A small advertisement in The New Yorker of October 6, 1934, announced the opening of Miss Carden's School for Young Children. No one could have known that the "new school at 24 East 68th Street" would extend its "charming atmosphere" to classrooms across America.

The accomplishments of Miss Carden's students attracted the attention of educators. By the early 1940's, she was presenting courses in her educational philosophy and teaching techniques. She closed her school in 1949 to be of greater assistance to the teachers and schools who had chosen to use her curriculum. Over 250 public and private schools in twenty-two states now use Carden teaching materials.

The curriculum begins with three-year old children and continues through the grades, each level reinforcing and building upon the strengths gained by the student from the previous year.

The Carden Educational Foundation, organized in 1962, continues to preserve the integrity of the Carden Curriculum, while engaging in an ongoing program of development in keeping with current advancements in education. The Foundation provides a Carden credential program for teachers and oversees the integrity of the curriculum taught in schools across the country.

Since 1973 the Carden School of Santa  Clara has provided children with a Carden education and the Carden heritage. With 350 students from pre-Kindergarten through the Eighth Grade, the Carden School of Santa Clara sends its graduates to the best high schools in the Silicon Valley area.

In September 1999, our Carden School in Santa Cruz opened its doors to students in Kindergarten through Second Grade.  We now teach children from Kindergarten through the Eighth Grade. Having moved to a beautiful new campus in the fall of 2004, we are established in a home that will easily support our continued growth in enrollment and in academic programs.

As we enter into our eighth year in Santa Cruz, we have nearly 100 students enrolled from Kindergarten through the Eighth Grade.  While we have grown in student body with each successive year, we have limited our class size to 16 children in each grade.  In the 2006-2007 school year, we have a student: teacher ratio of 4:1.  We look forward to growing to enroll approximately 120 students by 2008.