RadSchool is a farm-integrated, income-based early childhood program coming to Hudson, New York. Every child deserves access to exceptional early education and nourishing food. Not as a function of what their family earns, but as a baseline. That is what RadSchool will be built on.
In Hudson, 1 in 3 children lives in poverty. Quality preschool waitlists run six months to two years. The Hudson Valley is a documented childcare desert where existing providers, at full capacity, cannot seat 42 percent of preschool-age children. RadSchool is not here to describe that gap. It is here to fill it, with a program that will be excellent, accessible, and genuinely rooted in this community.
Hudson's families come in all forms, with different structures, different languages, and different backgrounds. RadSchool's classroom will reflect that reality. Our curriculum will be built around the children and families actually in the room, not a fixed idea of what a family looks like. Every child will belong here completely.
RadSchool is in formation. Before we open our doors, we want to understand what Hudson families actually need. We are actively seeking conversations with parents, educators, community organizations, and longtime residents. What is working in early childhood education here? What has been missing? What would make RadSchool genuinely useful to the families we hope to serve?
We are also building partnerships with farms and food justice organizations across the Hudson Valley whose work connects to ours. The goal is not to arrive with a finished answer, but to build something together that fits this community and lasts.
If you have thoughts, questions, or want to be part of the conversation, we want to hear from you.
The name RAD carries two meanings, both intentional.
We grow roots to power the work. That is what RAD means.
RAD will operate across two locations, connected by a shared mission and a proven team. The farm and the school are not separate projects. They are two parts of the same root system.
RadSchool's program will be emergent and child-centered, following the interests, pace, and needs of each individual child rather than a fixed script. Every child's learning path will look different. What every child will share is the environment: a farm-integrated classroom where food, land, and community are woven into daily life from the start.
Nutrient-dense food for snacks and lunch every day. A farm box to take home every week. A Friday pay-what-you-can farm stand run in collaboration with our youth workforce partners. Research is clear: food security significantly improves long-term health and academic outcomes. This will not be a perk. It will be part of the program.
RadSchool's tuition will be structured in income-based tiers. Every enrolling family, regardless of income, will complete the same confidential verification process through a neutral third-party system. That process will determine the tuition tier, simply and without judgment. There will be no separate application for families who need a lower rate, and no family will be asked to advocate for themselves in that process. The system does the work.
This structure will only function when families across the income spectrum participate, and that mix is intentional. RadSchool is designed to be a place where Hudson's economic diversity is present in the room. The income-based tuition, the farm box, the pay-what-you-can farm stand, the youth workforce program: each of these is an expression of the same principle. Quality should not be gated by what a family earns.
We are also committed to building an organization where the people who do this work are paid fairly for it. The three founding principals are currently donating their time to get RadSchool off the ground. That is the investment stage. Once funded, every hire, including teachers, staff, and youth workforce participants, will be compensated at living wage rates. That commitment is written into the model, not added on later.
Young people are not just the future of this work. They will be part of it from the start. RadSchool plans to build meaningful paid opportunities for Hudson youth: running the weekly farm stand, supporting the community garden, working in the afterschool program, and participating in summer programming at RadFarm in Vermont.
We are actively seeking partnerships with organizations already doing youth workforce development in Hudson. We want to build on what already exists, connect with programs that know this community well, and create pathways that pay young people fairly for real work that serves their neighbors. If your organization is doing this work, we want to talk.
RadSchool has the model, the funding roadmap, and a founding team donating their time to get this built. We are assembling the board, building the team, and working toward the funding that makes it all possible. The missing piece right now is a home, a physical space in Hudson where we can open our doors.
We are looking for a single-story building, or a multi-story building with a sprinkler system already installed. Dedicated outdoor space for a playground and community garden is a requirement. Location within walking distance of Warren Street is a priority, as accessibility without a car matters deeply to the families we hope to serve. We are actively seeking a property to lease well below market rate, receive as a gift, or purchase at accessible terms.
A vacant building activated as RadSchool is not a charitable use of space. It is an economically productive intervention. It will return a dormant property to active community function, expand licensed childcare capacity in a documented desert, support workforce participation among low-income parents, and create living-wage jobs in Hudson. State and federal early childhood funding flows directly through programs like ours, and those resources will stay in Hudson and circulate through the families and the community that need them most.
The principals of RAD built and ran a high-quality, nature-integrated preschool in Brooklyn together for years. That program is no longer operating, and everything learned from building it is now being applied here, in Hudson, with the infrastructure and nonprofit model it always needed. All three are currently contributing their time without compensation as RadSchool moves toward its first round of funding.
RAD is actively recruiting founding board members and, as funding comes in, educators and staff. We are looking for people with skills in law, finance, education, community organizing, real estate, and fundraising, and equally for people who reflect the racial, cultural, and gender diversity of Hudson itself.
We want the children who come to RadSchool to see teachers, staff, and leaders who look like them and understand their experience. We actively welcome BIPOC and queer educators and community members to get involved, on the board, on the team, and in shaping this organization from the ground up. Building a staff and board that reflects this community is not an afterthought. It is part of the foundation.
People who join at this stage have a genuine opportunity to shape what RadSchool becomes. Board members will serve in a volunteer capacity while we build toward funding. Once RadSchool is funded, all staff positions will be compensated at living wage rates. That is a structural commitment, not an aspiration. If you care about economic justice, food sovereignty, early childhood education, or what Hudson builds over the next decade, this is the moment to be part of it.