Program and Tuition Information
Campus Location
6691 Owens Dr
Pleasanton, CA 94588
To ensure equity and access, we offer individualized family tuition rates. Families submit their financial information via TADS online in order to determine a tuition level that is equitable for their family. Families are provided their tuition rate at the time of scheduling a shadow period and subsequently, upon offer of 90 day enrollment.
Download Enrollment Information ↓Pleasanton in action!
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Learn About Pleasanton!
About Us!
Our Pleasanton campus is spacious and new! We opened our doors to this site in August of 2021 and have been building our community ever since! Located within a business park, our school has a large gym and open space in the middle of the campus. Students engage in classes, coaching, and a quiet space to take a break in the smaller rooms. Although we do not have access to much outside space, our students love to play on the play structure we are constantly building and join our Walking Club for outside time. Students join us from surrounding areas and Pleasant Hill, Oakland, Castro Valley, Burlingame, Fremont, and Cambell.
What Makes Us Different?
Our campus opened as students began returning to school from the pandemic. The new community of students have been building our culture at school ever since. Almost all of our faculty have been on our campus since the day we opened our doors! Our parent community is very close and supportive.
Our students love to play together and with us. We often spend time creating new games, walking our fantasy animals around the campus, and engaging in role play games like Dungeons and Dragons. Our students love digital art, topography, anime, animals, robotics, and philosophical debates. We are very into watching scientific videos like Kurzgesagt, playing Minecraft, and all things large (buildings, volcanoes, mountains, vehicles, etc.). You can often find students riding scooters around campus, cheering on student-led musical concerts, or exploring our communities on our many field trips!
Billy Bouzos
Interim Pleasanton Site Director 2024-2025
Billy Bouzos is an educator, musician, community organizer, and 2e person. He has a diverse background uniquely suited to support the growth of our students and our school – spanning from being a pillar of the Oakland and Berkeley underground art and music scene for more than a decade to holding leadership positions in various local start-ups (though, to be sure, this is a career track he is very much glad to have left behind). He has a bachelor’s degree from Santa Clara University, both in business and in music, as well as a minor in Latin.
Billy began his career with Big Minds in 2016 as a part-time driver for several of our former students between lengthy tours with his various bands and projects. He formally began working at the school as a literacy coach in 2018, and became the director of our flagship Pinole program in 2019. He now oversees the school's day-to-day operations as it relates to development, fundraising, growth strategy, budgeting and financial management, software development and implementation, human resources, and compliance.
He is passionate about his students, community, social justice, and music - and often finds these passions to be deeply interconnected. In his free time, he runs a boutique record label and art collective that organizes vinyl and cassette releases and produces events.
Star (they/them)
Lead Teacher and Art Teacher
Star is a queer non-binary, parent, mapa, and fine arts sculpture artist.They graduated from California College of Arts, specializing in multiple art disciplines. Their practice as an educator is based on wellness and sustainability. As well as inspiring and creating artistic magic in multiple mediums, Star in their off time is a LGBTQ+ EMcee, and gender-bending performance artist.
Cove (he/him)
Science Teacher
Cove has a strong background in biology, graduating with a bachelor of science in Neurobiology, Physiology, & Behavior from University of California, Davis. He has also worked in the UC Davis Department of Biochemistry lab and is excited to conduct experiments at Big Minds! Cove designs his classes to inspire 2e students to use current scientific knowledge to expand their understanding of the world and to discover new knowledge!
Ry (she/her)
Music Coach
Ry has been working as a recording engineer, live sound technician and musician for the past decade. She believes that everyone is able to have a unique relationship to art and music, and as long as a person is given the right environment to grow and learn, there is no limit to the ways that they can express themselves.
Emily (she/her)
Academic Coach
Emily is a graduate of San Francisco State University with a degree in Humanities, and has a great passion for all things literature and art, and feels that education is the most important job in the world. In her free time, Emily loves knitting, reading, and spending time in nature with friends. She is excited to find out what our 2e kids are passionate about and explore those things with them!
Parbat (he/him)
Math Coach
Parbat is a Math coach at Big Minds and he loves solving complex problems with students, being a self-taught gifted mathematician. He is proud to be a part of the Big Minds community and has been with the Pinole site for over four years. He likes solving puzzles, playing and teaching chess strategy, and films. He enjoys hiking, playing football, and engaging in all kinds of outdoor activities. He loves being a math coach, helping students accomplish their goals. He also has memorized an astonishingly high amount of the numbers of Pi!
Anthony (he/him)
History Teacher
Anthony has many passions which led him to Big Minds. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in History from CBU, where he also competed at the NCAA level in track & field. He moved to the Bay Area, continued his education, and became a full time college coach; most recently at Cal State East Bay. Anthony's love for learning has fueled many of his creative pursuits in music and art. He loves to uplift students to find their own strengths and uses history as a means to understand the world around us.
Walker (they/them)
Academic Coach
Walker is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in classical civilizations. They are, in their spare time, a musician and member of a community-forward art collective. Walker is a passionate adherent to the belief that education is a collaborative experience, and has a wealth of facts about whales at their disposal.
Lindsay (she/her)
Teacher's Assistant
Lindsay graduated from Boston University with a degree in History and Classics. She worked as a tutor and peer mentor throughout college and is passionate about exploring nontraditional curricula for History and the Humanities. She loves to read, sing, hike, and learn about the world from diverse perspectives.
A registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Big Minds Unschool
PO Box 22869
Oakland, CA 94609
(510) 630-2541
