On our mountainside campus in the Berkshires, students and faculty at The Darrow School engage in collaborative learning, providing each student an opportunity to achieve and surpass their individual potential. The college-preparatory curriculum, rigorous and innovative in its design, allows our students to dive deeply into the concepts that invigorate them. We are creative and confident in our pursuit of knowledge, daring to explore when others retreat. We don't just accept each other’s differences, we embrace them. It is a distinction that means absolutely everything. Simply put, our enduring gift to every student is the agency to pursue a purpose greater than themselves.


 


Overview


The Darrow School is dedicated to serving students with diverse backgrounds and abilities, building on each student’s individual talents and interests to inspire enduring confidence for success in college and life. This mission is accomplished through our active curriculum, which is rooted in the liberal arts and sciences, individually focused, and combines innovative classroom instruction with project-based learning and environmental consciousness.

 

 

 

 

 


 


Academics


Within each department, you will feel the spirit of intellectual investigation and active learning. Within every class, you will find an average of nine students, and a creative, fearless energy that inspires students to take risks. Within each student, the roots of scholarship - and daring - are growing, and growing, and growing.


 


Residential Life


The dorms (Hinckley, Brethren’s, Neale, Meacham, and Ann Lee) are a student's home away from home, where they can relax and retreat.  Dorm living affords students the opportunity to learn some of the most important skills for their adult lives: cooperative problem solving; respect for other people’s space and possessions; independence; personal responsibility.


 


Learning Skills Program


The Learning Skills Program is a comprehensive support program that focuses on the individual as a whole, to serve students with mild to moderate learning needs. Some students have a previous history of support while others are discovering it for the first time. Our goal is to work individually with each student to grow their understanding of how they learn and develop tools for success. These tools are used to create homework plans, organize materials, prioritize work, and break down major assignments.

 

 


 


Performing Arts Center


We unveiled our Performing Arts Center (PAC) in Autumn 2015, introducing a dynamic facility for the serious study of music, theater, and film. The PAC features state-of-the-art technology and learning spaces specially designed for creative thinking and creative action. Classrooms, practice rooms, and a recording studio provide students with opportunities to experientially enhance their knowledge and hone their skills. Students also leverage the PAC’s resources to invest themselves in solo or collaborative projects outside of formal course work.

 


 


Theater


The program gives students a grounding in theater history and how theatrical work connects to the world.  The fall production is chosen from the classics. The spring production is a series of ten-minute plays written, performed, produced, and directed by students.

 


 


Joline Arts Center


The Joline Arts Center is a work of art in itself.
A spacious, well-lit facility designed specifically for the Visual Arts, the 12,000 sq. ft. Joline provides studio and lab spaces for a broad range of programming, including classrooms and studios for painting, drawing, ceramics, photography, and woodworking. The Joline also supports gallery spaces, seminar rooms, and a Mac design lab. In addition to inspiring our students, alumni, faculty, and staff, it also serves as a vital resource for both the local art community and internationally recognized education programs.

 


 


Kurtz Innovation Center


The Kurtz Innovation Center, or KIC for short, is more than just a classroom. It is a hub for creativity, experimentation, and action. The KIC opened its doors in August 2018. Since then, it has been outfitted with 3D printers, student-built computers, TETRIX® and LEGO® Mindstorm Robotics, a Tormach CNC Machine, welding equipment, and more. Whether building a dancing robot, printing a 3D prosthetic hand for charity, using C Programming to design a calculator, or just tinkering around with various materials of disparate origin, the KIC is open for all of our students to collaborate and create.

 

 


 


Athletics


Darrow teams play to win, but they also play to have fun, work hard, learn team play, improve their skills, and stay healthy. In fact, our Athletics exemplify the core of a Darrow education - learning that is hands–on, engaged, and actively involved. Our student-athletes embrace this fun and the unique intensity of competition as they cultivate leadership and teamwork skills on the field/court/pitch and throughout our school community.

 
 

 


 


Sustainability


Darrow's Samson Environmental Center houses the Living Machine TM, an ecological system that transforms the wastewater from the campus into "fishable/swimmable" water. The first of its kind to be built on a school campus, the SEC provides hands-on-learning opportunities to students and faculty. 

 

 


 


Hands-to-Work


Hands-to-Work is our service-learning program, rooted in the traditions of the Shakers who lived here previously. It’s a program that highlights purposeful work, leadership through service, and the rewards of a cooperative effort to sustain and improve The Darrow School community.