Wildwood School is an independent progressive K–12 school located in Los Angeles. Wildwood was founded as an elementary school in 1971, by a group of parents led by a young lawyer named Belle Mason. The secondary campus (middle and high school) opened in 2000. The elementary campus is located in Los Angeles and the middle and upper school campus is located in West Los Angeles. There are approximately 300 students in grades K-5, the elementary campus, and 400 in grades 6–12 at the middle and upper school campus. Brief history In the 1970s and 1980s, the school was housed in one building on Olympic Boulevard in Santa Monica, where the current campus for New Roads School is located. The first graduating elementary class had only ten students. In 1991 Hope Boyd, previously the Middle School Head of Westlake School for Girls, became the head of Wildwood, and the following year the elementary campus relocated to its current Culver City location. Boyd began to stabilize Wildwood's academic course and solidified its reputation, and under her watch the school doubled the size of the student body. In 1999, the Board of Trustees decided to create a middle and upper school. The school was to be based on the principles of the Coalition of Essential Schools and teach project-based equitable learning. The middle and upper school opened in 2000 on Olympic Boulevard in West Los Angeles, in a small and limiting former warehouse, with no windows (which has become a subject of humor amongst Wildwood students), mercurial temperature controls, and only 100 students. George Wood, a respected national educator and principal of Federal Hocking High School in Ohio, was the founding director of the secondary school. The full remodeling of the middle and upper school building was finished in 2002. Philosophy At the elementary school, Wildwood incorporates multi-age primary classes. For kindergarten and first grade, students learn together in "Pods". The reasoning behind this is that the older children can influence and lead the younger children, starting at a very young age. The elementary school encourages parent participation and every week during "all school meetings" parents are invited to be updated on school news and events. Multi-age continues in the middle and upper school through blended "advisories". At the middle and upper school, students receive narrative assessments rather than letter grades. Narrative assessments are comprehensive reports written by the teacher specific to each