Welcome To Commie High

Directed by Donald Harrison

During the late 1960s, a wave of experimental public schools based on humanistic and anti-establishment ideas, began spreading across the United States. Community High School, situated in downtown Ann Arbor, MI and considered a "school without walls" by its founders, was challenged from its opening day in 1972. Maligned with a bad reputation, threatened regularly with closures, it was called "Commie High" by some that questioned its merits (and proudly by many within its culture). Fast forward twenty years later, Community High had became so popular that long lines formed to attend, culminating in a two-week camp out in 1996, and a subsequent lottery system for admission. Today "Commie High" remains one of the only schools from this movement to do school differently that survived and continues to evolve and thrive.