Stacey Sweet, MEd '02

Experienced Educators Program
Department of Education

Dreams Can Come True

Stacey Sweet, MEd '02 Stacey Sweet is living proof that with the right support, encouragement, and confidence, even your loftiest dreams can come true.

Stacey was teaching in a treatment facility for children with emotional and behavioral disabilities when she began her Experienced Educators Program at Antioch University New England. She was alarmed by the high rate of students who left her classroom doing well, only to fail when they returned to public school. For her master's project, Stacey set out to tackle the problem. She found that starting a school of her own was the best approach.

“I took a huge leap of faith because of the support I found in my program. I realized I could do it. That's when this school became my master's project, and my personal mission.”

“Though it had always been in the back of my mind, The Field School didn't come together until I began talking it over with my advisor and others in my cluster,” Stacey said. “I took a huge leap of faith because of the support I found in my program. I realized I could do it. That's when this school became my master's project, and my personal mission.”

The Field School is where a group of 2nd- to 9th-graders of varying abilities, ages, and ideas come together to learn “without realizing that we are learning,” as one of its students aptly puts it. Stacey says that the school is successful in part because it resembles a neighborhood where people have different strengths and learn at their own paces. “Its curriculum is guided by the community, much like the curriculum of the Experienced Educators Program.”