Sparhawk School
The History - A Dream Come True

The Sparhawk history is, in one way, over 50 years old, for the Sparhawk formula represents a lifelong dream-come-true for the school's founder and headmaster, Louise Stilphen. The school's enduring purpose is to be a place that honors children and celebrates ideas.

In September of 1994, Sparhawk School opened in the headmaster's Victorian home in Amesbury, Massachusetts, with an enrollment of 15 students in grades K-2. Year two, there were 35 students in K-3. We purchased a six-acre farm one mile from our original location and, for year three, enrollment increased to 76 students in grades K-7. We continued growing and adding buildings, once by construction and twice by moving antique houses to our campus that had been scheduled for demolition, and we grew some more, in enrollment and in grades offered. We introduced a high school program in September of 2001. Now what we call the FarmSchool is home to our lower school and our middle and high school programs are housed in what was a public elementary school building in Salisbury, Ma, just two miles from our lower school.

What started as a dream is now a reality shared in, and fostered by so many others, all partners in the fulfillment of the symphony of purposes that is Sparhawk. Some of our first students are now in graduate school.