Despite its hefty price tag and reputation for academic excellence, the Athenian School is not just a fancy prep school for rich white kids.
In fact, the private school in Danville for grades six through 12 prides itself on diversity. Administrators value the concept so greatly that they’ve created a special position–Dean of Diversity and Inclusion–dedicated to it. Student statistics are proof of this commitment: 37 percent are people “of color”; 10 percent are international, from a dozen countries; 20 percent receive financial aid.
But the school’s diversity and inclusion go beyond ethnicity and geography. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the parking lot where gleaming Mercedes SUVs and Lexus convertibles are parked beside dusty Toyota hybrids with bumper stickers proclaiming, “The Best Things in Life Aren’t Things,” and “Treehugging Dirt Worshipper.”
There is, however, one thing that nearly all the students have in common. Almost 100 percent of them will attend four-year colleges and universities. Many of the graduates will have their pick among prestigious institutions such as Harvard, Stanford and Yale.
Athenian alumni can be found in the executive offices at Nike, on the federal court bench, leading activist organizations like MoveOn.org, and working in the nation’s capital to eradicate hunger.
“Our graduates are very successful but success isn’t only measured by financial gain,” says Eleanor Dase, Head of School since 1992. “Success is measured by satisfaction and doing something meaningful and giving back.”
That simple statement illustrates the difference between Athenian and other renowned college preparatory schools. More than the pursuit of achievement, grades and Ivy League diplomas, Athenian’s purpose is to nurture the student as a “whole person,” to help each child recognize his or her own passions and unique talents and to use them to serve themselves and others.
“We are obliged not just to develop intellectual fitness,” says Dase, “but for each one to discover who they are and what they love doing and what they’re going to love doing for the rest of their lives.”
The Athenian School was founded by Dyke Brown, a graduate of Yale Law School and former executive of the Ford Foundation, 40 years ago with the goals of Periclean Athens–educating the minds, bodies, hearts and spirits of future leaders. Brown, who recently celebrated his 90th birthday, grew up in a privileged family in the East Bay, but his passions for civic responsibility, service and education were ignited during a year’s exchange program in Europe when he was a young man. Inspired to create a school that would have the same impact on other students, Brown traveled the country raising money from his influential contacts to buy the land and build the school on 75 acres at the foot of Mount Diablo.
Athenian attracts talented students from down the street in Danville, across the Bay in San Francisco, and beyond oceans and cultures in cities like Moscow and New Delhi for a variety of reasons as diverse as the school itself.
Anne Harechmak lives in Pleasanton, which is known for its excellent public schools. But every day she makes two 30-plus mile roundtrips so that her sixth-grade son, Robby, can attend Athenian because they prefer the intimacy of the small school.
“The public schools are so crowded,” says Harechmak. “At Athenian the kids know the teachers and the teachers know the kids. It’s more like a small town.”
Athenian is a very small town, with a student body of about 450 and an average class size of 15. More than 20 faculty members live on campus and actively participate in student life–holding classes in rooms adjacent to their homes and helping out on community service projects on Saturdays.
“Our ratio is so small, (10 to 1, student to faculty) so you know your child cannot get lost,” says Dase. “Teachers care enough about them that they know when to push, push, push and challenge. But they also know when to listen and they know when to nurture and support and provide extra help. (Parents) are sending their child to a community of learners, rather than just a school.”
The types of educational activities are also influenced by the small class sizes.
“It’s a different kind of learning,” says Harechmak. “You can’t do the same kinds of things when there are 30 kids in the class as you can do with 15.”
One example is the middle school’s “Focus Fridays.” Monday through Thursday, the students attend regular classes, but Fridays are devoted to participatory learning in unique and fun ways–from holding a mock session of Congress to the popular experiential science project, “Rotten Log Day.”
“The learning is exciting instead of drudgery,” says Harechmak. “When I drop Robby off, he’s happy to go, and when I pick him up he’s smiling.”
Jack Bodine, a seventh-grader from Alamo, discovered Athenian when he tagged along to an open house two years ago with his mother who was checking out schools for her niece. Laurie Bodine didn’t think her son was paying attention, so she was surprised when Jack told her, “I want to go to school here. This is the place for me.” With wisdom and maturity beyond his 10 years of age at the time, Jack told his mother that he wanted a place where he could be his best self and be authentic.
Laurie is now evangelistic about the school. “I have seen what it does for Jack,” she says. “He doesn’t have to masquerade the way kids in middle school often do. He doesn’t have to be that cool seventh-grade boy. He can be himself.”
Part of the Bodines’ attraction to Athenian were the “Round Square” IDEALS that the school is founded upon. Round Square is a consortium of 52 private schools around the world that work together and share the same goals: Internationalism, Democracy, Environment, Adventure, Leadership, and Service. “Everything they do revolves around those pillars, and they really resonated with us,” says Bodine.
The Athenian Wilderness Experience, or AWE, is a unique outdoor education program that fulfills the goals of Adventure and Environment. AWE, which has roots in the Outward Bound program, is a graduation requirement for all students who must spend 26 days backpacking in the wilderness, working as a team, building self-confidence, strength and an appreciation for nature.
To the students, the most impressive quality of Athenian may be that it succeeds in providing the thing that is the most important and challenging in the awkward adolescent years–a sense of belonging.
“At the end of sixth grade, Jack told me that he thought it was really cool that every single kid was celebrated for who he is and what makes him unique,” says Bodine. She describes how kids who, because of personality quirks or physical appearances would be misfits in the typical middle school milieu, were embraced and recognized for talents like math wizardry that in other schools might relegate them to the hopeless nerd category.
“Jack feels like he contributes every day and he’s respected,” Bodine says. “It’s really a model of how the world should be.” Other parents describe Athenian as “Utopian” and “the most extraordinary place I’ve ever seen.”
“Athenian is an idealistic place in the sense that we do want our graduates going into the world thinking, ‘How can I make it a better place?'” says Christopher Beeson, director of Admission and Financial Aid. “We’re concerned with the kind of people we’re graduating–their character and their perspectives on themselves and the world. We want them to be world citizens equipped to make a positive difference in the world around them.”
Those ideals appealed to the Lassigs, who discovered Athenian while living in Germany and doing research on schools in anticipation of their return to the U.S. “Athenian popped out because of the international flavor and the philosophy of educating the whole person and the community service,” says Julie Lassig.
First the Lassigs moved to Pleasanton, and they decided to give the public schools a try. “They were good schools and good teachers, but philosophically, it was not as good a fit for us.”
They enrolled their daughters, seventh-grader Briana and ninth-grader Michaela, in Athenian, and moved to Danville, even though it added half an hour to their father Steve’s commute to his job in Fremont. Michaela graduated in 2004 and Briana is a senior this year.
Julie Lassig is especially impressed with the community service aspect of the school. “My kids have worked for Habitat for Humanity, the Taylor Family Foundation summer camp, and a place that sold things to help battered women’s organizations. They’ve handed out sandwiches in People’s Park. Brianna is going to Louisiana over spring break to work on the rebuild.”
Lassig also likes the variety of course offerings at the school. “They are very academic,” she says, “but students can take existentialism and meditation as well as classics and Shakespeare.”
Athenian’s global perspective played a big part in Brendan Okechukwu’s decision to go there. Okechukwu, a junior from East Oakland, is on partial scholarship.
“My favorite part is I get to see a lot of different people and see things I wouldn’t get at other schools,” he says. “There’s diversity, but it’s not just race or religion, but people from all over the world. I got to go to Thailand and Australia on exchange programs and it was one of the best experiences of my life.”
By definition, the ultimate test of a college preparatory school may be how it prepares a student for college. Some parents worry that Athenian’s small size and nurturing environment may make a transition to a larger institution difficult. Dase has heard that concern but says alumni tell her they feel very well-prepared for the challenges of college because they have learned to be resourceful and assert themselves.
“What happens here is students find their voice and their confidence and their motivation and their independence and that helps them succeed in both small college environments and very large college and professional environments,” Beeson says.
Bill Ames of Lafayette, whose daughter Sarah has just completed her first semester at Vassar, agrees. “I’m in the process of writing them a thank you note,” he says.
One comes away from Athenian entranced into believing it’s a rare place where ideas often thought mutually exclusive–material success and social responsibility, independence and collaboration, authenticity and fitting in with a larger group–cannot only peacefully coexist, but thrive.
School facts
The Athenian School
2100 Mt. Diablo Scenic Blvd.
Danville, CA 94506
837-5375
www.athenian.org
Open House for fall 2006 enrollment:
Middle School (6-8)
1-3 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 7
Upper School (9-12)
1-4 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 8
Tuition:
Middle School $17,515
Upper School Day $23,202
Boarding $36,846
International Program $39,704
