A new kind of private school

June Casagrande

NEWPORT COAST--Sage Hill School opened its doors in 2000 with the

goal of providing an educational option completely unique to Orange

County. Just two years later, its success reaching that end is

indisputable.

Sage Hill is the first nonprofit private high school in Orange

County that’s nondenominational -- that is, not a religious school.

It’s also unusually diverse, with 31% of students identifying

themselves as people of color, 16% percent who speak a language other

than English in their homes and a student-body population fed from

about 60 different schools from three counties.

“Diversity is a very important part of the atmosphere,” Head of

School Clint Wilkins said. “The culture here celebrates diversity and

emphasizes citizenship in a multicultural democracy.”

The concept is catching on. Total enrollment is 350 for the coming

school year, nearly triple the 119 students who were first to attend

the school in 2000. Tuition for the coming year is $15,585 and about 16% of students get some type of financial aid. This year, the school

will graduate its first group of seniors, 34 of them.

Sage Hill faculty describe the academic environment as a “rigorous

college-preparatory program,” and they emphasize that community

service is integral to the curriculum.

“We’re different from most schools in the area, which require

students to complete a certain number of community service hours in

order to graduate,” explained Torrey Olins, director of service

learning. “Our students are doing service that we coordinate and

select specifically to tie into grade-level goals and to reinforce

certain concepts and classwork.”

For example, ninth-graders’ science curriculum emphasizes issues

in public health and the environment. So after lectures on the food

chain, students do a “gleaning project” for Second Harvest Food Bank,

picking crops left behind as unmarketable.

“It’s been shown that the amount of information you retain from a

lecture is like 5% or 10%, but retention levels for teaching others

is 90% and learning by doing is 75%,” Olins said. “We’re trying to

get them this experiential piece of learning.”

But at the end of the day, academics are what Sage Hill is all

about, Academic Dean Elizabeth Resnick said.

“What we are providing students in this area is really a

first-rate academic experience augmented by service learning, arts

and athletics,” Resnick said, explaining that their curriculum is

based on ongoing communications with the nation’s top colleges. “At

our core is a very strong college preparatory curriculum”