Let Down The Barriers

''It's great to watch the kids interact with such freedom, such abandon and such joy,'' said Roy Scheider, the actor, who is one of the founding parents of the school. ''This is normal for them. I wish that we adults could have the same feeling.'' 

Mr. Scheider, who recently did a benefit performance for the school with the actor Danny Glover, recalled the atmosphere of prejudice within his own family when he was growing up. ''My father, who had a service station in New Jersey, would always spew out this venom about black people. Just the worst kind of stuff. But there was this guy who worked for him with the unlikely name of Friend Avery, who was black. And he was crucial to my life.''