CUMMINGTON — Five years ago, Allison Druin couldn’t find a high school where her transgender son could be celebrated for who he was and learn in safety. So she and her husband set out to build one, though their son would graduate before it opened its doors.
Nearly 75 people gathered in Cummington last weekend to mark the first anniversary of that school, the J.S. Bryant School, a private, therapeutic high school for LGBTQIA+ youth that Druin co-founded with her husband, Ben Bederson.
J.S. Bryant is untraditional in many ways. Admission is capped at 38 students who attend year-round, with a school day that runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., allowing enough time for students to get the healing they need alongside their academic lessons, according to Druin. It’s housed in the old Cummington Inn on Lilac Avenue, in a bucolic setting across from Meadow Brook near Route 9, where tending to goats and chickens that live on campus is part of the curriculum.
The school, which currently has fewer than 20 students (administration declined to give an exact number for security reasons), encompasses what many felt they lacked in a traditional school setting, including protections from bullying and the freedom to be their authentic selves in a supportive environment.
“Five years ago, my family was struggling to find an educational environment that could support our trans son — where his identity could be celebrated and he could learn in a safe, supportive school,” Druin said. “We found that other families were looking for the same thing, but few options were available for a therapeutic high school that had gender-expansive staff role models. So eventually, this convinced my husband and I that we needed to do something, and the J.S. Bryant School was it.”
The school officially opened in September 2025 after a three-plus-year planning process. And although her son never attended the school, his story was the inspiration for it. He also helped co-design many of the practices in use at the school today, including the importance of outdoor learning, raising farm animals to be therapeutic animals, starting a pride library, and having a clothes closet for all students that need to feel their most authentic selves, Druin said.
One student attending the Oct. 24 anniversary, which included tours of the school and a panel discussion with experts, acknowledged that their past experiences at other schools weren’t great.
“I had dealt with bullying and discrimination for my sexuality and my pronouns,” said the sophomore who spoke on the condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “I did have some good friends [at a previous public school] and I had people who cared about me there — I had a teacher who supported me there. But… I remember constantly being harassed just because of the way I dressed, because of the way I looked, because of the way I decided to present myself.
“Here, it’s just so much more accepting, and I feel so much more secure in myself and in my adults and the people I trust here. And they understand what I’m going through and they understand what I’m dealing with, which is really big for me.”
Druin said J.S. Bryant is truly a hilltown school. “It’s a place where our students hold the joys of learning, wellness, and community in one hand, and the challenges of past traumas in the other,” she said.
Kai, a friend of co-founder Ben Bederson’s who is also the parent of a trans child and also spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their child, helped build some of the tables for the school before it opened. Although his child couldn’t attend J.S. Bryant School — she graduated high school before J.S. Bryant opened — he’s happy to support the school in its mission of supporting students and their families.
Kai’s family previously lived in New Hampshire, where his child couldn’t be who she wanted to be. That changed when they moved to western Massachusetts.
“Once we moved, she could choose her gender and [the students at her new school] accepted her, they called her her chosen name and everything,” Kai said. “And she went from a failing student to an honors student pretty much overnight. She’s now in college on the dean’s list.”
Even though the move was tough since his child was in her junior year of high school, the change in her personality and acceptance of who she was reaffirmed that moving into a supportive environment was worth the challenges. He said he hopes that other parents and children who are struggling can find supportive environments for them to thrive in, such as the J.S. Bryant School.
The J.S. Bryant School is named after Julia Sands Bryant, the youngest daughter of the Cummington poet and conservationist, William Cullen Bryant, who lived with her same-sex partner in Paris after her father’s death in 1878.
At a panel discussion moderated by Druin at the school on Saturday evening, several speakers said they also had bad experiences as queer youth, facing bullying and discrimination while finding their chosen family along the way.
Patty Nicolari, founder and executive director of the charter school PROUD Academy in Ansonia, Connecticut, which is preparing to open in 2027, said that growing up in the 70s when queer people were often closeted, she was afraid to openly be who she was. And even later when she was working as a teacher, kids harassed her before she came out.
“I lived in fear for 15 years,” Nicolari said. “So I pretended to be straight, taking gay men to the proms to chaperone. And I thought, I’m a health teacher. I’m teaching kids to feel good about who you are, embrace your individuality. And I felt like a fraud because I wasn’t doing that myself. And I said, I don’t know what happens — if I get fired, whatever — but I need to come out. I’m not feeling good about this.”
Coming out changed everything for Nicolari, she said. At the panel discussion, she encouraged others in the audience to share their stories, too, both to support queer youth struggling with their identities and needing help, and to reach people with different views; sharing her personal story has even swayed people who protested PROUD Academy into becoming supporters of the school, she said.
Other panelists at the J.S. Bryant School on Saturday included Craig Aarons-Martin, co-chair of the Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ+ Youth and host of the podcast “Brace Voices in Education”; Lexi Walters Wright, founder of High Five Books in Florence; and James Shultis, outgoing co-director of Translate Gender and a community educator and organizer.
When asked what more can be done to ensure access to inclusive curriculum and learning materials in Massachusetts, Aarons-Martin said that despite the protections in place in the state, more should be done to protect kids and families.
“I’m appreciative that Massachusetts has so many laws that are on the books that are designed to protect so many humans, young and beyond, whether it’s the Healthy Youth Act or the Shield Act and the Protect Act,” he said. “But I recognize Massachusetts can go so much further in regards to our investment and making sure that queer and trans youth and so many poor folks are getting their needs met. And it is absolutely amazing that this wonderful [school] community exists.”
Panelists like Walters Wright said she’s hopeful for further change with the support of local representatives, including state Sen. Paul Mark and state Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, who were both in attendance.
“Though these are very dark times, we see how bright the light can be from our young folks,” she said, looking at the students in the audience.
In the future, Druin looks forward to the school supporting a full student body and seeing its first graduating class go on to colleges and careers of their choice.
Students come to J.S. Bryant, which is certified as a private school by the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, through district placements, scholarship support or private pay. The tuition is $63,500 a year.
As a therapeutic place of learning, the school has a clinician on staff, as well as a special education administrator who led development of the school’s curriculum and has expertise in teaching many subjects, Druin said. She adds that classroom teachers have diverse experience in teaching high school humanities, science, math, outdoor education and more.
“A year in, I don’t think anyone in this room would pretend that it’s been easy,” said Jo Erwin, board chair of the J.S. Bryant School and CEO of Transhealth. “Building something new is always hard, especially when you’re building the first of its kind. Caring for young people who have so often been failed by the places they should be able to count on to protect them is harder still. And then earning the trust of students who are used to being treated as a problem to be solved rather than a person to be known doesn’t happen overnight.
“But here is the beautiful thing about building a sacred place like this — the joy comes with it,” Erwin continued. “A student who walks in guarded and walks out laughing. A parent who finally has a chance to exhale. A hallway conversation that wouldn’t and probably couldn’t have happened anywhere else. Amazing staff who work through challenges and celebrate joyful moments, big and small. That is what a year of this work adds up to.”
Elise Linscott is a freelance writer living in Northampton. She can be reached at elise@eliselinscott.com.