POLAND – A new elementary school is opening here this fall.

It’ll be different.

There won’t be a core curriculum all students must study at the Discovery Democratic School.

There won’t be tests, or homework.

Students won’t be graded.

In fact there won’t be grades. Classrooms will be multi-aged. “Everyone is together,” said Melissa Toussaint of Auburn, who is co-chairing the school’s board of directors.

What students learn will be up to them. The school will be “based on student self-initiated learning,” Toussaint explained.

Students will also have a strong voice in how the school is run.

The Discovery Democratic School is modeled after the democratic free school movement, such as the Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, Mass., and the Summerhill in England.

The Poland school will be the third “child directed learning” school in Maine, state Department of Education spokesman David Connerty-Marin said Wednesday. Similar schools exist in Blue Hill and Kennebunkport. Another, in Hallowell, Evergreen Sudbury, has closed.

According to Toussaint, the school will be for youngsters ages 5 to 12. Initially the school will only teach 15 students. Six are enrolled. Annual tuition will be about $4,750. Parents who regularly volunteer can reduce that bill to $3,250.

Critics have dubbed these types of schools as “do-as-you-please” schools. Toussaint said the school is founded on the belief “that children are naturally curious learners,” and learn better when they’re deciding what to learn.

The goal will be to provide youngsters the means to figure out what they want to learn, and help them learn.

Learning will be structured around what individual students are interested in. For instance, if a student is a history buff what he or she learns will focus on history, but also teach other subjects. Another student could be into math, and will learn about and through math. “When students find their own passions they become better learners,” Toussaint said.

A typical classroom day could begin with a morning meeting in which students and teachers decide what they’ll learn. Some could decide at 10 a.m. to work on projects, others might have a philosophy lesson in another room.

When asked what the school would do if a student showed up and didn’t want to do any work, Toussaint explained the student would not be forced to participate.

“There’s some value in not doing anything,” she said. Some students may need time to be “deschooled” after attending traditional schooling. Soon that youngster would become bored, and begin to figure out he or she wanted to learn, Toussaint said.

The Discovery Democratic School has not applied for school approval from the state, “but it does not have to,” said education spokesman Connerty-Marin. State law says private schools must offer “equivalent instruction,” but that there’s no state authority over it, he said.

The other two schools where students decide what to learn are both approved by the state, he said. “It’s a voluntary process.”

The new Poland school will only be legally bound to inform local school districts of which students are going there so those students are note marked as truant, Connerty-Marin said.

Compared to how Education Commissioner Sue Gendron is pushing public schools to offer more structured curriculum so all students get equal quality learning, this school seems to head in the opposite direction.

The state has no position on the kind of learning the Poland school will offer, other than “it’s a very different approach,” Connerty-Marin said.

Toussaint said she became involved in helping found the school after researching where to send her children. “There’s not a lot for alternative education within our area,” she said.