Starting a Sudbury School offers a glimpse into the mechanics of beginning a new school. It analyzes various steps that founding groups have taken to get their schools off the ground and allow them to thrive in the early years. Included are dozens of stories describing triumphs and pitfalls encountered along the way.

THE SUDBURY VALLEY SCHOOL is a place, where children can "just be". There is no curriculum, no classes, no grades, no coercion, no uniforms, no bells and none of the rituals which define a regular school. Here children are treated as responsible citizens and they carry the burden of their own education. Unless asked, the teachers "stay away" from the children. Here children discover their own innate interests and then gallantly pursue them. And because they chose them, they also rough it out and learn them well. So, children become the true architects of their own education. The Sudbury valley school experience has inspired others to start similar schools elsewhere.