The Crowden School

1475 Rose Street

Berkeley, CA 94702

13 Reviews

School District
Grade

K-8
Type

private

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Reviews

Submitted by parent on February 06, 2025

My daughter has been attending The Crowden school since 5th grade, and it has been such a wonderful experience for her. I homeschooled her since kindergarten, so I looked for a school where she could get close attention from teachers just like homeschooling. My daughter loves music and has been playing violin so the Crowden seemed to be a great fit. Teachers are superb - how they approach teaching - for example, math - not like how public school math class is taught, but a step further into conceptual, logical problem-solving methods - to deepen and challenge her into higher order reasoning skills. I was also impressed to see some niche books used among homeschool communities incorporated in the science/social science classes. And most of all, the core of the Crowden School is chamber music. Through chamber music, children at the Crowden School learn fundamental life skills that they can carry rest of their lives: they learn how to communicate with each other their opinions respectively, learn to listen to other people's ideas, learn to argue wisely whose ideas are they are going to go with, and learn to have patience for each other when others make mistakes or not do their best. Through the chamber music, these children form very strong bonds, and I can assure you that the friendship they create at the Crowden will last forever. I hear that the graduates from the crowden have long-lasting close supportive friendships after graduating. I think it is because they have done chamber music for years together. The teachers here are all very dedicated and very caring, as well as other parents are all so warm and welcoming. I highly recommend the Crowden School.
Submitted by parent on May 14, 2024

Crowden has many potentials especially for children with a passion for music. Our son is one of them. Unfortunately the Crowden experience quickly turned into a nightmare for our son after school started. He was bullied persistently by one of his classmates: Hitting, kicking and other physical aggressions. Despite meetings with the teacher, school counselor, and the principal, little was done to protect him. The teachers would just ask the bully to apologize and our son to accept the apologies and move on. We eventually had to withdraw our son before the end of school year. Since then, we heard that the bullying classmate was suspended twice for hitting other classmates. The student body is so small that the school really has no excuse to let this happen for so long and only took actions after things have been escalated to such extreme.
Submitted by parent on October 12, 2022

Our child is in their fourth year at The Crowden School, and it has been a great fit for our family. Crowden plays such an important role in our child’s life that it’s difficult to summarize for people who might not be familiar with the school. But here are the main things that we love about TCS:1) The music. Students at all levels of experience — even beginners — work with highly skilled professional musicians who are passionate about music and music education. The first two hours of each day are devoted to music: a rotating schedule of technique, orchestra, ensemble, and musicianship classes. The students perform regularly in groups (chamber orchestras and ensembles), and the whole school community cheers on their efforts. The love for music is pervasive, and creating music in small ensembles makes it more cooperative and less competitive.2) The teachers. The music, academic, and enrichment teachers whom we have encountered have been almost uniformly excellent: engaging, enthusiastic, caring, and knowledgeable. The small class size provides lots of time for individual attention, and no one gets left behind. We’re amazed by the thought and care that goes into planning each class — even the PE and art classes follow detailed syllabi. The academics are challenging but not overwhelming, and we’re confident that our child will be well prepared for high school.3) The students. Even before the pandemic, the number of students in each class was not larger than 15. The students all know everyone at the school, and no one gets lost in the crowd. It often feels more like a very large family than a school. With few exceptions, the kids we’ve encountered at TCS have been kind, enthusiastic, and supportive. They all seem to love reading, too, and it's a joy to see the students recommend and share favorite books just for fun.Our child enjoys going to school, delights in their classmates, loves playing and listening to challenging music, and is excited about their academic classes. We had high hopes for TCS, and the school has exceeded our expectations. We’re certain that it has been the best possible middle school experience for our child, and we recommend it without hesitation.
Submitted by parent on October 08, 2022

Crowden offers an experience like no other! My son attended several different grade schools but struggled with boredom, especially in math. He didn't understand the point of school if he wasn't learning anything so we started looking into private schools.He was immediately drawn to Crowden. He loved the challenge of learning a new instrument, we loved the fact that he was involved in group ensembles with other kids. In addition, the smaller class sizes meant that the teachers were more flexible and willing to tailor a math curriculum that was appropriate for him.Whether or not he pursues music seriously in the future, this has been a wonderful experience with unique opportunities that he will carry with him for the rest of his life. (But I do hope he continues with the cello because it's such a beautiful instrument...)
Submitted by parent on September 13, 2022

An small school built around chamber music. Kids start their day by making music together and than move on to excellent academics.
Submitted by parent on March 17, 2022

Not everyone liked the old principal. It is good the school is moving in a different direction, one that is more compassionate and honest. Given its change in direction, I would only now recommend the school. The complaints you are reading were part of the problem. Some families were immune because their children were well-liked and spotlighted but special treatment wasn't granted to everyone. What parent doesn't want to see their child shine?My ratings on specific topics are based on our experience under the old principal.
Submitted by parent on February 21, 2022

We have a child in the lower grades at the Crowden school. They love it! They love the friends they have made across all grade levels, and the music aspect is pretty incredible. They started their instrument with no experience in the third grade and 18 months later are practicing the first movement of a concerto- it's amazing what two hours of music a day, five days a week can do. We like the academic program- knowledgeable and caring teachers, small class size, and fascinating and socially aware curricula. It seems the school is trying to address the issues it had with the faculty. We know that our child is very happy here and we're happy to be a part of this community.
Submitted by parent on January 04, 2022

Administration seems to not care about wellbeing of students or families. After well loved principal and the best teacher was fired without knowledge of the community, the executive director never faced the families and never explained her decision. It really speaks a lot about school when politics play more important role than students.We had to leave the school as a result.
Submitted by parent on August 03, 2021

I am mom to two lower school students and find the experience so far exceptional. The academics, the teachers, the invaluable experience of playing in an orchestra and ensembles with other like minded students and so many inspired and inspirational musicians. While the music program was the biggest draw to Crowden for my family, the academics are also excellent. I was concerned my children wouldn't be able to "catch up" because they previously attended public schools. Now that they offer a 3rd grade program which helps them ease into the academics and their new environment. During the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, we could see a sizeable difference between the kind of education our two public school kids were receiving in Berkeley versus our one (at the time) that was enrolled at Crowden. I overheard a zoom lesson for 4th grade History and wanted to sit in and listen. I'm an engineer and hated history as a kid. The math program is on the more advanced side, and they have separate teachers for Science, Music History, and PE (as well as all music classes). The class sizes are on the small side, so each pupil gets a lot attention, and it makes it easier when handling pandemics when transitioning with back to school procedures. Crowden was particularly cautious and did weekly testing, which made us feel more at ease. Overall, we feel very lucky to have found a school like Crowden and our only disappointment is that they do not over high school. We love Crowden.
Submitted by parent on November 16, 2020

Our experience at Crowden (with multiple kids) has been truly exceptional. We feel so grateful to the staff and faculty, and really couldn't be happier. Our child emerged from middle school happy, and reflecting on his time at Crowden with joy. Not only that, our child is excited to go back to Crowden to watch concerts and cheer on younger students, even those he didn't know in his time at Crowden. Our youngest child is also thriving at Crowden, and has really found their place. Our children have really risen to the high expectations of Crowden, and have developed caring relationships with peers and teachers. They have learned how to accept and learn from constructive criticism and how to reflect on their own performance (both musical and academic). They have learned how to manage their time, keep themselves organized, and prioritize activities and extracurricular activities.No doubt Crowden is not for every kid, but it is absolutely the best middle grade experience I could imagine for my kids. I am so happy we've had the opportunity to send our children to Crowden.
Submitted by other on August 20, 2019

it was one of the worst experiences of my life i could not leave sooner
Submitted by parent on April 03, 2018

As the previous reviewer noted Crowden does not offer students job-relevant courses in accounting financial analysis marketing coding and microprocessor design to its 4th to 8th graders. Parents, beware that your child will not be ready for the labor market when they graduate in eighth grade. They may well have to go to high school and college to land the job that you envision for them. Crowden is also so anti-traditional that my eighth grader is finishing a standard high school freshmen algebra book in the first few months of the year has studied closely every line of the Odyssey worked on her conversational French and acted out scenes from Shakespeare plays. The younger students follow state standards for history. The school is open to minority and non-Western histories. I would not call the curriculum anti-establishment in orientation. What the school teaches has little to do with the general unease most parents feel about the current political situation. And I really don't know of studies that challenge the finding that music training has enormous cognitive benefits for children. For example, mathematics becomes embodied in them by working with time signatures. Playing an instrument is one long experiment in the physics of forces and vibrations. Music builds the skills of memory, and playing in ensembles teaches the children how to cooperate. And the Crowden School teaches kids that what seemed impossible at first can be achieved through practice. This is all over and above the pure joy music itself brings.So I do agree with the previous reviewer that the musical education is worth the price of admission. The students learn music theory and history at the level of college freshmen by their eighth grade year and they are taught how to play as ensemble players and soloists. We have two daughters there. Our older one came in not knowing how to play the violin; that she is now good is not just our opinion or the opinion of her teachers at the school. And it has everything to do with the love of music the school inspired in her and the technical instruction they have given her. Our younger one wakes up in the morning ready to skip to school out of sheer joy; and was able to play a bit of the Ode to Joy on her cello for her first school concert.
Submitted by parent on August 22, 2017

The school is clearly divided between the academic side and the music side. Most people go there because they are attracted by the music side. And the musicians who run the music side are just wonderful, great, devoted, and excellent musicians. The musical training alone is worth the cost of admission. A great musical environment. However, the academic side is a problem. It would seem that this side has been taken over by the Berkeley style of destroy everything, respect nothing, anti-history, reject Americanism culture. The Berkeley culture can be a disease that infects everything. Unfortunately, this anti-establishment mentality creates nothing. It creates no viable symphony orchestras, it create no jobs for graduates, it fails to prepare students for the inevitable graduation from Crowden. OK, so you join the ranks of the Berkeley disenfranchised. Yet, you play the most traditional form of music -- classical music. This music needs established institutions to survive and to offer jobs to talented young musicians. The approach at Crowden is anti-establishment and destructive of its own needs. This is a problem for such a school in the Berkeley environment. Nothing of value tends to be created by the Berkeley style of anarchism. It would be great if Crowden could survive this anarchism. Hopefully, the musicians who founded Crowden will take over the academic side and help their students survive as musicians in the future.