Heading in the Right Direction

In 1995, a group of courageous educators, parents and children came together to create a school with a simple - perhaps simplistic - assumption: that things that often alienate people from one another - ethnicity, skin color, socioeconomic class - might instead be tools that bring people together. Referred to for years as "a social experiment," New Roads School in Santa Monica, CA became an example of what is possible when people from different cultural groups come together to create a community - to learn together, play together, solve problems together, To this day, New Roads remains a beacon for educators and others: an invitation to students, their teachers, their parents and those from the larger community to show up as who they are, join hands, and make the world a better place for all of us.

Through a series of anecdote and essay, author and Founding Head of New Roads School, David Bryan offers insights into education, independent education, and where school fits in the lives of young people, their teachers, and their families.

David Bryan, MS, JD, PhD. In 1988, fresh off adventures at sea, David moved to Los Angeles, where he taught briefly in the LA Unified public school district, and then for six years at Crossroads School in Santa Monica, CA where David was both a teacher and Dean of Human Development. In 1995 he Co-Founded New Roads School, a progressive independent college preparatory school with a strong social mission dedicated to offering opportunities for independent education to students from families who might not otherwise afford it. He served as President and Head of School from its inception in 1995 until 2013. Under his leadership New Roads grew from a small independent middle school serving 70 students in Santa Monica to include nearly 700 students in grades K through 12 on four campuses in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, CA. Currently, David teaches part time in the Economics Department at UC Santa Cruz, and consults regularly with schools, small businesses, technology companies, and non-profit groups. In 2019 David co-founded The Center for the Common Good, a collaboration between The Herb Alpert Educational Village and New Roads School. The Center is a venue for forward thinking educators and thought leaders to engage the community in conversations on the cutting edges of education, social and economic justice, ecological sanity, and our common future.