About Diablo Valley School

Education for Life

At Diablo Valley School real life is the curriculum. Students at DVS learn Life's most valuable skills: self confidence, concentration, problem-solving, decision-making, academics, personal responsibility and respect for others. By making choices and learning to live with the consequences, students experience the challenges, responsibilities and freedoms of real life while in a caring and supportive environment.

Staff at Diablo Valley School are successful, strong, knowledgeable and caring individuals who are dedicated to educating students to be independent, creative and capable adults.

Learning is Natural and Fun

DVS is a school where play is serious work and serious projects are fun. Each person is responsible for deciding how to use their time all day, every day. Students are free to concentrate on what they choose for as long as they desire. All types of activities are equally valued. Activities vary with the natural flow of the curiosity that inspires them.

Mutual Respect

DVS is a community where individual creativity and self-expression are encouraged and appreciated. Mutual respect between all school members develops in an atmosphere where each person is valued for who they are. We believe that everyone, regardless of age, is capable of forming opinions and making responsible decisions.

Individual students and staff members each have an equal vote in how the school functions, and run the school together through school meetings. The Judicial School Meeting is a forum for solving disagreements about fairness and freedom. Participation in judicial meeting is mandatory. As a result of participation, students discover that being a valued part of the community is a satisfying experience. By practicing democracy on a regular basis, students learn to be articulate, persuasive, considerate and fair.

Our Model: Sudbury Valley School

Diablo Valley School is modeled after the Sudbury Valley School, established in 1968 in Framingham, Massachusetts. There are now more than twenty Sudbury schools operating worldwide. DVS is the fifth Sudbury school in Northern California.

Graduates from all Sudbury schools continue life through a wide variety of possibilities in the pursuit of business, the arts, trades and higher education.

Books about Sudbury Valley School are available for purchase at Diablo Valley School.