In 2001, five educators – Ed and Claire Blatchford, Susan Durkee, Debbie Shriver and John Bickart – teamed up to write an application to open a Commonwealth Charter Public School. They envisioned a school where character, teamwork and social responsibility would matter, and where adults and kids would work together to establish a caring community. They also envisioned an approach to teaching and learning that would engage students in real-world problem-solving through active classroom lessons and in-depth projects called learning expeditions. These expeditions would involve fieldwork and collaboration with experts in the community and require students to develop knowledge, skills and craftsmanship to create authentic, useful products. Coincidentally, a non-profit educational organization called Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound (ELOB), had as its mission the support and development of exactly that type of school. The group affiliated with ELOB and, with support from ELOB school designer, Steven Levy, began to get their ideas on paper.  When thinking about what themes might guide the curriculum, they landed on the intersection of the natural world and systems of nature; technology in its many forms and the evolution of the human community: the aspects of contemporary life that are at the heart of sustainability.  They submitted the application  for Four Rivers in November of 2001, were  interviewed by Dept of Education officials and were granted the charter in Feb of 2002. 

The following June they received a start-up grant from the state to begin planning. Ed and Susan stepped in to the full-time work of forming a full Board of Directors, developing curriculum, finding facilities, hiring staff and faculty, and recruiting families. Through sheer good luck (and substantial networking!) they entered into an agreement with developers who were working with the Myers family in Greenfield to develop the Myers Farm on Colrain Rd, allowing them to open the school in a facility that could accommodate them as the school grew from two grades – 7^th and 8^th – to grades 7-12.  With nothing but a set of blueprints for the new middle school building and a box of borrowed student work from ELOB, Susan and Ed set out to recruit families and students to apply for the 64 spots – 32 in each grade – for September 2003. In public libraries, church halls and meeting rooms across Franklin County,  the pair pitched the concept of Four Rivers to ever-larger groups and found families who were both brave enough and inspired enough to take a chance on a school without an existing building to see and no faculty to meet. They hired Harlan Smith, then the CEO of Franklin Medical Center to serve as the Director of Finance, and Leslie Taylor as the school’s secretary.  Matt Leaf and Amanda Locke joined the team as 7^th grade teachers, Leif Riddington and Deirdre Scott came on board to teach the 8^th grade, and Anne Haxo and Bill Fogel joined as Special Education teacher and School Psychologist respectively. Terry Plotkin, a founding board member, led the Wellness and Sports program. Along with several part-time faculty and staff, the founding team welcomed 64 students to the Four Rivers campus at the start of September, 2003. 

When students arrived, the building was not quite finished and the first week of school was spent in a large tent set up on the school lawn. Students helped to assemble classroom furniture and they built benches for the hallways that were so sturdy they have lasted for twenty years and counting. The founding parents helped with landscaping, painting and served as chaperones on off-campus trips. The parents also established an active family council that supported the work of the school as it grew. Each year, as the school added an incoming seventh grade, the founding eight graders paved the way, moving up through the grades, working with new teachers each year to develop the high school, while new students learned from the founding students what it meant to be part of the Four Rivers community: “we are crew, not passengers.” In 2008, the school graduated its first class of Seniors, ending the “years of firsts”, and moved into the next phase as an established secondary school serving Franklin County.

Over the years, Ed and Susan were often referred to as the co-founders of Four Rivers, but in fact, they were just the advance team. The teachers, staff, students, parents and board members were the true founders of the school and their belief in the value of what they were building fueled their commitment to all the hard work of school-building. That, and their creativity, energy and will to persevere when the inevitable growing pains were tough, are what made our success possible. If generations are measured as twenty-year stretches, then Four Rivers is in its second generation, evolving and changing with the people who have come and the times they are living in.