Environment

Learn about our Eco-Healthy Policy in this PDF !

Imagine being drawn into a school that begs your entry with a child-designed and child-made sign.

Imagine walking into an entry where color bursts through children’s work and brilliant glass tiles filter window light, where clay faces peer with curiosity at visitors, and natural materials that “grow” in profusion.

Imagine a fireplace with child-sized furniture, baskets of books and knitting supplies, alongside mind-bending toys.

Imagine silhouetted trees that soften the architectural angles where ceiling and walls meet.

Imagine music breezing through halls and interior window boxes boasting plant life for texture and study.

Imagine restroom entries adorned with a cheeky monkey statue and walls sponge-painted by children.

Imagine a café with piazza umbrellas, twinkle lights, and bouquets of blossoms in vases on the tables.

Imagine soft places for landing, carpets for games, chairs for conversation, couches for snuggling with a good book.

Imagine walls adorned with documentation of the learning that has taken place over time, scanned for inspiration and used as retelling props in child-led tours by youngsters who enjoy satisfying adult curiosity about this place they inhabit.

Imagine a weaving marking time in its progress.

Imagine hallway museums that hold treasures, musical instruments set out for impromptu performance, puppets for plays, and light boxes for refining graphic work.

Imagine gardens waiting outside for winter to pass, for the burst of color and the return of birds, and potential additions to tasty kitchen menus.

Imagine a school where the learner and the learning environment are in sync, where quiet spaces are found alongside collaborative-learning areas, and where each individual, as well as the community-as-a-whole, is celebrated.

Imagine a school where the children and adults are responsible and respectful, where individuals contribute to the group and the group supports its individual members, where “olders” work side-by-side with “youngers” and each offers the other encouragement, suggestion, and inspiration… where questions from all ages have merit and hold possibility.

A Renaissance School is a place where manners and pleasantries are thought to be marks of powerful thinking, concern for others, and participation in a caring community that holds reciprocity as a common goal. Reciprocity, the exchange of ideas and information through an expanding connection, allows each individual to contribute and emerge stronger for the sharing, creating a community of learners that is healthier for the interchange and greater than the sum of its individual members.

A Renaissance School strives to inspire at every turn. We believe that a beautiful, intentional, masterful environment honors and supports the process and joy of applied learning. Children draw from their environment and offer back a higher level of craftsmanship, attention to detail, and ultimately develop an intrinsic love of intellectual excellence. Our “Glass Castle,” once a warehouse-turned-radio-station, is being transformed. Through magic –the orientation of heart– and the incredible knowledge and energy of many “guardian angels,” the building has been retrofitted as a modern canvas on which to create the fantastical atmosphere that inspires us all.