has that in some way. How it’s living differs.”
Founded in 1867, Brooklyn Friends School serves 705 students from all five New York City boroughs, representing one of the oldest continuously operating independent institutions in the region. Rather than treating its Quaker heritage as historical artifact, the school uses these principles as active framework for reimagining what independent education can accomplish in contemporary contexts.
Disrupting Traditional Classroom Hierarchies
Walk into most independent school classrooms and familiar patterns emerge: desks facing forward, teachers commanding attention from elevated positions, students competing for approval from authority figures. Brooklyn Friends School deliberately subverts these arrangements through physical and pedagogical redesign.
“Many of the classrooms at Brooklyn Friends School are circular or are like amoebas in their design of the classroom, in the physical design of the classroom,” Cáceres explains. “You might have to look around to find the teacher. Where? They’re not at the front of the room, where are they? They might be on the floor. They might be in the hallway connecting with the teacher about something while the children are collaborating on something.”
Circular arrangements stem from Quaker Meeting for Worship traditions, where participants sit in concentric circles emphasizing equality and collective seeking. Weekly all-school meetings maintain this practice, creating space where any community member may speak if moved to do so, regardless of age or position.
Teachers function as facilitators rather than information deliverers. Students engage with material through inquiry-based exploration while adults provide guidance and resources. Evaluation processes focus on growth rather than ranking, with colleagues observing each other three times annually followed by reflection conversations and collaborative planning.
Academic Structure Built on Student Agency
Brooklyn Friends School organizes learning around student interests and developmental needs rather than rigid subject divisions. Early Childhood programs emphasize play-based discovery. Lower School integrates project-based learning with inquiry-driven exploration. Middle School combines traditional academics with arts while preparing students for Upper School challenges.
Upper School students can pursue the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, making Brooklyn Friends School one of only two Brooklyn institutions offering this globally recognized curriculum. IB courses move beyond content memorization toward active, thought-provoking engagement preparing students for college-level study.
Student voice drives curricular decisions across all divisions. Research indicates students who believe they have voice in school show seven times greater academic motivation than those feeling voiceless. Brooklyn Friends School structures entire programs around this finding, ensuring student perspectives shape institutional choices.
Technology integration reflects values-based decision making rather than adoption for its own sake. “Everything that is in service to the students in a way that is values aligned would be allowed,” Cáceres states. “So the bigger answer that I will always give you is, in assessing any tool, so long as it is not in violation of the values that we hold as a school, is developmentally minded and guided, and is in service to the growth and development of their learning, then we merit to make way for that to be utilized.”
Community Culture Rejecting Competition
Most independent schools operate on scarcity models where students compete for limited resources, recognition, and opportunities. Brooklyn Friends School builds abundance thinking into its community culture, emphasizing collective success over individual achievement.
Cáceres describes witnessing a second-grade classroom incident during an accreditation visit. Rather than punishment or public correction, the teacher immediately gathered all students into restoration circles. “The child at the center of this naughtiness had to describe what is it that they just did,” she adds. “And the students asked, ‘What made you do that right now? What were you thinking about?’ And then everybody gave suggestions on, ‘What could you do differently?’ And then the teacher went back to the lesson.”
When observers asked whether this performance was staged for their benefit, Cáceres responds, “Nope.” Restorative practices form standard procedure for addressing conflicts, reflecting Quaker commitments to healing rather than punishment.
Bullying incidents receive reframing as developmental opportunities. “In order for bullying to occur, there had to be active intent, there had to be a connection to what you thought you gained from the bullying, there had to be a measure of trying to hide or omit yourself from the impact of that. And their frontal lobes have not fully developed enough for all of those three things to be true. So that is not bullying, that’s mistake making,” Cáceres explains when addressing parent concerns.
