Jamaica Plain Educator Launching New Elementary School to Reimagine Learning
By David Ertischek on May 18, 2026
Jamaica Plain resident Courtney Swartz is the founder of the Douglass Ridley School, which will open this fall to kindergarten and first graders.
Swartz answered questions about why she wanted to create the school, its focus, and its longterm goals.
Q: Why did you want to create the Douglass Ridley School?
Swartz: I wanted to create the Douglass Ridley School because Boston schools are failing our kids. Eight out of nine kids in Boston attend a school designated as below average by DESE.
I wanted to create a school that would harness the creativity, curiosity and love of learning that kids innately have, and build off of that so they can learn about things that they genuinely care about. I also wanted to ensure this type of progressive education is accessible to all families and any family that wants to be a part of it.
Courtney Swartz
Finally, I wanted to create this school because our world is falling apart, and schools play a significant role in cultivating the kinds of humans that we have in this country. I wanted to create an environment where kids are working together, where they understand that they are part of a larger community and that they can solve problems and create knowledge and build relationships with people who may look different than they do or think about things differently than they do.
Q: Schools have ethoses i.e. art-focused, academic-focused, music-focused. What is the Douglass Ridley School’s ethos?
A Reggio-inspired school is an approach to education that views children as inherently capable, curious, and full of ideas worth exploring. Rather than relying primarily on scripted curriculum or rote instruction, Reggio-inspired classrooms are built around inquiry, relationships, creativity, and deep engagement with meaningful questions and projects. Teachers act less as lecturers and more as researchers and collaborators alongside children—observing closely, listening carefully, and designing learning experiences that build from students’ interests and thinking.
One example of how this might look in practice is through long-term project work. If children become fascinated by bridges while walking through the neighborhood, teachers might build an interdisciplinary study around that interest. Students could sketch bridges, build models, read books about famous bridges, study balance and weight in science, measure and compare structures in math, interview architects or engineers, and write about their observations. The learning is still rigorous and standards-aligned, but it emerges through authentic curiosity and investigation.
Another example is the emphasis on documentation and reflection. In a Reggio-inspired classroom, teachers carefully document children’s conversations, questions, artwork, and problem-solving processes through photographs, transcripts, and displays. This documentation helps teachers better understand children’s thinking and allows students to revisit and deepen their ideas over time. It also communicates to children that their thoughts and theories are valued and worthy of serious attention.
Q: How many grades does Douglass Ridley School have and when is it opening?
Swartz: [The school is] launching with a mixed-age founding cohort of kindergarten and first-grade students. We will build to be a K through sixth grade school.
Q: Who is Douglass Ridley, and why did you name the school after him?
Swartz: Douglass Ridley is actually two people: Frederick Douglass and Florida Ruffin Ridley. Both people viewed education as a necessary tool for ensuring liberation and freedom.
Florida Ruffin Ridley was the first Black woman to teach in Boston Public Schools. She also founded all-female Black literary societies where women gathered and determined together how they wanted to educate themselves and what they wanted to become more literate about. Together they constructed knowledge. Their mentality and culture dictated that if one person learned something, it was incumbent upon them to ensure the rest of their group learned it as well. That is the kind of culture I want to create at the Douglass Ridley School.
Q: What’s your career background, and how does it relate to founding a school?
Swartz: I have been in education since I graduated from college. After college, I did a year of City Year in Washington, D.C., fell in love with being in the classroom, and decided to go into teaching full time. I taught in D.C. public schools for three years, moved to Chicago and taught in a couple of charter schools there, then moved to Boston and have been here for the past 14 years. I taught at Brooke Charter School, then moved into administration as a Dean of Curriculum and Instruction at UP Academy Holland, an Assistant Principal at Brooke Charter School, and most recently the Director of Academics at UP Education Network. All of those experiences have helped me hone and craft my vision for what schools can and should be for all kids.
Temple Israel
Q: What are your long-term goals for the school?
Swartz: Over the next several years, we will grow into a kindergarten through sixth-grade school. My long-term goals are that we become a proof point for what school can and should be. That school can be a place where kids have the privilege to learn about things that they deeply care about, where they can have autonomy over their learning, and where they can become people who ask big questions and have the skills and drive to find their own answers. My goal is that, through philanthropic donations and grants, the school continues to become more and more affordable to all families in Boston. That way, progressive education is not just a privilege that a select population in Boston has access to, but all families have access to an inquiry-driven and student-centered kind of education.
Initially, we are renting space from Temple Israel in Longwood for the first three to four years, and my goal is to find our own permanent location in Mission Hill after we are a bit more fully grown.
Q: What else would you like people to know about the Douglass Ridley School?
Swartz: I also want people to know that while the vision for the school is ambitious, the planning behind it has been deeply thoughtful and grounded. We are a nonprofit organization with an engaged and highly experienced board that includes leaders in education, finance, operations, and community work. We have built a careful budget, a multi-year cash flow forecast, and a tiered tuition model designed to make the school more accessible while also ensuring long-term sustainability. We have spent a great deal of time thinking not just about what kind of school we want to create for children, but how to build it responsibly so that families can trust that this school will be here and thriving for years to come.
