Location: North Austin
12251 Running Bird Lane
Austin, TX 78758
Students served: 18 months through Grade 7
Current enrollment: 75 total. Toddler class ratio 1:4. PreK class ratio 1:5. K–Middle School class ratio 1:5.
Model/philosophy: Wholesome Generation’s mission is to inspire students to create deeply nourishing experiences, leading to academic and personal growth and happiness. The innovative learning community creates classroom, farm, and wilderness adventures, engaging learners’ minds, hands, and hearts. The healing program honors and holds space for all to reclaim and reconnect to the land and food systems and to move into creating. Teachers share healing modalities such as self-care and community health, while inspiring with Reggio Emilia–focused teaching based on play, pace, and progress. There is a strong emphasis on science exploration, entrepreneurial learning, equine therapy, fine arts, and social-emotional skill building.
Special features: WG’s program encourages youth to connect to nature and create via entrepreneurship lessons, Rewilding Camps, and equine therapy. Equine activities improve student confidence, self-assurance, verbal communication, focus, and mindfulness, and help develop problem-solving strategies and skills. WG empowers students to use its Equine model as a guiding light to develop their own business ideas, present them to the school community, and get support in fundraising for those projects. Diet-specific, local/organic, refined-sugar-free, gluten-free, vegan/vegetarian lunch and 2 snacks made fresh on site are included in tuition.
Schedule: 8:30am–4:30pm. After-care will be offered starting August 2024. Wholesome Generation follows the AISD calendar, with the exception of the summer, when it offers 8 full weeks of Rewilding youth camps (same hours as during the school year). All classes are offered year-round (with the same hours).
Tuition: Wholesome Generation accepts Workforce Solutions/CCMS for student scholarships. It is also a United Way/AISD approved classroom and accepts qualifying students (PreK3, PreK4) with a prorated, discounted rate. Full-time tuition for parents not qualifying for the low-income scholarship are offered a $1,200 monthly tuition rate (including 2 organic snacks and full lunch daily).
Contact: Lene Saint-Orens | lene@wholesomegeneration.org | 254-338-1333
Each listing in this alphabetical directory gives you a snapshot of a small, independent, alternative school in the Austin area.
This frequently updated list spans several pages, with navigation buttons at the bottom. Clicking on the name of a school will take you to its own website. To easily find schools by geographical area, see our Alt Ed Maps page. If you know of a school that’s missing from this directory, please drop a note here, and see Alt Ed Austin’s criteria for “alternative” and “school.” You may also be interested in our directories of other recommended schools (which are mostly larger or more specialized or religiously oriented), as well as special programs for children and adults.
Full disclosure: Alt Ed Austin founder Teri Sperry has ties with several of the schools listed on this site. Her child, now in graduate school, attended two of them years ago. She has friends who direct, teach at, or are otherwise involved in others. Some programs choose to advertise from time to time on Alt Ed Austin as Sponsoring Partners. She firmly believes that all of the schools featured on this site (including the ones to which she has no personal connection and those from which she receives no advertising fees) are good choices for some kids, each for different reasons.
