Our Vision
Personal Academic Guides.
Our responsibility is guiding your student toward college success. Each North Fork School teacher continuously engages students at the edge of their abilities: we meet students where they are, and create personal tasks that usher them step-by-step toward challenging goals.
Students who work hard in high school do well in college -- regardless of grade point average. Consistent feedback on all assignments, and high expectations for homework help students see North Fork School teachers as personal guides to their future success.
Our small classes allow each student to share "ah-ha" moments every day. Projects and assignments that seem impossible at the beginning of each year forge exponential leaps in student self-esteem, academic confidence, and knowledge.
The integrated aspect of our core curriculum in grades 6-9 is essential for creating strong academic attitudes. Students connect ideas across their middle school humanities classes in history, literature, art, French, and drama. These insights build long-term interest and student investment in personal academic outcomes.
Students who begin the North Fork process in middle school achieve the most successful academic outcomes, but even students who start North Fork classes in high school discover huge benefits from our challenging coursework.
The most empowering result of taking North Fork high school English and history classes is that students know what professors expect in college classes, and understand how to perform well at a college level.
Students who complete several years of study at North Fork are confident and inspired, able to give and take constructive criticism as well as build new ideas both alone and within a team. They are, in short, the employees companies crave: creative thinkers who appreciate iterative design processes, and who can contribute without hesitation.
Marie Furnary
Head of School, English teacher
A break from the traditional day; learning to enjoy the process.
“I just had an assignment [at BSU] to analyze a poem in Spanish and I was so thankful for your [English] classes — that has been a common theme this year.
When Madison Lowe, now a Spanish teacher in Boise, entered McCall-Donnelly High School, she found “only a few difficult classes. After sophomore year,” Madi says, “despite that I might no longer be at the top of my class, I enrolled in the private North Fork School, and fretted all summer about the workload.”
”The first day, the short walk from my car into NFS took forever. My heart was pounding, my palms were sweaty, my knees were wobbly. Terrified that I wouldn’t be able to keep up, nor be capable enough to complete quality work, I had enrolled in English because it was my easiest subject. I joined a group of NFS peers who had attended for years, and the first day of class was a shock.”
”In the first ninety minutes, I heard more information than in a week of regular class. I was completely overwhelmed. The style of teaching was completely different, but I quickly became accustomed to the increased workload and expectations. I was soon working harder than I ever had in my school career.”
”The risk of enrolling in the North Fork School was one of the most important decisions I have ever made. For the first time, I was truly challenged. Every day I went to class knowing that it would be difficult, but also knowing it was worth the effort.”
— Madison Lowe, Head of the Language Department at
McCall-Donnelly High School, teaching all MDHS Spanish classes. MDHS salutatorian 2013; Boise State University 2017.