LREI: Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School

• NYC's independent school for independent learners, serving students in Pre-K through 12th grade in the heart of Greenwich Village.
• Since its founding over 100 years ago, LREI has operated from the belief that children learn best through experience and meaningful work.
• We engage students in a lifelong practice of examining complex problems critically and collaboratively in order to generate a range of ideas and solutions.
• Through a rigorous academic program, led by skilled and dedicated faculty, students are supported in applying their learning creatively, stretching beyond the familiar and comfortable.
• Students are moving from school towards a world that is increasingly unpredictable. LREI students are prepared learners who are ready not only for what's next, but for what's possible.

Fieldwork at LREI, Pre-K through 12th Grade

At LREI, students from pre-K through twelfth grade are active participants during field trips; they are engaged researchers conducting fieldwork. As a cornerstone of experiential learning, fieldwork challenges students to pose questions, gather data, and return to the classroom to examine, interpret, and synthesize what they have learned in the world around them.

Upon founding LREI in 1921, Elisabeth Irwin introduced the concept of "fieldwork" to American education. She envisioned a community of learners who understood that meaningful learning requires stepping beyond the school building, making sense of and forging connections with the wider world.

More than 100 years later, her vision continues to shape an approach to learning that uses the world as a laboratory for deep engagement with the ecosystems, cultures, and communities that surround us.

A Fieldwork Timeline

• In pre-K, students begin fieldwork by visiting each other's homes to construct knowledge and understanding of the central social concepts of "family" and "home."
• In second grade, students travel on more than 30 fieldwork excursions to take a deeper look at the needs and resources of New York City, building foundational inquiry and critical investigation skills.
• Overnight farm trips, which begin in third and fourth grade, allow students to explore life beyond the city and build the skills of agency and autonomy.
• Every middle school student ventures outside of the city for a week in the fall, embarking on fieldwork tied to their Humanities studies. During the seventh grade trip to Deerfield, Massachusetts, students use the physical and natural world as their lens into encounters between colonial and Indigenous peoples.
• Throughout fifth through eighth grade, middle schoolers conduct fieldwork locally; New York City functions as their lab, where they investigate and compile data for projects in science, math, and other subjects. By eighth grade, they're diving into international world language trips to Morocco, Peru, China, and beyond.
• In high school, students use the city as their "research lab" for nearly every academic course. Student filmmakers create non-fiction shorts about the people, places, and things that make their neighborhoods distinct; student scientists collaborate with NYU professors and graduate researchers to learn in their labs; and students studying literature, architecture, and history traverse the matrix of museums in search of deeper knowledge.
• By junior year, fieldwork culminates in student-designed, place-based research trips across the U.S., where students choose essential issues to explore. In partnership with local communities, students weigh perspectives, analyze approaches, and notice the solutions communities are imagining for the systemic challenges they face.

What begins as curiosity becomes a lifetime of capability, confidence, and contribution. Fourteen years of learning, questioning, and creating lead students toward a life of purpose beyond LREI.

Tuition & Financial Aid
Unusual for NYC private schools, LREI's tuition is all-inclusive. This means it includes all technology, books, field trips, domestic overnight travel, parents association dues, athletics equipment and uniforms, lower school early drop off, after school care for pre-k and kindergarten students, all snacks and lunch, breakfast in high school, and more. This all-inclusive model prevents families from encountering hidden costs of their students' educational program, which can cost thousands of dollars on top of tuition fees at many other independent schools in NYC.
We are committed to ensuring that every student has access to the full educational experience, regardless of financial circumstances. Our financial aid budget is one of the largest among peer schools in New York City, supporting our mission to build an inclusive community that represents a diversity of cultures, experiences, and economic backgrounds.