INDIANOLA — Given the opportunity, kids will do amazing things.

With that thought in mind, the founders of the Trillium School, an ages 3-19 school set to open early Set. 6 in Indianola, are wondering why children are forced into a public education system laden with such a regimented structure that individuality, self-direction and passion are subliminally squelched out.

With their own and all children in mind, the new school’s six founders have completed a four-year quest of defining details toward opening its doors next week.

“If it were up to me, I’d have every kid in the world go to this kind of school,” said co-founder Kirsten Jewell.

The Trillium School philosophy is based on the Sudbury Valley School in Farmington, Mass., which highlights “freedom with responsibility” as a top priority among other principles such as self-initiated learning, trust and democratic school governance. However, one principle of striking educational absence is a structured curriculum. “There is no required curriculum, yet any curriculum is possible,” Jewell said, noting that Trillium students will be free to explore any subject area which is of their interest, traditional or not.

“People attain mastery in different things, what if we could just let them be and they could unfold that?” co-founder Elisha Rain asked. “Just like the way every kid learns to walk or learns to talk, we trust that it happens, and (we’re) not trusting blindly.”

When it opens, the Trillium School will be one of more than 30 schools using the Sudbury philosophy worldwide. And already the school, which will be housed for its first year at its Indianola location, has more than 13 students, on the way to its first-year goal of 20.

Until school admissions reaches its cap at 20, all children are welcome as long as they and their families are willing and committed to being a part of the Trillium community, Rain noted. Tuition for the community school costs $4,700 per year plus a $300 admissions charge, while tuition assistance is available.

“All of the families are this large ring around the school that make it possible to exist,” Jewell said of the community which will drive the school. “There is no administration, all of the families participating are responsible to make it work.”

The structure of the school will be formed through the ideal of democracy. Decisions that will affect the entire school will be made by the entire school in a town hall meeting format, Rain said. Students, parents and staff members alike, input from every member of the school community will both have a chance to be heard and be given equal value.

“A lot like voting, our school will mirror the ideal of our country’s (democratic) culture, only it will be a participatory system rather than representative,” Rain said.

“The best way for someone to learn responsibility is to give them responsibilities,” said co-founder and former public school teacher Kelly Asadorian, noting that children are sometimes not given enough credit for what they are capable of handling.

At the Trillium School during the required school attendance: five hours per day for five days a week — four days a week for children younger than 8 — students will be capable of anything that comes to their imagination as the school curriculum is set up under self-direction and individualization.

School-elected staff will be there not to define the educational direction, but rather to enhance and help guide students down whichever path they have chosen by providing resources, ideas and encouragement.

“We all have an inner drive to learn innately,” Rain said. “That’s one of the things that we felt like we needed to preserve … whatever path you follow is your own.”