An expensive New York-based private school attended by children of high-profile families is opening up a Silicon Valley location.
Avenues: The World School purchased an office building on the corner of Meridian and Parkmoor avenues for a new San Jose campus,. The school paid $27.1 million cash for the 77,000-square-foot building.
“San Jose embraces innovation and has an ethos and DNA that aligns with Avenues and our quest to redefine what a school can be. We hope to benefit the community for generations to come,” Tara Powers, a spokesperson for the school, told San Jose Inside.
Powers said the school plans to open in 2021.
The for-profit school will accept students ages 2 to 18—but it has a hefty price tag. Tuition runs $56,400 per year, according to the school’s website. Avenues also has schools in Brazil and China, as well as an online program.
Although Avenues does not have a tuition price set for the San Jose campus yet, Powers said it will be in line with its other locations. Powers also pointed out that the school has doled out more than $11 million in financial aid for 300 students this year.
“Part of our mission statement is to ‘share our prosperity with those who need it,’” Powers said, referring to Avenues’ financial aid program.
Avenues opened up its first campus in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in 2012, catering to children of wealthy bankers, lawyers, entrepreneurs and even celebrities. Most famously, Suri Cruise, the daughter of actress Katie Holmes, is enrolled there.
The school was founded by media and education entrepreneur H. Christopher Whittle, former Esquire magazine publisher Alan Greenberg and the former Yale president Benno C. Schmidt Jr. They raised $85 million from private equity funds to start Avenues.
The curriculum emphasizes a “global” education, requiring that students become fluent in a second language. The school’s mission statement also says students should be “emotionally unafraid and physically fit” and “architects of lives that transcend the ordinary,” according to its website.
Yet another reason I’m leaving San Jose.
Choice A: My children can go to a public school where they will be shamed for the color of their skin, made to feel like second class citizens, while school administrators turn a blind eye to the bullying for fear of an ACLU lawsuit. All while receiving a substandard education.
Choice B: I can pay $850@month per child to go to a private school to have a normal education.
> The for-profit school will accept students ages 2 to 18—but it has a hefty price tag. Tuition runs $56,400 per year, according to the school’s website.
I’m all for private schools. But I would put this in the category of “vanity education”.
This looks and smells like “guilt ransom” for rich Silicon Valley tycoons who are too busy to spend time with their kids or participate in their education.
I think a responsible parent can find an excellent private school experience in Silicon Valley for far, far less than $56K, — AND STILL prepare their precious little moppet for Hillsdale College or MIT. Who wants to go to Stanford or Harvard or Berkeley anymore?
Hillsdale College is more like a smaller version of Santa Clara University. Hillsdale College should not be compared to MIT.
My son went to Harker for 7th & 8th grades in the early ’80s. Tuition was $3,500/year. Now it’s over $35,000/year. For 9th grade he went to Markham Jr. High. After a couple of weeks he told me everything they were teaching there he had learned 2 years back. He then spent 3 years at Mitty, and the tuition was less than at Harker. It’s supply and demand.
Public education in SJ SUCKS! So, anyone who can afford it sends their kids to a private school. Those who can’t afford it try to get their kids into a charter school.
Teachers are underpaid to live here, but the test results for California shows that public school teachers underperform. CA public school kids are 44th nationwide in language and 48th in math & science.
Public school teachers throughout the state whine about a class size of 30. I went to a parochial school in Inglewood, CA. The SMALLEST class I had was42 kids, and it went as high as 50 kids. The dedicated teachers there taught all of us.
44th in language how can that be? We are so DIVERCE here the ballots are written in 44 languages.
You probable went to school back when the only taught English.
We are no longer one nation.
Bablefornia should be #50 now.