The Renaissance International School

We are an inde­pen­dent, Montes­sori school in Oak­land for boys and girls age two years old (toddlers, preschool, pre-K, kindergarten, elementary) through mid­dle school. Our pro­gram includes art, music and French and Span­ish lan­guage immer­sion. Stu­dents become flu­ent in Eng­lish, French and Span­ish. The school was founded in 1992 by Leslie Hites, who con­tin­ues to serve as Head of School. We pro­vide a high-​quality edu­ca­tion, from the tod­dler years, to preschool and through mid­dle school, designed so that chil­dren become com­pas­sion­ate, capa­ble, con­fi­dent, cre­ative indi­vid­u­als who are pre­pared for life. They suc­ceed in high school, col­lege and beyond. Cen­tral to the school's phi­los­o­phy is to pro­vide chil­dren with an inter­na­tional cen­ter of learn­ing and cul­ture that is open, sup­port­ive and mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary, where they develop and achieve their high­est potential. Our stu­dents thrive in our mul­ti­cul­tural, mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary envi­ron­ment where they engage in indi­vid­u­al­ized learn­ing with a strong music, arts and lan­guage immer­sion component. Our course of study has an inte­grated, the­matic approach. While encom­pass­ing the full sub­stance of the tra­di­tional cur­ricu­lum, we go beyond to teach stu­dents how to think clearly, con­duct their own research, express them­selves well in writ­ing and speech and put their knowl­edge to a prac­ti­cal application.