Comfortably lodged in between Hayward’s Adult School and Thomas Brenkwitz Continuation High School, a new learning institution is emerging at Sunset High, which closed in 1990.

Silver Oak High is a publically funded Montessori charter school that opened their doors on Monday. The school is looking to expand hosting 60 students and nine teachers – three who are part time, said Head of School Elaine Blasi, who is in charge of the school’s curriculum.

“We are a community of learners, which means every adult here is a teacher,” Blasi said. “There are no administrators.”

The school started with the help of students and parents, who attended Hayward Unified School District meetings to push for Silver Oak’s opening, Co-Chair Steve Gayle said.  Him, along with Jackie Monterossa, played a major role in the school’s inception.

“The two of us divide the responsibilities,” said Gayle. “At the beginning, a lot of it was doing the set up and working with people to form committees, and now we’re going into a realm in which one of us takes the lead on strategic items and one takes on tactical items. Namely long-term items, like how we’re going to form committees.”

With roughly eight students in one class, the school has a different feel than traditional public high schools. There is no bell that warns students of class time, and the classrooms are compact, some contain small round tables scattered around the room, while others have floor pillows and musical instruments. No one classroom is a like.

The difference from conventional schools is the Montessori philosophy that was created by Dr. Maria Montessori, a scholar of biology, psychiatry, anthropology and medicine, according to the Silver Oak website. It states, her fascination with young children’s development sparked a realization “that children construct their own personalities as they interact with their environment.”

The idea is the students are empowered through self-motivation to learn Blasi said.

By Tuesday, students are separated into groups of three to four, where they will spend the semester together learning.

“[Our teacher] divided us randomly,” said Victor Ortiz, who is also attending freshman. “So I’m really going to get to know someone I didn’t know I would become friends with, so that’s a good way to meet new people and become closer to someone.”

Everyday the students hold community meetings in the morning, while the teachers prepare for class said Ortiz, who headed the meeting on the first day of school.

“First we start with soapbox, which is a way we have to entertain the group. Just five minutes of a quick thing, to get people to pay attention. After that, we do acknowledgements and announcements,” he said.

Although different from conventional schools, students like Luz Hernandez Arrillaga say they enjoy the curriculum more.

“I prefer Montessori to public schools, because I feel like Montessori classes, a lot of the time, are smaller so you get one-on-one time with the teachers,” said Arrillaga, a incoming freshman from the partner school Golden Oak.  “They are there, not just to improve your grade, but to help you.”

Yet, Gayle said the school is not for everyone and that you have to want to learn.

The school is still accepting applications through mid-September said Blasi, who noted they “don’t want the students to be too far behind in the marking period.”

Sunset High School closed due to the lack of attendance, though it played a major role in the community, hosting high school and students from the College of Alameda County, which is now CSU East Bay.