No homework, no tests, no grades, and while provincial curriculum is taken into consideration, it doesn’t have to be followed. At Toronto’s oldest elementary alternative school, the kids are free.

Andreas Ghabrial says he’s “the least important person” at the school. He’s the principal.

“It’s parents, kids and staff that run this place,” said Ghabrial.

And that’s the way it’s been at Alpha Alternative School since it opened in 1972. The school has thrived — high demand for entry has resulted in a lottery system, where 50 or so families vie for just 10 junior kindergarten spots every year.

Since Alpha opened, 38 public alternative options have cropped up across Toronto, all with their own unique philosophies. Among those are 11 other elementary-level options, with nearly 90 per cent filled of the 2,281 spots available across all elementary alternative schools.

Alpha is free and democratic, which means kids are largely responsible for figuring out what they want to learn and that decisions at every level are made by consensus. Before even applying, parents must attend an open house that explains how it works.

Nadya Burton is a sociology professor at Ryerson who had two sons attend Alpha. She thinks most kids would thrive at a free school.

“The question is: what makes the parent suitable?” she said.

Burton was heavily involved in the admissions process while her sons were at the school. She would speak to prospective applicants at open houses, focusing on why parents shouldn’t enroll their child in Alpha.

If testing and being able to compare their kids to others through benchmarks are priorities for parents, the school isn’t for them, in Burton’s view.

She sent her children to Alpha because she wanted them to be “free and follow their heart.” Burton laughed as she mused that she couldn’t recall either of them finishing a single project while at the school. She worried a little bit about them being able to transition into the “real world.” but both are doing well. Her son Mischa, 14, is at Rosedale Heights School for the Arts and her eldest, Lonya, 19, is at Trent University.

Even some of the parents who founded the school discovered it wasn’t quite right for them, said Debra O’Rourke, who has been involved with the school for more than 30 years as a parent, volunteer and researcher.

How much freedom should be given to children has always been the central tension at Alpha, said O’Rourke. She laments that more structure has been introduced over the years.

“In the older days there was much more play,” she said.

As one of the school’s early students in the 1970s, Morgan Jones Phillips definitely remembers playing, including a phase where he re-enacted Grease nearly every day.

“I’m sure there were chairs and I’m sure there were tables, but I don’t remember using any of them,” he said.

His enthusiasm for drama came in handy — the 43-year-old paramedic is also an actor. His one-man show called The Emergency Monologues was chosen by the Star as one the best shows at last year’s Toronto Fringe Festival.

He left the school after his parents bribed him, with a leather jacket, to attend his local school. It got tough to shuttle him to Alpha’s Brant St. building when it moved from his neighbourhood at Broadview Ave. and Gerrard St. E.

Although he says the school nurtured strong leadership qualities in him, Phillips isn’t sure he would have continued to thrive in a free environment as he got older.

“I needed more structure,” he said.

But “free” doesn’t mean kids do whatever they want, whenever they want. Freedom exists within structure, and as students get older, more structure is introduced. The “big kids,” Grades 4 to 6, have blocks of time dedicated to subjects like math and science like any other school, but there might be more flexibility in what the task of the day might look like, said Ghabrial.

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“It’s not a free-for-all. I think that’s a point of confusion for some people — they think it’s an institution of chaos,” said Brendon Campbell, who works in the school office full-time.

He manages Alpha while Ghabrial is a few blocks away at Ogden Junior Public School, where he is also principal.

Children can make decisions “within reason,” says Campbell. Decisions that can’t be made by kids are left to parents, and if an issue can’t be resolved, the administration steps in. Although grades aren’t given, parents and students meet with teachers regularly to discuss their progress. And like any other school, students are expected to show up on time and can be disciplined, even suspended.

But you can always find signs that hint at what makes Alpha different — like the guitar resting against Campbell’s desk,