Santa Ynez Schools

Santa Ynez Valley has three high schools and several elementary schools. I'm on the Board of Trustees at Dunn School and visited there today. That inspired me to write about our valley schools.

Two of the secondary schools are independent boarding schools that also accept day students. The third is a public school that draws students from Santa Ynez, Solvang, Ballard and Buellton.

My son's experiences as a freshman at La Canada High School caused him to retreat from education. Big classes and a tenured teacher slacker waiting for retirement turned him into an angry, indifferent student. He enrolled at Dunn School in Los Olivos as a sophomore. We followed him to this beautiful valley.

Dunn's small classes and individualized attention turned him around. He enjoyed the challenge of its advanced placement courses and its sports program. Because Dunn has international students from all parts of the globe (and all economic circumstances), he became much more of a citizen of the world. Today he's at Grinnell College in Iowa, one of the country's leading liberal arts colleges.

Our valley has another independent high school - Midland. It is also located in Los Olivos but is situated far out Figueroa Mountain Road on a former ranch and encompasses several thousand acres. It has strong academics with an emphasis on environmental education, addressing all things "green." It has a farm program and an equestrian program. The students are required to play an active role in the school's upkeep - even gathering wood to heat water for their showers. When my city boy heard that, he quickly demurred.

A sidenote is that Midland sits across the road from Neverland Ranch, Michael Jackson's second home or is it his third or fourth? When Jackson was in residence, the Midland students had a direct view of fans standing outside Neverland's gate. He still owns the property but it's included in local real estate listings.

The third high school is Santa Ynez Unified High School. It has had very strong programs but has been hit hard by the budget cuts all public schools are facing.