| Verde Valley School | |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| Sedona, AZ, USA | |
| Information | |
| Type | Private, Boarding |
| Religious affiliation(s) | Non-denominational |
| Established | 1948 |
| Headmaster | Graham Frey |
| Faculty | 26 |
| Enrollment | 120 total 83% boarding /17% day |
| Student to teacher ratio | 7:1 |
| Color(s) | Green and white |
| Mascot | Coyotes |
| Website | www.vvsaz.org |
Verde Valley School (VVS) is an international college preparatory boarding and day school for students in grades 9-12. It is one of only a few U.S. boarding schools to offer the International Baccalaureate curriculum as its sole curriculum for 11th and 12th grades. The school is located in Sedona, Arizona. There are approximately 118 students from over 18 states in the U.S. and more than 16 nations. The school owns 155 acres (647,000 m²). VVS maintains an average class size of nine and an overall teacher-student ratio of one teacher per every eight students, rather than the national school average of twenty students in a class and a teacher-student ratio of one per every six students. SAT scores are also higher than average. More than three-quarters of the faculty have advanced degrees.
All classes, programs, and activities are based upon five mission principles:
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Founded in 1946 by Hamilton "Ham" and Barbara "Babs" Warren, Verde Valley School opened in 1948 with sixteen students and a handful of teachers and artists.
Hamilton Warren was raised in New England, a graduate of Harvard College. His mentor at Harvard was Clyde Kluckhohn --- the first president of the modern American Anthropological Association, for twenty-five years the chair of the Department of Anthropology at Harvard, and one of the earliest group of Rhodes Scholars. Clyde Kluckhohn was the one who inspired Hamilton Warren through his reputation as a truly international educator and inspirational teacher. Kluckhohn learned Navajo by the age of fifteen and had set a standard for the importance and value of engaging cultures different from one's own.
Barbara Warren grew up in Guatemala, the child of British coffee finca owners.
Other individuals that helped shape the founding generation of the School included Margaret Mead, one of the century's most articulate exponents of both anthropological studies and progressive education, and John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs during Franklin Roosevelt's administration, and Max Ernst who lived in Sedona for two years in the 1940s when the school was being built. With the assistance of scholars and public figures like these, Ham and Babs determined to establish a school for talented young people. Mindful of the global horrors of World War II and the ravages of ethnocentrism and racism in this country, the Warrens believed that America — indeed the world — needed a school where the values of cultural diversity would be understood and celebrated, not simply studied and tolerated.
In the years since, Verde Valley School has looked internationally, to Germany, Spain, Italy, Vietnam, China and Korea, for other cultures to represent at the school and has continues its efforts to attract Native Americans and Mexicans, which originally formed a percentage of the students.
Two-thirds of Verde Valley School's population board at a tuition of approximately $43,000 per year. Day students pay approximately $19,000. It is one of the few U.S. boarding school that offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma as its sole curriculum for juniors and seniors.
The boarders occupy six separate dorm complexes on campus; four are for girls and three are for boys. The three boys' dorms are Perkins, Avery, and Christensen. The four girl dorms are Sears North, Sears South, Dogpatch and Motel. Inter-dorm visitation between boys and girls dorms are restricted to supervised times.
Work is an integral part of VVS and is embodied in the school's work jobs program which incorporates three of the school's mission principles: the value of physical labor, service to others, and environmental stewardship. In the early years of the school, students and faculty worked together to literally build the school’s facilities. Today, VVS offers students a number of ways to learn the value of physical labor. Daily morning dorm chores, a weekly work job program, and several community work days are scattered throughout the academic year. Work jobs include the VVS garden, barns, and recycling program.
Each year, every student participates in a VVS field trip. These trips have been a part of the Verde Valley School curriculum since the school was founded in 1948. Many options are available each year, but in each case the objective is either to engage directly in the lives of people whose values and life experiences are different from those generally considered "mainstream", or to give practical expression to the ideal of environmental stewardship and service to humanity.
Depending on the season, VVS offers basketball, golf, tennis, soccer, horseback riding, mountain biking, personal fitness, fencing, rock climbing and hiking, and all students are required to participate in some sort of outdoor activity. The VVS soccer team is often seen in the state finals.