Selling food at the Oak Hill School Harvest Fair.

Oak Hill School, located in Marin City, California, provides a new model of therapeutic education for children with significant developmental challenges, including autism. In the fall of 2000, Ayrshire made the lead grant to Oak Hill, just as the school was opening its doors. The grant was catalytic. Not only did it help build basic infrastructure, but the grant was also critical for another reason: Ayrshire demonstrated unqualified confidence in the ability of Oak Hill’s founders to create something innovative, needed and sustainable.

We are proud of having built something worthy of that confidence. From its roots serving 4 children at the time of the grant, Oak Hill is now a thriving community of 21 children and families. The school provides a highly individualized, therapeutic education that has set children who were failing in regular schools on the road to independent, contributing adulthoods. To our knowledge, there is no school quite like it in the country — the quality of Oak Hill’s specialists and the integration of therapy into the classroom set the school apart.

Critically, Oak Hill’s reach extends beyond those that it serves directly. The school’s faculty now trains educators and parents across the state of California and around the country. At least 4 private schools nationwide have started with our model as an inspiration. Local public school districts have begun their own experiments copying our program. In 2004 and 2005, local television stations featured the school four times.

Moreover, as an indicator of success, in the five years since Ayrshire’s critical lead grant, Oak Hill has put itself on a firm financial footing. For the school year ending in June 2005, Oak Hill raised in excess of $425,000, more than half of which came from sources other than the school’s own families. The school enters 2005-06 with an operational surplus.

It is no exaggeration to say that in investing start-up capital for Oak Hill School, the Ayrshire Foundation has helped create an important new model that is changing the face of special education.