The Ross School, founded by Courtney Sale Ross, launched its boarding program last year and has already attracted more than 50 students from 10 different countries.

Students are coming to the Ross School, founded in 1992, from as far away as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan, according to an article in the East Hampton Star.

At first, the boarding program began with just five students, but has quickly expanded to include 50 boarders, which is about 25 percent of the high school. There are plans to grow to an overall boarding population that will represent 50 percent of school community, according to the school’s Web site.

The program compounds founder Courtney Sale Ross’ goal of fostering a cultural and international understanding as part of the school’s curriculum.

Tuition grades eight through twelve students ranges from between $30,000 to $44,000. The school does offer tuition assistance programs, but those are typically reserved for students who live nearby the campus.

Students who participate in the boarding program have a choice of living in a dorm or “family style” with faculty house parents during their time at Ross School, or they can live with a host family.

The program is described as a “wonderful opportunity for students to prepare for the increased independence and responsibility of college academics.”

Students are encouraged to participate in a wide variety of weekend activities like sporting events, museums and trips to nearby cities like New York.

Founder Courtney Sale Ross, who has been described as an innovator in the education field for the past two decades, wanted to provide an educational outlet that challenged the way traditional schools work.

Under Courtney Sale Ross’ leadership, the school has recently been lauded for being at the “frontiers of education,” for its innovative curriculum. It used neuroscientific findings with a heavy focus on “multiple intelligences” and the links between emotion and learning, to create new curriculum.

Parents can learn more about the programs at Ross School by calling the admissions office at 631-907-5400.

This past summer, two students at the Ross School did something unconventional for their senior project and took on a month-long sustainability challenge, living “off the grid.”

In a remarkable project, Karen Sanchez and Sylvia Channing, seniors at the Ross School in East Hampton, founded by Courtney Sale Ross in 1991, fished and grew their own vegetables in order to feed themselves. The two resourceful girls slept and lived in a 16-by-16 foot tent in Channing’s backyard.

The project grew from Channing’s creation of an environmental club at the Ross School.

“I wanted to do something with sustainability for a while,” Channing, 17, was quoted saying in the article. “I would always say to my friends, ‘Let’s live in the woods this summer. We can be totally self-sufficient in this amazing agrarian community we live in.’”

Channing and Sanchez hooked up for the project because Sanchez, whose family has a background in farming, wanted her senior project to center around animals.

The challenge the students purposed was to live off only what they could grow, catch, gather or raise for the entire month of August. The two used bicycles for transportation and milked goats.

Part of the test was figuring out what foods would grow in the natural climate, among other roadblocks the girls encountered along the way.

“What I really learned is that you can read about farming animals or anything like that as much as you want,” Sanchez said in the article. “But once you get down to the hands-on experience like that you realize there is no amount of books that can prepare you.”

Read more about the student’s project here from the East Hampton Press.

About the Ross School

Ross School, founded by Courtney Sale Ross in 1991, is committed to offering the highest quality education to the broadest range of students and developing, as part of the Ross Institute, a model for 21st century education that can be applied to transform education in public school settings world-wide.

The global, integrated curriculum at Ross School combined with on-site learning, peer teaching, mentoring, and technology ensures that students will have the skills and frameworks essential for the 21st century.

Founder of the Ross School in the Hamptons on Long Island, N.Y., Courtney Ross is celebrating some great press as her school has been lauded for innovative curriculum on Toronto’s http://www.thestar.com/.

The article reads: “(This school) offers the best glimpse in the world of how the brain can be the great social democratizer and how education could provide a level playing field for all.”

The school was founded in 1991 to challenge the way traditional schools operate, according to the article. It uses findings specifically about “multiple intelligences,” recognizing links between emotion and learning to shape curriculum.

The Ross School also implements a technique called the “spiral curriculum,” which introduces concepts across grades in the order in which human civilization developed, and in the order in which humans discovered concepts.

“Each grade represents a turning point of cultural history or rapid transformation,” according to the article.

“I like frontiers,” said Courtney Ross. “And the brain is one of the most fascinating frontiers we have.”