Verde Valley School

Verde Valley School educates students for college and for life by encouraging them to become intellectually curious, academically accomplished and creatively expressive. The program fosters intercultural understanding and world citizenship, environmental stewardship, the value of physical labor, and service to humanity with a willing spirit.

Verde Valley School is a co-educational, International Baccalaureate boarding and day school for students in grades 9-12. Founded in 1948 by Hamilton and Barbara Warren the school brings together students from all over the world to live, work and study together on our campus in Sedona, Arizona. To this day at Verde Valley School, we continue to value the original principles upon which Hamilton and Barbara Warren founded the school. We do this by challenging our students to fulfill their own potential in every area: academics, service, sports, physical work, the arts and by stressing competition with oneself rather than with others. Located under the rim of the Colorado Plateau at an elevation of 4,500 feet, Sedona is blessed with four mild seasons, plenty of sunshine and clean air. Our red rock valley campus is surrounded on three sides by national forest land and offers beautiful surroundings for year-round outdoor activities, including horseback riding, mountain biking, rock climbing, soccer, golf, basketball, and trail and cross-country running.

We deliver the prestigious International Baccalaureate curriculum through a fully developed experiential model. We take our classroom outside, we roll up our sleeves, we get a little dirty, we try out theories, we live out our learning. Students earn a VVS diploma after satisfactory completion of coursework, and IB diploma candidates also take IB exams at the end of the senior year, leading to the IB diploma. Our IB pass rate is consistently between 85 to 90%.

Whether it's Field Trips, Decembermester, or Project Period, a lot of learning happens beyond the classroom. During Field Trips students and faculty leave campus for two-weeks on trips that combine anthropological research, outdoor sports and service work; Decembermester is an experiential program where students work on long-term projects in and out of the traditional classroom; we end our year with Project Period, a chance for students to chose projects ranging from learning digital animation to hiking into Clear Creek Canyon on a solo backpacking journey.

Testimonials

"Serving others submerged in the unfamiliar has shaped the way I perceive different cultures and has shown me how important volunteering is to our world."
-William Schwindenhammer, Class of 2018, Germany

"At my previous high school, there was no outlet for expression, for passion. There was no individuality. That was the main cause for my unhappiness there. When I came to VVS, I was almost surprised to see so many happy people with different talents, different interests, coming from different backgrounds, with different world-views. No advertising can quite relay the VVS experience. One of the most valuable sources of knowledge here at VVS is the amazing people that you are constantly surrounded by, both teachers and students alike."
- Brita Ahlers, Class of 2015, United States

"The VVS community is like family to me here in Arizona. What makes the VVS community special is the fact that it is an international school so you get to know about other cultures and i like the idea of diversity because it makes it exciting."
- Kelly Uwase Rubangura, Class of 2016, Rwanda

"My children benefit daily from living in a universe in which tolerance, kindness, hard work and principled living are simply a way of life. They have come to believe that the world is a place in which faces of all colors greet them with helpful gentleness."
- Lauren Kelley, Former Director of Experiential Education, English & TOK Teacher

"Standing at the starting line of the Cross Country Championships on Halloween and seeing the Rock Climbing Group in costumes and rainbow wigs cheering from the climbing wall, faculty children holding "Go VVS" signs, and the VVS Mountain bikers and Equestrians, on horseback ready to follow the runners down the dirt road while the VVS Rock Band warms up by playing a Pixies song on the quad. That's my community."
- Meg Haesloop, Academic Dean & College Counselor