Member Schools

The Social-Emotional Challenges of Returning to Campus

It is hard to believe that it has been over a year since we closed our schools and waved goodbye to our students and families at the start of this pandemic, naively assuming that our separation would be an inconvenient bump in the road and not a long-term situation that would require incredible dexterity, patience,…
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Expeditions: Self-Directed Professional Development at Sonoma Academy

Sonoma Academy calls its students to be creative, ethical, and committed to learning. The school nurtures inspiring teachers and engages with the surrounding community, and its students communicate across cultures as they prepare to become leaders in a dynamic world. With nurturing faculty central to our mission statement, we know that it is critically important…
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Camping and The Pleasure of Small Things at Peninsula School

At Peninsula School, our values include authentic interactions, community, equity, freedom and responsibility, meaningful academics, and play. Keeping these core values in our hearts allows our minds to stay focused on our shared goal, our most important goal: creating a better opportunity for our children and collective future. Peninsula School aims to “create space where…
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The Use of Being Useful

One October a few short years ago, a Midland student named Cruz was visiting a college on his application list and found himself eating alone in the dining hall. Being alone did not bother him, but he was troubled when he saw a group of students leave a significant mess for someone else to clean…
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The Growing Learning Community in Central California

What do you get when you take a dash of ocean swims at sunrise, a bushel of chopped wood to heat the water for your showers, a spot of student-led TEDx, a scoop of Getty Foundation Discipline Based Art Education, and add an owl mascot named Swoop, a live-in fellowship program for young educators, an…
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Why the Horse Remains Central to the Thacher Experience

The nature of the Thacher Horse Program and the gifts it bestows can test the limits of reason and language. As the program’s longtime director Cam Schryver says, “I don’t think that all of the lessons, the things you learn, can exactly get expressed or quantified… there are parts that go out to the limit…
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