The Sycamore School is an independent non-profit secondary school in Arlington, Virginia serving middle and high school students. We provide personalized, engaging and experiential learning, helping students make connections across content areas and to the real world. We’re intentionally small, maintaining a 1:10 teacher to student ratio. The Sycamore School is located at the Arlington Center 4600 N. Fairfax Drive Suite 300 Arlington, VA 22203.

We offer middle and high school students a different type of learning community that actively engages students through providing:

• Small classes in a safe, nurturing and inclusive community
• Self-paced competency-based learning
• Engaging “hands on” and cooperative learning opportunities
• Curricula that incorporates student interests and connects to life outside school
• Student choices of how they engage with the curriculum and display mastery
• Tools to increase self-awareness, self-monitoring and mindfulness
• Real world learning experiences

The Sycamore School integrates academic development, social and emotional growth, and civic engagement. We create a meaningful learning process, whereby teachers personalize instruction according to students’ interests, needs, and aptitudes. Teaching focuses on cultivating transferable skills in students that apply to various jobs or tasks across settings, such as effective communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity. We want to partner with parents and the community to design experiences in and outside the classroom.

Karyn Ewart, TSS's Founder and Head of School, is a clinical psychologist and been in education for over 15 years. She wanted to create a school that addressed both academic achievement and social emotional growth. Her goal was to create a school that was challenging without being stressful; a school that focused on transferable skills necessary for both higher education and the work force, such as problem solving, critical thinking, time management, team work, and creativity. TSS's goal is to provide high-quality personalized, inquiry-based experiential learning to a cross-section of students. We want to cultivate engaged, independent lifelong learners who can think critically and apply their knowledge to real-world experiences in order to achieve personal success and contribute positively to their community.