The Branson School
The Branson School (also known as Branson, Branson School, or KBS) is a co-educational college-preparatory high school for students in grades 9–12. The school has 320 students, and is located in Ross, California, north of San Francisco. History. Origins. In 1916, a group of 15 families in Marin County, California, pooled resources to start a local private school. The Little Gray School was finished in 1917 on the Cochrane Estate in San Rafael, California, next to what is now the San Rafael Public Library. The school began as a coeducational primary school, for students in  grades 1–4. In 1918, the school added intermediate and upper levels, both of which were limited to girls, and was renamed the San Rafael School for Girls.<ref name="Our History / Branson's History"></ref> In April 1920, the school's trustees appointed two co-headmistresses, Katharine Fleming Branson and her sister Laura Elizabeth Branson. The elder of the two sisters, Katharine Fleming Branson, was Associate Director of Studies at the Beard School in Orange, New Jersey. Laura Elizabeth Branson was a teacher of mathematics and science at The Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and had formerly served as head of  the Department of Mathematics at Rosemary Hall in Greenwich, Connecticut. Both sisters were cum laude graduates of Bryn Mawr College. On September 6, 1920, The Katharine Branson School officially opened, with 54 students enrolled in grades 1–11. The following year, the school added a kindergarten and a 12th grade, and in 1922 moved to its present campus in Ross, California. At its inception, the school included boys in the lower grades, but in the ensuing years the lower grades were discontinued, and the school became a boarding school for young women. In 1959, the Katharine Branson School became a secondary  school for both day and boarding students. In 1972, the school's board of trustees established Mount Tamalpais School, a day school for boys on the Katharine Branson School campus. MTS, with the same academic standards and basic philosophy as KBS, also shared a common board of trustees, faculty, and administrative staff. The boys' school used the upper part of the Katharine Branson School campus for their first years in operation, while the girls' classes took place on the lower part of the campus. In January 1978, after extensive deliberation, the trustees decided to accept no further applications from boarding  students, making 1981 the final year with boarding students. One former student has alleged that the school condoned teacher and student relationships. There was also a law firm report that illustrated the permissive culture of the school. The school initially seemed to take the investigation seriously, however there's no comment about it on this page. The actual report that named sex offenders sparked an investigation at University High School where the coach Randy Taylor was employed after Branson. Coeducation. The division of the two schools by gender started to become obsolete by the 1980s, as the two schools shared  faculty, trustees, and curriculum. In July 1985, The Katharine Branson School and the Mount Tamalpais School were finally merged into one coeducational private day school, under the name The Branson School. Today the school is approximately evenly composed of boys and girls. Campus facilities. Athletic Facilities. The Gym at Branson has a new court and an old court