Welcome to Parkmont!
We’re glad you found us. Since 1972, we’ve been one of DC’s most important small schools. Every year we help 65 young people in grades 6 through 12 develop more confidence in their gifts, interests, and emerging skills as they prepare themselves for higher education and the world of work.
What we provide:
- An empathetic and adventurous staff that gets to know each student and sticks with them through high school.
- Small classes and a unique academic structure that engages students and provides the support they need academically and socially.
- A half-century of experience utilizing Parkmont Classrooms, including internships, field trips, and adventure travel throughout the city and across the country.
- The area’s most diverse range of learners and a staff capable of differentiating instruction and expectations so that every student has a job they can succeed at.
Our alliance with parents is often a critical factor in helping their children navigate adolescence successfully. Welcome to what may be the first of many conversations if you join the Parkmont community!
Our Mission
Parkmont School is a non-profit, independent school governed by a Board of Trustees that strives to uphold the school’s mission.
At Parkmont we build a community where students ally themselves with creative adults whose driving concern is their success and well-being. We challenge them with an academic program that fuses adolescent interests with traditional disciplines and respects the variety of their talents and motivations. We provide them with substantial experience in the world beyond school that invites them to see more clearly the possibilities ahead.
Our students get ready to chart their own course, and we make sure they’re prepared for the journey.
What We’re Up To
Facebook Updates
March 18, 2022
Students in Regan’s Art class took advantage of the nice weather and practiced their drawing skills outside! See More
Why Families Choose Parkmont
Dear Prospective Parents,
Fifty-one years ago, Parkmont’s founding parents envisioned a program that fostered relationships between adolescents and energetic adults, and dynamic use of the school day to connect learning with the world beyond. We’ve continually evaluated and updated that program to meet the needs of students who often need exceptional help. Our mission is to prepare those students for success in college or a smooth transition back into neighborhood public schools or more traditional independent high schools.
Why do families choose Parkmont to help their children become more skilled, confident, and ambitious young adults? Because we have shown we can improve their child’s future using these ideas and initiatives:
- Making sure that the challenges each student encounters in every class and activity are compelling and realistic by constantly recalibrating their schooling because we know their strengths and capacities.
- Respecting students’ learning differences and energizing their quest to develop abilities and interests with an engaging hands-on curriculum.
- Involving each student in a set of constructive ongoing conversations that include families and teachers to help them take responsibility for their next steps.
- Energetically expanding Parkmont’s classrooms and opportunities for study, work, and adventure – on our campus, throughout our city and the Mid-Atlantic region, and further afield.
- Embracing the uncertainties of human development and dedicating our program to encouraging and engaging students whose timing or course is different from “the norm.”
Does this work? Each June we graduate a group of students, many of whom were already skeptical about their own fitness for the world when they started here at age 11 or 12. We give them targets they can hit, send them exploring, and watch them return amazed and energized by what they see. We help them understand that we are all gifted and all challenged in our own ways. What a difference it makes to each of them to have Parkmont’s help along the way.
Sincerely,
Ron McClain
Head of School
Ron McClain
Head of School
Head of School
Start a Conversation
The most important part of Parkmont School is our relationships – and that starts with your first meeting. Our Head of School looks forward to meeting you one-on-one to learn more about you and see how your needs fit what we have to offer.
No school has more experienced leadership in the local school world. Everyone who visits leaves with more information about Parkmont’s unique approach and more perspective on the choices and challenges in the local school market. And for some, this will be the first of dozens of conversations, the beginning of an alliance between our staff and your family that may change your experiences with school for your Parkmont child.
Even if you’re just starting to think about a new school adventure, come see us first. We’ll help you through the options and set you up for success.