Youth Initiative High School

These three ideas lie at the heart of the experience of education at the Youth Initiative High School. As the name indicates, we seek young people who are ready to take the initiative in shaping their own lives.

This means, above all, a decision to take responsibility. Are you ready to be more than a passive consumer of your schooling? Are you ready to dig in and work hard to make your school experience an excellent one for your fellow students and teachers, as well as for yourself?

We seek young people with the courage to create and to invent, be it in the arts, in writing, in scientific discovery, or in collaborative school governance. Imagination, a sense of truth, and a feeling of responsibility: If these qualities speak to you, we would love to hear from you. Youth Initiative High School provides holistic Waldorf-inspired education for grades 9-12, striving to integrate “head, heart and hands” (thinking, feeling and willing) into the fabric of school life. Parents, students and faculty work together to encourage and assist students in becoming free thinkers, and in maturing, into active, response-able, empowered participants in the greater society. The school, its students, families and faculty strives to be of service to the larger community.

Our vision is to become a vibrant, empowering, Free Waldorf high school. We find the Steiner view of the developing adolescent useful; this model sees ages 14-18 as a time when young people ideally move from outwardly imposed authority towards individual freedom and personal responsibility. We will create and maintain a vessel, a community where this growth can occur in an organic way while providing students with the experiences and tools (academic, artistic and practical) to find their way to meaningful work and relationships, both social and vocational.

Faculty, students, and families are partners in learning; exhibiting mutual respect, shared joy in learning, cooperation, and caring. We facilitate individual student talents and personal growth, their imagination, passion, and love of the arts. Our rich and challenging course of study integrates academics, the arts, physical and practical life skills. Our small school community encourages students to become all their individual destinies call them to be.

The Youth Initiative High School will not discriminate based on race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, or age. Youth Initiative High School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.