Nueva Head of Upper School Mark Schoeffel dwarfs a royal blue tub chair as he works, sitting cross-legged and balancing a MacBook on his lap. “Have you read this?” he asks, motioning to the magazine that rests on the coffee table. It is the September issue of The Atlantic, and the cover depicts a wrecking ball bursting out behind a wall and smashing textbooks to pieces. “IS COLLEGE DOOMED?” asks the cover in bold black type. “It’s interesting,” he says. “There’s tons of educational change happening right now.”
The story profiles the Minerva Project, headed by an ambitious entrepreneur who hopes to strip higher education to its essence. The institute has attracted the likes of former Harvard dean Stephen M. Kosslyn to its faculty.
Like Kosslyn, Schoeffel has also worked at more traditional institutions: The Shipley School in Pennsylvania and Lawrenceville in New Jersey, both prep schools traditionally focused on feeding students into college. But now, Schoeffel heads Nueva’s Upper School, an independent school for gifted students, which has just wrapped up construction.
The difference between Nueva and traditional prep schools is a matter of mission, says Schoeffel. “Ostensibly, we want to prepare kids for college, but that’s not our mission,” says Schoeffel. “Nueva has always been a laboratory school, thinking about the best practices and doing everything in our power to make sure learners explore, discover, create, make and demonstrate what they’ve learned and ask what the next questions are. You’re a learner as well as a creator of knowledge,” he adds. “This is not a prep school because it’s not structured like a traditional prep school.”
Part of the reason Nueva’s mission is not like that of a traditional prep school stems from Upper School being an extension of the Lower and Middle schools instead of its own entity.
“We’re not really starting a new school. It helps that we’ve been running this school for years before this, so it’s not like we’re starting from scratch. It is impossible to overstate how important that has been, and the resources and partnerships that have come along with that,” says Associate Head of School Terry Lee.
However, though Upper School is an extension, its newness and separate campus make for a lower retention rate than that of Nueva’s Middle School.
“The retention rate from lower to middle is almost 100 percent. It’s the same campus, both programs have been established for some time. This is a new program, a different campus, so now it’s a totally different situation with this new school. I would expect, that over time, retention from middle school to upper school gets close to, maybe not all the way to, but close to 100 percent. But if it ends up somewhere between 80 to 85 percent, the standard for most K-12 schools, then that would be very good as well,” says Lee.
To accommodate construction, the inaugural class had their classes at CSM last year, but moved into the new 2.75 acre campus located in the sustainability-oriented Bay Meadows development in San Mateo at the start of the 2014-2015 school year.
As of last year, the Upper School had only 77 students, but with the new freshman class coming in, the total enrollment is now 163 students. Director of Communications Paula Murphy says, “We have ninth and tenth grade. Every year we’re adding a new grade, so in two years, we’ll have all four grades, which is going to be roughly 400 students.”
History of planning
The idea of continuing the Nueva way of education into the high school level goes as far back as the original founder Karen Stone McKown’s plan in 1967. However, it was not until 2004 that the idea become more concrete. Nueva’s 2004 strategic plan called to implement the creation of a high school over a five-year period.
Although mentioned in the 2004 plan, the idea was brought back and more seriously considered in 2008. Head of School Diane Rosenberg says, “Two days after the market crash, the board co-chair, Dennis Wong, turned to me and said, ‘Diane, it’s time to figure out whether we’re going to go forward with the high school.’”
“We decided not to wait until the next strategic plan to explore the viability of adding an upper school. I give Dennis and our Board of Trustees full credit for moving us forward,” she continues.
But before the Upper School could be planned and built, Nueva had to research whether or not there was a demand for such a school. A branch of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business helped conduct a pro bono study.
Rosenberg says, “There was a demand on the Peninsula for another independent school, particularly a nonsectarian school, south of where we are currently located. They felt that the demographics [would be] there for the next 20 years, and there would be lots of teenagers to fill those seats, so that was the pragmatic piece the board needed.”
Once approved, Nueva began construction on the new site. Rosenberg says, “It has the elements and the elegance of [the Hillsborough] campus but very much a high school feel. The students are really ready for a more urban environment. They even loved the idea of riding the train.”
With immense alumni support, Nueva faculty, staff and board members traveled across the nation and visited over 50 schools to learn what worked at other schools and what could they possibly take away. Afterwards, they went to 12 separate colleges to identify what colleges looked for in potential students. Rosenberg says, “We got great advice and saw amazing schools. It was so helpful in thinking about program development.”
Nueva Upper School perpetuates school philosophies and values
Nueva’s founding principles will translate into the new Upper School. “There are some core commitments and principles at Nueva. Meeting students where they are, cultivating a respect for their curiosity and potential, not trying to set up barriers to their natural interests and energies and providing opportunities instead of obstacles,” he says.
Lee agrees, saying, “Choice is a core value at this school, and it has been because it’s a core value at the lower and middle schools. That manifests itself in a lot of different ways. I think the most fundamental way is that most of our programs are based on student voice. They are highly interactive. That style is how we learn and teach here. It’s not just a programmatic thing, it’s a philosophical thing.”
Nueva also aims to foster an environment conducive to deep thinking and learning. “Deep learning tends to create happiness. It doesn’t mean that it’s not hard, it just means there’s a deeper level of satisfaction. The dance is that you make sure to cultivate an atmosphere where that can happen, and I wouldn’t say we have all the answers to that. Nobody does,” says Schoeffel.
The ideal Nueva student is someone who is able to take advantage of its core principles, adds Lee. “We look for students who are willing to try, and willing to fail. We want our students to be optimistic and energetic. They need to be nice and bright as well. We look for students who really want to be here, and want to learn the best they can.”
According to Schoeffel, current research demonstrates the efficacy of Nueva’s core principles. “A lot of the practices the school has been cultivating are actually being affirmed by research. As learners, we all remember best when we both reaffirm and enhance our understandings by doing them—practicing and showing and demonstrating your learning, as opposed to learning practices that are more passive. But it doesn’t preclude us from using traditional means as well, sometimes teachers giving lectures or using textbooks.”
Upper School’s facilities also reflect Nueva’s core philosophies. “People spent a lot of time thinking about space and how it connects to learning and how to design space to promote school values and a culture of optimism, possibility, flexibility,” says Schoeffel.
The manifestations of these values are apparently light, color and mobile furniture. “Light is exceptionally important; kids have been really excited about the light. There’s a quite a bit of color. There’s a lot of flexibility and openness to the facility, and the space speaks a kind of optimistic message, of room to move and places to reconstruct or rethink. There’s also a free flow between the outdoors and indoors,” adds Schoeffel.
Classrooms are multipurpose, featuring mobile furniture, windows, eco-friendly overhead ceiling fans (no air-conditioning here), and walls covered with whiteboards. In alignment with the theme of openness, the faculty space is neither separated by discipline nor behind closed doors. Instead, it is situated in a corner upstairs: “reasonably quiet, but not totally silent,” describes Schoeffel.
For Nueva, being part of the Bay Meadows community entails a focus on sustainability.
Caltrain Go Passes encourage Nueva students to commute by Caltrain. “They get free Caltrain passes. Our partnership with Caltrain gives them a Go Pass, so they can use the transit. One of the requirements of building here [in Bay Meadows] was that we not have students have cars. It’s a green facility, and it’s a sustainable community,” explains Schoeffel.
Sustainability is also evident in the way the school is run. “The food is mostly organic. There’s no plastic. We wash our dishes, so it’s a lot better than if you’re throwing stuff away. We compost everywhere, and people use recyclable materials. There’s a focus on the digital, so not a lot of paper being used,” adds Schoeffel.
Though the requirements for building in Bay Meadows may have initially been restricting, Schoeffel sees how the culture of sustainability ties into Nueva’s core principles. “In some ways, some of the restrictions we were given by Bay Meadows were helpful to us, encouraging the culture of self-reliance. The school, when it was originally founded, was always interested in practices that were going to build a better world,” says Schoeffel.
Upper School will stay true to Nueva’s founding principles, but Schoeffel sees the school growing and changing in the future. It is, after all, a core principle to listen to student feedback. “Schools have changed much more slowly than other institutions in Western society. Change isn’t always a good thing, but good schools are dynamic places that are open to listening to students and reevaluating their practices to make sure that kids are doing their best work and also are happy,” says Schoeffel.
Nueva alumni at Aragon discuss their opinions on Upper School
Nueva alum and junior Jeff Kishiyama considered Menlo School before coming to Aragon, but ultimately chose Aragon because of its proximity and his desire for a more structured high school experience.
“Nueva students call Nueva a bubble. It’s very sheltered—not necessarily in a bad way, but in a way that it’s very secure and isolated. I wanted an experience outside of the bubble,” says Kishiyama. “I wanted to jump into the so-called ‘real world.’ I decided that I wanted to be individually motivated to get stuff done. I’ve heard that a lot of private high schools have a lot of opportunities that are just given to you, which is nice, but in the future, you have to find those [opportunities] yourself,” says Kishiyama.
Going to Menlo School, located in Atherton, would also have meant commuting for Kishiyama. “A lot of the private schools draw from all over the Bay Area, unlike at Aragon, where most people live in the area. At here, it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, let’s just walk to your house,’ but at Menlo, it would have been like ‘Nope, I actually live 50 miles away from you.'”
Like Kishiyama, freshman and Nueva alum Lydia Villa’s decision was also influenced by proximity. “I live half a block away, so it’s amazing to be so close. My [older] brother had a really good experience [at Aragon], and that was one of the factors too.”
Freshman and Nueva alum Tilman Voorsanger was given the option of going to either Aragon or Nueva’s Upper School. “My parents didn’t want to drive me to the city or to Menlo, so they asked me to choose between Aragon and Nueva. I chose Aragon, mainly because of the sports program and because I’ve been at Nueva so long that I wanted a change.”
After attending both Nueva’s Lower and Middle Schools, Voorsanger wanted to bridge the gap between Nueva and college. “It was ten years of small, intimate, close teaching, and going straight from that to college, which is huge, kind of scared me. I wanted to find a balance.”
On the difference between Nueva and Aragon, Villa says, “I think there’s a lot of little things that I sometimes wish we had, but at the same time there are things at Aragon I’d love having at Nueva too. At Nueva, we had a lot more integrated technology and that was really helpful sometimes. Here, I really like how many kids there are. It’s a chance to meet new people because at Nueva, everyone knew everyone, and most of us had been there for nine or ten years.”
Though Villa and Voorsanger now attend Aragon, they still maintain ties with Nueva, in regards to both its principles and its people. “We visit the upper school quite a bit, at least two or three times this year. If you’ve been that close to those people for so long, it’s kind of hard to lose that,” says Villa.
Voorsanger is now at Aragon, but he carries with him the lessons he learned from being at Nueva. “The lower and middle schools are absolutely amazing, especially the way they teach you to be a good person,” says Voorsanger. “From youth, they emphasize social-emotional learning, [teaching] you to be a compassionate person. Having that education makes me me. I identify with those key principles they taught me when I was so young, and Nueva is part of my identity.”
I wanted to jump into the so-called ‘real world.’ I decided that I wanted to be individually motivated to get stuff done. I’ve heard that a lot of private high schools have a lot of opportunities that are just given to you, which is nice, but in the future, you have to find those [opportunities] yourself