The Circle School Story
Teaching Peace Since 1965
Our Location
Located just steps away from the Witte Museum, Brackenridge Park, the Botanical Gardens, and the DoSeum; The Circle School sits tucked away in a more than 100-year-old house in the Mahncke Park neighborhood.
Timeline
In November 1965, Isabeth Bakke Hardy realized a dream of peace and culture in founding The New Age School, a small, private, nonprofit, all-day alternative school for young children.
Founding
Isabeth was a young San Antonio teacher, American Studies graduate, and writer. To establish the new school, she joined Belle Graubard, an experienced teacher from New York who had retired from the U.S. Army and was actively involved in educational and child-development issues. They started the school with three students. Funding support was provided by Isabeth's parents, Wilbur Eugene Bakke, Marion White Bakke and the Bakke family.
The school's founding was inspired by the richness of children's imaginations and the unique quality of reality experienced by children in different developmental stages. Isabeth was equally struck by the lack of learning experiences available for young children in many daily settings.
The school will always be a dream – a continually cultivated curriculum.
Isabeth Bakke Hardy, Circle school founder
With the domination of television and pop media, she saw that the essential formative imagination of childhood was in danger of being trivialized and stunted. Isabeth resolved to create a setting for children that would provide a focus on the developmental and psychological issues of childhood. This educational community would provide an experience for the whole child, enriched by the cultural legacies of the human experience.
