Founded in 1991, The Grauer School operates a six-acre campus on South El Camino Real in Encinitas's New Encinitas corridor as a WASC- and NAIS-accredited college preparatory school for grades 7 through 12. The school's Learn by Discovery® philosophy anchors a mandatory Expeditionary Learning program that cancels classes for two full weeks each year while students travel regionally and globally—a surf-team component trains at North County breaks alongside operators like Leucadia Surf School in Leucadia. Enrollment holds at approximately 160 students, a size backed by the school's research-based small-schools framework, and each graduate completes a minimum of five expedition weeks plus fifty community-service hours. Humanitarian-service modules partner with organizations including Coastal Roots Farm on Saxony Road for agricultural and sustainability coursework. The campus holds designation as the San Diego region's only UNESCO-Associated school, a recognition shared by fewer than 900 institutions in 37 countries. Senior capstone graduation petitions require students to demonstrate growth across six core values—resourcefulness, compassion, self-advocacy, perseverance, intellectual curiosity, and accountability—before a peer-and-faculty review panel.