The Community School was founded in 1973 as Maine’s first alternative high school.
Over the years, The Community School has become a state and nationally recognized model of alternative education, and has helped hundreds of Maine youth realize their goal of graduating with a high school diploma.
Along the way, these students gained the skills and experience necessary to discover their strengths, connect with their families, practice personal responsibility, and contribute to their communities.
The success of The Community School is based in very large part on the vision of our founders, Dora Lievow and Emanuel Pariser, who worked tirelessly on behalf of the school until their retirement in 2006, and still advocate for the school today.
Emanuel wrote about the early years of the school in his introduction to the book, Changing Lives: Voices from a School that Works (link)
In more recent years, the school has grown to serve more than 45 students annually through our Residential and Passages programs, and reached hundreds more each year through our Outreach Program.
Dora Lievow and Emauel Pariser, Co-Founders of The Community School
