Ojai Valley School
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Ojai Valley School is a
co-educational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...
independent
boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of " room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exte ...
in the Ojai Valley near the city of
Ojai, California Ojai ( ; Chumash: ''’Awhaỳ'') is a city in Ventura County, California. Located in the Ojai Valley, it is northwest of Los Angeles and east of Santa Barbara. The valley is part of the east–west trending Western Transverse Ranges and ...
, United States. The school was founded in 1911 and offers pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade education. The motto of the school is ("wholeness of life" or "symmetry of life"). Ojai Valley School was one of the first boarding schools in the western United States to establish English as a Second Language (ESL) programs for all ability levels.


Campus and facilities

The school is located on two campuses in the Ojai Valley. The Lower Campus, located near downtown Ojai, enrolls day and resident students in grades pre-kindergarten to eight. The facilities include a performing arts center, dormitories, a library, an art studio, a woodshop, a technology center, athletic fields, a swimming pool, and stables for the equestrian program. The Upper Campus is located seven miles (11 km) from downtown Ojai, in the east of the valley in Upper Ojai. The campus enrolls day and resident students in grades nine to twelve. The campus is situated on a former cattle ranch and facilities include dormitories, classrooms, athletic fields, a climbing wall and ropes course, a swimming pool, and art and ceramics studios. Students participate in outdoor education, equestrian, fine and performing arts programs, as well as athletics and community service.


History

Edward Yeomans, a Chicagoan educated at Phillips Academy and Princeton University, had written a series of articles in the Atlantic Monthly on the need for educational reform. The articles caught the eye of a wealthy businessman, Frank Frost, who persuaded Yeomans to move to Ojai and create a school that would embody his modern ideas. At the core of Yeomans’ beliefs was the concept that children learn best through experience. Yeomans considered his own education to have been dull and stifling, and wanted to establish a school that would emphasize experiential learning and a love for the outdoors. He envisioned a place where music, art, and woodshop would be taught alongside math, history, and languages. Yeomans declared that , meaning the wholeness of life, symmetry of life, and soundness of life would become the school’s motto and philosophy. The school has grown from a one-room classroom serving 12 pupils to a two-campus boarding and day school for more than 300 students in pre-kindergarten to twelfth grades. The school was heavily damaged by the
Thomas Fire The Thomas Fire was a massive wildfire that affected Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties, and one of multiple wildfires that ignited in southern California in December 2017. It burned approximately before being fully contained on January ...
in December 2017. The fire destroyed two buildings on Upper Ojai campus, a dormitory, and a science and technology building.


References


External links


Ojai Valley School Official WebsiteThe Association of Boarding Schools profile
{{authority control Preparatory schools in California Boarding schools in California Ojai, California High schools in Ventura County, California Private high schools in California Private middle schools in California Private elementary schools in California 1911 establishments in California