The Athenian School  The Athenian School is a selective college preparatory and boarding school located in Danville, California, United States. Athenian educates students in grades 6–12 on an approximately campus at the base of Mt. Diablo, located in the San Francisco Bay area in Northern California. Athenian was founded by Dyke Brown (1915–2006) in 1965. Athenian is composed of roughly 175 students in the middle school (grades 6-8) and 355 students in the high school (9-12) which is also known as the upper school. Approximately 60 students and 18 teachers live on campus full-time. The average class size is 16. According to Niche, The Athenian School is ranked 106th on the 2020 list of Best Private High Schools in America and the number one school in Contra Costa County. Athenian is also ranked as the 28th best boarding school in the United States. Athenian holds an average SAT score of 1385 (out of 1600) and an average ACT score of 31. According to Boarding School Review, this gives Athenian the 8th highest SAT score of any boarding school in the United States. Dyke Brown conceived of the idea of a mission-driven boarding school during his tenure as Vice President of the Ford Foundation, influenced by his Foundation work in youth development and the prevention of juvenile delinquency, and by his own children's educational experiences. Athenian is a founding member of Round Square, an international organization of schools whose philosophy is influenced by the German educator Kurt Hahn. In 1962, Brown left the Ford Foundation to begin to raise money for the school he had in mind. Inspired by the Oxford system of individual colleges sharing common resources, his original plan was a series of four campuses sharing a library, science classrooms, athletic facilities, a performing-arts complex, and other facilities. He found 80+ acres of land in what was then rural Contra Costa county, a portion of what was then the Blackhawk Ranch, bordering on Mount Diablo State Park. Construction began in 1963, and the founding head, W. Robert Usellis, began recruiting the pioneer classes in the fall of 1964. Brown's vision was startling at the time: he planned for both integration and coeducation. In the early 1960s, very few private schools were recruiting students of color. The value of integration for private schools was seen by a very few visionaries, including the founders of A Better Chance. The norm for boarding schools at the time was single-sex; a coeducational boarding program was unusual.