Hood River New School

Hood River New School is a 6th-8th grade independent middle school. The New School currently serves 48 students from diverse backgrounds living in Oregon and Washington with plans to expand to 60 students for the 2025-2026 school year. Our mission is to empower middle school students with the skills they need to become resourceful learners, preparing them to take on future challenges. In a responsive and caring environment, students mature into confident, compassionate citizens inspired to meaningfully contribute to their community. 

The New School was founded in 2021 by a community of educators and parents excited to create a school that honors the critical growth and development window that occurs during adolescence — the transition between childhood and adulthood. We invite you to learn more about the interdisciplinary curriculum, staff, and campus locations, and why mixed-age grouping and looping foster a thriving community and promote self-awareness, community responsibility, and integrity.

What Makes Hood River New School Unique?

Hood River New School brings a new vision and mission for middle school education to the Gorge that includes:

• Multi-age environment for all academic and extracurricular activities, encouraging limitless learning
• Interdisciplinary model of learning
• Community-focused learning experiences, including community service, empower students and foster connection with our community
• Three-year looping educational model, in which students remain with their core teacher for all their academic years, allowing the student-teacher relationship to grow and blossom
• Positive and supportive long-term relationships between students and teachers, as well as teachers and families, strengthened by the academic looping model
• Credentialed teachers with 15+ years of experience teaching blended, interdisciplinary models at the middle school level
• A nonprofit organization governed by a board of directors to provide oversight and transparency