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The Athenian School is a college preparatory and boarding school located in Danville, California. Athenian educates students in grades 6-12 on a campus at the base of Mt. Diablo, located near San Francisco in Northern California. Athenian was founded by Dyke Brown (1915–2006) in 1965. Athenian is composed of roughly 150 students in the middle school (grades 6-8) and 300 students in the high school (9-12). Approximately 40 students and 18 teachers live on campus full-time. The average class size is 16. == History == Dyke Brown conceived of the idea of a mission-driven boarding school during his tenure as Vice President of the Ford Foundation, influenced by his Foundation work in youth development and the prevention of juvenile delinquency, and by his own children's educational experiences.〔The history section is adapted from ''Athenian: An Oral History''〕 Athenian is a founding member of Round Square, an international organization of schools whose philosophy is influenced〔 The beginnings of the Round Square Conference〕 by the German educator Kurt Hahn.〔http://www.athenian.org〕 In 1962, Brown left the Ford Foundation to begin to raise money for the school he had in mind. Inspired by the Oxford system of individual colleges sharing common resources, his original plan was a series of four campuses sharing a library, science classrooms, athletic facilities, a performing-arts complex, and other facilities. He found 80+ acres of land in what was then rural Contra Costa county, a portion of what was then the Blackhawk Ranch, bordering on Mount Diablo State Park. Construction began in 1963, and the founding head, W. Robert Usellis, began recruiting the pioneer classes in the fall of 1964. Brown's vision was startling at the time: he planned for both integration and coeducation. In the early 1960s, very few private schools were recruiting students of color. The value of integration for private schools was seen by a very few visionaries, including the founders of A Better Chance.〔 Mission and History of A Better Chance〕 The norm for boarding schools at the time was single-sex; a coeducational boarding program was unusual. In September 1965, the school opened with approximately sixty students, in ninth and tenth grades. In 1968, the founding class graduated, with a full enrollment of about 120 students, of whom only about six were day students. In the 1970s, Athenian weathered local, national, and international changes. Locally, the surrounding area was transformed from cattle ranches to upscale developments. Athenian's neighbor, Blackhawk Ranch, was sold to land developer Ken Behring, and by 1979 2,500 upscale homes were built. The population boom in the area meant that there was an increased demand for day student places at the school. Nationally, at least two forces were at work. First, the stagflation of the 1970s meant that parents had less discretionary income, thus weakening the pool of prospective boarding students. Second, other demographic changes, such as the increase in divorce, affected the pool of prospective boarding students. In 1979, there was sufficient interest in the surrounding community for Athenian to open a day-school only middle school, serving students in grades 6-8. The majority of the Middle School students continued on to finish high school at Athenian. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Athenian School」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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