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Hawken School is an independent, coeducational, college preparatory day school in Northeast Ohio. It serves approximately 1,300 boys and girls between preschool and grade 12. It has expanded significantly since 2006.

Hawken has four campus locations across the greater Cleveland area. The Lower and Middle Schools (Preschool-Grade 8) are in Lyndhurst; the Birchwood School of Hawken (also Preschool-Grade 8) is in Cleveland, on the near west side; the Upper School (grades 9-12) is in Chester Township, (although it uses the adjacent town of Gates Mills for its mailing address and campus name); and an extension campus for all grade levels, the Sally & Bob Gries Center for Experiential and Service Learning, is in the University Circle neighborhood of Cleveland.

Hawken's two mottos are “Fair Play” and "That the better self shall prevail, and each generation introduce its successor to a higher plane of life." The latter is from John Lancaster Spalding's Education and the Higher Life. D. Scott Looney has served as the Head of School since July 1, 2006.

Hawken has long-standing rivalries with the three other founding members of the Cleveland Council of Independent Schools: Laurel School, Hathaway Brown School, and University School, although the others are each single-sex schools.

History
The school's founder and namesake, James A. Hawken, opened his school for boys in Cleveland's Hough neighborhood in 1915. It originally had 19 students and three teachers. First housed at 1572 Ansel Road, the school later moved to 1588 Ansel Road, shortly before relocating to its current Lyndhurst campus in 1922. Because James Hawken believed in one-on-one education for the boys at his school, the original building on the Lyndhurst campus, now containing part of the middle school, has many rooms designed to seat between eight and ten boys.

In 1961, the school, which previously ended at grade 9, added a 325-acre campus in Chester Township as the new Upper School. That campus now houses grades 9 through 12. The Upper School campus had previously been the Circle W farm, owned and operated by Walter C. White, president of the White Motor Company.

Hawken states that it was all-white until 1962, when it became the first private school in Cleveland to recruit and admit black students. The school changed from all-boys to co-ed in 1973.

On April 13, 1977, on the Gates Mills campus, an enormous old barn, a campus landmark that remained from the Circle W Farm and was used for an Animal Husbandry class, burned down. The Hawken barn fire was remembered decades later by firefighters as one of the biggest fires in local history. The barn had reportedly been built in 1922 at a cost of $1 million, and had been the largest dairy barn in Ohio.

In 1993, Hawken added a preschool.

Recent Expansion
In the fall of 2006, Lincoln Hall was added on to the Middle School, adding classroom space.

Before the 2007 football season, the Upper School football field was updated and renamed Walton Stadium, in honor of longtime coach Cliff Walton who coached the Hawken football team for 36 seasons before retiring at the end of the 2017 season. New turf was installed, and lights were put up.

In August 2010, Hawken opened an extension campus, formally known as the Sally & Bob Gries Center for Experiential and Service Learning, in the University Circle neighborhood of Cleveland. In a way, this development marked a full-circle return to the school’s urban roots, since the Gries Center is about 500 yards from Hawken’s original Ansel Road location.

In August 2013, the school completed an expansion and renovation of its Lower School, as Hurwitz Hall, adding more than 5,500 square feet of space.

In August 2016, the school completed a two-year, $26.5 million renovation and expansion of the Upper School academic building, now called Stirn Hall. The renovation and expansion was designed by Jonathan Kurtz of the Cleveland architecture firm Westlake Reed Leskosky. Its design and scale were inspired by the barn that had burned down in 1977. It increased the size of the academic complex from 84,000 to 106,000 square feet.

In October 2016, Hawken merged with Birchwood School, a co-ed, independent school on Cleveland’s west side that was founded in 1984 and serves preschool through grade 8. That school is now a fourth Hawken campus, known as the Birchwood School of Hawken. Birchwood had a significantly lower tuition than Hawken, and a more diverse student population (65 percent non-white, while Hawken was nealy 69 percent white). From the combination, Birchwood gained long-term stability after the future retirement of its founders, Chuck and Helene Debelak. Hawken gained the opportunity to expand into a new area of Cleveland and a new source of students, since the population growth in Cleveland’s eastern suburbs is, as school head Looney pointed out, "somewhat stagnant."

As a second phase of its westward expansion project, Hawken has announced plans to develop an early childhood education center in Gordon Square, near downtown Cleveland.

Student life
Students are divided into teams for organized competitions in sports and other activities: Vikings and Cyclops in the Lower School; Red and Gray in the Middle School; and Ansel, Bolton, Chester, and Mather Houses at the Upper School.

At the Upper School, for the last 3 weeks before Winter and Summer break students participate in the intensive study of only one course. The middle school students participate in "insights week", where they join an all day activity of their choice for one week after Winter Break.

In the fall of 2009, Hawken commenced a tablet computer program for grade 6 which later spread throughout the middle and high schools.

Clubs and activities
The Academic Challenge Team won Academic Challenge Television Finals in 2008 and placed second runner up at the state competition the next year. Most recently, the team placed 2nd as the state runners-up at the annual NAQT state tournament. The 2011-2012 season team was ranked in the top 25 in the United States.

The Hawken Speech & Debate Team has won multiple OHSSL State Championships (most recently in Congressional Debate and Public Forum Debate, both in 2013) as well as qualifiers to the National Forensic League annual National Tournament.

Athletics
Under the decades-long leadership of its legendary coach, Jerry Holtrey, Hawken has won far more state championships in boys' and girls' Swimming than in all other sports combined, as is shown in the list below. In February 2015, the Girls Varsity Swim Team won its 17th straight state title and 25th overall. It was the first state title under head coach Jim Bocci.

The Hawken football team was undefeated in 1965, 1985, and 1986. They were division five regional finalists in 1986 and state runner up in 1987, led by O.J. McDuffie, later of Penn State and the Miami Dolphins.

The women's soccer team had its best finish in school history in 2013, making it to State Championship for the first time. They were named CVC, district, and regional champions, as well as State finalists.

In the spring of 2015 the Boys Lacrosse team had one of their best runs in team history making it all the way to the state final four, beating arch rival University School to get to that point.

Ohio High School Athletic Association State Championships

 * Girls Golf - 2013
 * Girls Track - 1999, 2000
 * Girls Swimming - 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017
 * Boys Swimming - 1988, 1989, 2017
 * Boys Golf - 1977, 1978
 * Boys Soccer – 2000
 * Boys Lacrosse - 2002 (Not OHSAA sponsored)

Performing arts
The Upper School has an orchestra, a concert band, a theatrical group called the Hawken Players' Society and a Jazz Combo. The Lower and Middle Schools also run string, band, and jazz band classes.

Accreditation and membership

 * Accredited, Independent Schools Association of the Central States
 * Accredited, Ohio State Board of Education
 * Member, National Association for College Admission Counseling
 * Member, National Association of Independent Schools
 * Member, Ohio Association for College Admission Counseling
 * Member, College Board

Notable alumni

 * William Bayer, 1953, Edgar Award-winning crime fiction writer
 * Charles B. Bolton, American Dentist
 * G. Armour Craig, American academic and president of Amherst College
 * William Daroff, 1986, Jewish community leader
 * Ross Davies, 1980, co-founder and lead editor of The Green Bag law journal, law professor at George Mason University
 * Steven M. Dettelbach, 1984, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio
 * Scott Frankel, 1981, musician and Broadway composer
 * A. Marc Gillinov, 1980, heart surgeon at Cleveland Clinic, Judith Dion Pyle Chair in Heart Valve Research at Cleveland Clinic
 * Richard J. Green, 1983, American chemist known for his work against Holocaust denial
 * Peter Harrold, 2002, professional ice hockey player in the National Hockey League
 * Tim Hayes, screenwriter
 * Scott Healy, 1978, keyboardist for The Max Weinberg 7
 * Douglas Katz, 1988, leading Cleveland chef and restaraunterr
 * Arthur Laffer, 1955, economist
 * Jim Margolis, 1989, Emmy Award-winning producer
 * O.J. McDuffie, 1988, professional football player in the National Football League
 * Alan B. McElroy, screenwriter
 * Nick Minchin, 1971, Australian Senator and Minister for Finance and Administration
 * Molly Shannon, 1983, actress
 * Justine Siegal, baseball coach
 * Melanie Valerio, 1987, 1996 Olympic gold medalist in swimming
 * Evan Wright, 1983, writer for Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair