In the mid-1990s, a group of Newport Beach parents, educators and business leaders coalesced around an idea: to create a private, nonreligious high school that blended rigorous academics with a dedication to public purpose and diversity.
They believed that by engaging students in a world beyond the one they’d grown up in—one that, for many in the upscale coastal community included housekeepers, elaborate vacations, and the ability to satisfy every want—students would be exposed to new situations that would inspire them to think creatively, solve problems, and take ownership of their lives.
The ambitious plan came to fruition in 2000: Sage Hill School in Newport Beach welcomed 120 students into its first class. Today, it has a student body of more than 400, and its model appears to have succeeded, based on graduates’ immediate post-high school paths. The school says 98% go on to four-year universities.
Administrators say Sage Hill’s founding philosophy has never wavered. Its board of trustees, which includes some of Orange County’s most prominent business professionals, works to ensure its curriculum remains top-notch and that its student body is community-oriented. They say students learn how to be introspective, independent and engaged in the world.
Gordon McNeill, its head of school—no one uses the term principal there—has been with Sage Hill since the day it opened.
“Essentially,” he said, “Sage Hill provides the environment that encourages kids to reach into their deeper selves, to be all they know they can be.”
Fostering Future Leaders
Dori Koll Caillouette, whose children attended the exclusive Harbor Day in Newport Beach through eighth grade, was the driving force behind Sage Hill.
The project started with a handful of her closest friends meeting over tea in each other’s living rooms.
Over the following five years, the idea caught fire. Organizers interviewed officials at the top private schools in L.A. and San Francisco to learn from their experiences and met with minority groups to get their ideas on how to make the school diverse.
The group had raised $30 million from private citizens, education groups, and some of OC’s largest businesses by the time Sage Hill opened.
They named it for the wild sage that grows on the hill they chose for the 30-acre campus overlooking the 73 toll freeway, with an eye toward the double meaning of the word—one who’s wise.
Several OC corporations and professionals joined its organizers during the school’s planning stages. Caillouette said Pacific Investment Management Co., Koll Development Co. and Irvine Company provided support at crucial times: Pimco donated money, Irvine Company gave land for the school, and Koll developed office space for the founders to operate from until the new school building was finished.
Individuals, including Steve Johnson of AOL and Peter Ueberroth, former Major League Baseball commissioner and founder of the Ueberroth Family Foundation, lent their expertise and financial assistance.
The faculty, most of whom hold master’s degrees at the least, developed programs that channel students’ competitive drive into real-life work experience. One program provides summer internships with area businesses, including at the The Boeing Co.
Board of trustee member Paul Kim, founder and president of Chicago-based LaSalle Investment Management, hosted two interns from Sage Hill. He said he knew the students would be exemplary but that they outperformed his expectations.
“Those kids didn’t sit back and wait for things to happen,” Kim said.
A Vision
Vicki Ueberroth Booth was one of the first to get involved with the mission to create Sage Hill. She said she now works through her personal involvement in the school’s financial assistance program to ensure its student body stays economically diverse. Consequently, students hail from all over Orange County.
The education, which costs $30,000 a year in tuition, is out of reach for many, but Sage Hill said it provides financial assistance to approximately 16% of its students.
“We want as many kids as possible to have the Sage Hill experience,” Booth said.
Additionally, the school requires students to reach out to those outside their rich seaside community.
Its Service Learning program provides them with community service opportunities that expose them to people in other socio-economic circumstances. Freshmen and sophomores tutor and mentor elementary school students, and juniors and seniors are each responsible for identifying a need in the community and creating a service project that meets that need.
Two rising juniors with bad eyesight, for example, started a program to collect used eyewear for people who can’t afford glasses and contacts like they can.
Self-Discovery
Sage Hill’s teaching model begins on students’ first day on campus, which sits off the freeway at Newport Coast Drive.
No bells signal the start of the next class.
Students are instead expected to be on time.
The students, if they have free time, are likely to spend it in study group rather than napping on the grass, McNeill said.
Administrators and teachers treat students with respect, said administrators, trustees and some graduates.
The result is a student body that makes things happen, McNeill said.
One of the most successful student-led ventures has been the implementation of weekly “town meetings,” when students get the chance to share what’s important to them academically or outside of school.
Some students recite poetry. Others pitch ideas for new on-campus clubs. McNeill said the meetings build a strong bond between students.
Building Opportunities
Sage Hill has built a state-of-the-art space for live theater, dance and movies through donations, as well as a new football field and track.
Next year, it will break ground on the science center school officials planned from the beginning, with labs holding the latest equipment. Mike Bolen, a Sage trustee and chairman and chief executive of Newport Beach-based McCarthy Building Co., is closely involved in the project.
“The science center will bridge the gap in technology and actually get ahead of it,” he said.
The center’s curriculum will include student research in genetics, organic chemistry and forensics, as well as stem cell research in partnership with the University of California, Irvine.
The school plans to start work on an Olympic-sized swimming pool after it completes the science center.
Student Successes
Trustee Michael Ray, president of Irvine-based Sanderson-J. Ray Corp., said he believes Sage Hill creates future leaders. So not only did his three children, Elizabeth, Gabrielle and Harrison, graduate from the school, but he also paid for his housekeeper’s daughter, Margarita, to attend there. She was part of its first graduating class.
Two Sage Hill alumni appeared in the 2012 Forbes special “30 under 30” issue on American businesspeople younger than 30. Alumnus Mark Ramadan, now 25, started Sir Kensington’s Ketchup in his dorm room at Brown University, a brand that is now sold in more than 1,000 U.S. stores. Alumnus Matt Schlicht, 23, is the cofounder of music startup Tracks.by, an online service for content distribution.
The Sage Hill experience stays with students after they graduate, some of them say.
2012 graduate Zane Keller, son of Irvine-based First Foundation founder Rick Keller, is now a member of the Leadership Honors Program at Seton Hall University. He said he credits the high school, and his economics and algebra II teacher Pete Anderson in particular, for his ability to handle the academic rigors of college.
“The kids at Sage are friendly, competitive, strivers,” he said. “There is real camaraderie there. And real competition. It builds character. In the end, all the hard work absolutely pays off.”
