During the warm months of the pandemic, my husband and I took walks in different neighborhoods, often parking in the empty lots next to schools. We noticed that many had nature areas at the edge of their grounds. My interest piqued, I began looking into it and discovered that the Ann Arbor Public Schools were pathfinders in outdoor education--and that much of their success depended on citizen activists who saved and maintained these areas.

Community High School (CHS) is an alternative public high school serving grades 9-12 located at 401 North Division Street in Ann Arbor's historic Kerrytown District. It was one of the first magnet schools to arise from a nation-wide wave of experimental schools that drew on the social movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and was specifically influenced by social and political activism in Ann Arbor at the time.

Community High School yearbooks are no longer available online from AADL. To request a digital copy of a yearbook, contact us at ask@aadl.org.

There's good news for everyone who has ever confused the two Perry preschools.

The former Perry Nursery School of Ann Arbor, on Packard near Carpenter, is now Foundations Preschool of Washtenaw County. First funded by the Depression-era WPA in 1934, it took its name from its original location: Perry Elementary School at Packard and Madison, now the U-M's Perry Building. The building was named for Walter S. Perry, a former Ann Arbor superintendent of schools.