Planning for the Renaissance School began in 1998, when co-founder Nancy Knorr gathered together a group of parents and prospective faculty members to redefine high school education.1 Founding community members aimed “to create a high school that would provide a small, academically rich, interdisciplinary learning environment.” 2 RS was also originally designed to serve as a partner institution to the Village School, providing Village graduates access to secondary education with an emphasis on college preparedness.1 After more than a year of planning, the school opened its doors in 1999.2 Nancy Knorr recruited Lou Tanner to serve as the founding history faculty and Patterson Cunningham to lead RS as the first Head of School.2
When asked to reflect on the school in its early years, faculty member Lou Tanner said its purpose was to “incorporate the arts”, not to be solely an art school.1 An interdisciplinary approach was emphasized from the beginning, with various curricula overlapping and interacting with one another. However, the institution struggled to develop a community reputation that reflected its mission.1 The school’s unintentional reputation as an art school discouraged some students interested in STEM fields from attending. The ‘college preparatory’ focus of the school was also initially overshadowed, in part due to the age of the institution.1
“When people are getting ready to have their kids apply to colleges, if you’re a brand new school, you don’t have any credibility. After a few years, and I think we had some success in students getting into schools they really wanted to go to, I think it became a kind of cumulative thing […] if you could look at others and say ‘look, they got in where they wanted’, it’s not such a limb to crawl out on by sending your own child here.” – Lou Tanner on the early years of RS
RS began with two classes in the ninth and tenth grade, but the school expanded to provide an eleventh grade to current students in the 2000-2001 academic year.3 The first class of seniors graduated in 2002.4 By this time, faculty and students had developed a concrete and independent reputation for the Renaissance School, and the intended relationship with Village School dissipated.1 By the mid-2000s, RS was known as a college preparatory school that valued interdisciplinary learning, an academically challenging environment, and student collaboration in the arts and sciences.
RS Original Mission Statement: Renaissance School provides intellectually and artistically motivated high school students with an interdisciplinary learning environment that integrates the arts, humanities, and sciences. We foster the scholastic and artistic excellence of our students by nurturing an academic, ethical, and collaborative community of learners. Through our interdisciplinary curriculum, students learn about themselves, the world, and the history of development of human culture. This connectedness among disciplines propels learning, promotes critical thinking, and helps students become Renaissance thinkers. Renaissance School offers a rigorous college preparatory curriculum that readies students for a life of scholarship and artistic expression. Our faculty of outstanding educators and artists works cooperatively to ensure that students develop a clear understanding of specific disciplines and an applied knowledge of how disciplines interrelate. We encourage students to broaden their talents and interests through our Independent Study Program during junior and senior years, which concludes with the culminating experience for a Renaissance student: the presentation and oral defense of a “Senior Thesis”. Renaissance School admits students of any race, color, gender, nationality, or ethnic origin to all of the rights, privileges, programs, and activities accorded or made available to students in the School. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, nationality, or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, scholarship programs, or other School-administered program. Both scholarship and an interest in the arts inform our admission process.
1 Tanner, L., Johnson, S., & Halladay, N. (2022, October 7). Panel Interview: RS History
2 Independent School History (n.d.). Renaissance School. https://renaissanceschool.org/about-us/history/
3 Swensen, E. (2000). Renaissance School expands horizons. The Daily Progress.4 Pinto, C. (2002). Local private school graduates first class. The Daily Progress.