Saying Yes to Students Who Need a Supportive School Community

“Ne Tentes Aut Perfice.” 

This is the Latin motto that students and faculty at Dunn School, a private co-ed college prep boarding and day school in Los Olivos, live by. It translates to, “Attempt not, but achieve.” And it perfectly represents the school’s deeply-felt community and entrepreneurial spirit.

Kalyan Balaven, Head of School at Dunn since 2021, talks about the important interlocking puzzle pieces that embody the school’s spirit and set Dunn School apart from other private schools. 

The first is a dedication to Whole Student Education, the guiding philosophy Dunn was founded on more than 65 years ago. Says Balaven, Dunn student life focuses on an all-encompassing experience – emotional, mental, physical, and social – and its goal to help students find their moral core. 

The second is Dunn’s entrepreneurial mindset. “That idea of getting it done. Not just talking about it, or attempting it, but to achieve it – we have to get it done,” Balaven says. 

Finally, Dunn is also a residential school, where the curriculum takes place “24/7.” Students often share meals, walks, and the give and take of ideas with their teachers throughout the day and evening.

Nowhere is this spirit more evident than in Dunn School’s push to provide financial aid and scholarship money to deserving students both locally and abroad.

“It’s really, really hard for me to say no to an impressive young person who’s trying to do something better for themselves… You feel the potential and just try to make it happen,” Balaven says.

And happen it does. In 2014, with help from generous grandparents of Dunn alumni students, the African Scholars Program was established to help up to three African students attend Dunn. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the school quickly reached out to their Central Coast community for help and the Emergency Ukrainian Student Scholarship was born, enabling the school to welcome six Ukrainian students to campus.

“We’re taking kids who’ve had a traumatic situation as a result of poverty or as a result of war and we’re supporting them,” Balaven says.

Founded by Anthony Dunn in 1957, the school sits on 55 bucolic acres and includes a middle school (added in 1978) and high school. Classes are small, teachers are passionate about the experiential curriculum, and graduates are so invested in their school that they’ve returned after becoming successes in life and endowed both an entire program (Jurgensen Entrepreneurship Program) and a dorm (Boone Hall).

With so much to offer, Balaven just wants to be able to offer more underserved students the opportunity to be able to experience that Dunn School spirit.