About the Nonprofit
Visit Our Website
The Circle School is a PreK-8th grade school founded in 1965 on a cooperative model of family-integrated education. We cultivate a community diverse in race, class, and culture. We have 97 full-time students and 115 summer camp program participants. The Circle School’s two mottos are “Peace Through Culture” and “A School as Unique as Your Child.” Both capture the essence of this unconventional private school co-op. We combine academic excellence with a distinctive curriculum oriented around several elements: 1) daily oral storytelling teaching folk wisdom lessons from cultures around the world; 2) nature-based education and care for the planet through conserving, gardening, composting, and recycling; 3) creative learning to develop self-expression through the arts; 4) yoga, meditation, and respectful conflict resolution practices to cultivate compassion and empathy. We emphasize integrative and individualized education focusing on the social, emotional, and psychological development of the whole child. In 2016, we were given international designation as an Ashoka Changemaker School, to recognize our efforts to cultivate young people with the skills and confidence to change the world for the good of all.
The school is private, but it is a cooperative with the lowest tuition of any private school in San Antonio. We are committed to cultivating a student body that is diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, and class, so we also offer scholarships. We are tuition-dependent and this is a school that runs on a very tight budget. Our cooperative model of a social justice-oriented and ethical model of education only works because of the combined efforts of our participating families and because of the love and commitment they have for our community. Coop families run the school board, they clean the classrooms, they clean the toilets, they make repairs to the building, they hold fund-raisers for the school and apply for grants, and they organize all the school field trips. At The Circle School Cooperative, we do everything for ourselves in a way that also empowers our members and is an experiment in robust democracy that has also been giving back to the San Antonio community for over fifty years.
Our mission is to Cultivate the whole child to be an impactful citizen of the earth.
