In the three decades after Urban’s founding, students spent their breaks between classes building hammocks in the school bus and skipped class to attend a rock concert with their teachers. In the past ten years, hallway banter often covers topics such as worries about science grades or discussion of college acceptance rates, and one can find clusters of students studying for quizzes during lunch. 

As Urban has become a more traditional schooling environment, it has lost the unconventional approaches to learning that sets it apart from other schools — its Urban-ness. Urban needs to lean back into the unique qualities it still has to reclaim some of that lost Urban-ness.

Urban is built on the philosophy that learning is an active and joyful process of discovery, meant to inspire students to learn beyond the classroom, to engage with communities and to dive deeply into topics and passions.

“Urban knows that its quirkiness makes the community stronger,” said Audrey Thornton ’26, whose family friends have attended Urban for generations. “It makes life for the students better, even though it’s kind of going against the grain of what a traditional education or schooling might look like.”

In the past, Urban-ness has looked like unorthodox scheduling, immersive field trips and students not receiving grades at the end of a term. When Richard Lautze, math teacher from 1981 to 2022, first began teaching at Urban, students had a 90-minute lunch break. 

“When I got [to Urban], I suggested to the faculty that maybe we should require some things [during lunch],” Lautze said in a 2024 interview with The Urban Legend referring to affinity spaces, activities or classes that would make the long lunch more structured. “The faculty then told me I didn’t understand Urban. ‘We need to let [the students] explore their passions,’ they said. ‘You just have to let them fail. And then once they fail and they come back, they’re going to be totally into it.’”

That philosophy extended into off-campus experiences. “My class went [on a trip] to Hawaii for Marine Biology. One of the things that we did was hike up to this place above the Seven Sacred Pools in Maui, and [we] jumped off a 40-foot cliff,” Erika Lenkert ’85 said in a 2024 interview with The Urban Legend. “[It] was one of the most thrilling and terrifying things I’ve ever done, and [it] unquestionably would not be allowed by any academic [institution] now.’”

These excursions into the real world are far less common at Urban today, but bringing them back would better inspire students to more fully engage with the world beyond the classroom. 

As Urban has expanded, the school has lost a great deal of the uniqueness that once invited students to explore their passions. From a stronger emphasis on grades to mandatory college counseling and cuts on sports teams, Urban is morphing into a college preparatory institution much like other independent Bay Area high schools.

Urban’s more structured environment has weakened the emphasis on passion-driven learning, creating a harmful culture where achievement matters more than deep curiosity. “I noticed that a lot of students are focused on grades. In class and outside of class, there’s a lot more talk of what you got on your English assignment, what you got on your math test,” Shay Buskirk ’29 said. “I rarely hear students talk about how they enjoy the learning process and more about the outcomes of the assignments.”

As this culture spreads, Urban must refocus the classroom on genuine learning rather than grade-centric achievement.

“There’s much more of a sense of [Urban] as a rigorous academic program and prep school,” said English Department Chair Cathleen Sheehan, who began teaching at Urban in 1995. “[It]’s hard to maintain, but we really need to keep the pressure off the grade or … only trying to achieve the grade.” 

Urban is different from what its founders intended it to be due to larger societal changes. Higher education is now an expectation for students in order to build a secure life, and college acceptance rates continue to reach all-time lows. Many top universities admissions departments prioritize course rigor, high grade-point averages and test scores, creating a system in which students who attend more rigorous college preparatory schools often have a better chance of admission. 

While many believe Urban has lost its Urban-ness, there are still things that make the school special. “The degree to which students run clubs and have a voice in the school is unique. We really want students to shine, … [and] I really love that,” Sheehan said.

Urban should lean into its remaining unique qualities to bring back its true Urban-ness. Classes should go into the world more, have more independent projects and more flexible curricula. Students should focus on their learning and passions over grades, and, in doing so, find an Urban-ness that fits into the world we live in today.