The original campus was located at the Redwood Manor by Marymoor Park. It was soon relocated to the basement of the Eastside YMCA. In 1972, Dean Palmer moved the school to its current location in Redmond. The campus was originally a farm, and Overlake retrofitted a barn to facilitate its needs with the help of students. Overlake currently occupies. In addition to the main school buildings, the school's property also includes the headmaster's home, a parent center, several athletic fields, and a ropes course. In 2008 the Outdoor Wise Learning Spaces were created as a way to take advantage of the campus's expansive undeveloped acreage. But rather than clearing and developing those spaces, OWLS uses the property's signature rural nature for new outdoor learning spaces. The installations include an outdoor classroom, a fitness course, and a student art gallery; a weather station providing real-time readings online; and a 2.5-mile system of five trails, varying in length and difficulty, each including interpretive signs and trail marker posts. The humanities building was recently reconstructed and opened for classes in the spring of 2009. The Technology/Language Center was rebuilt and finished completion in the summer of 2011. The Fifth and Sixth Grade Center was the final building to be redone and was also completed in 2011.
Academics
Overlake offers honors tracks in science, math, English and history. Most students take more than one of the fourteen Advanced Placement courses offered in their junior and senior years. Students can study Spanish, French, Mandarin Chinese and Latin from sixth grade onward; at least three years of one language are required to graduate. Students are also given the opportunity to travel to a native country of the language they are studying during Project Week in high school. Overlake offers humanities electives, including "Race and Ethnicity", "Comparative Religion", "The Age of Genocide", "Constitutional Issues". Other electives span the sciences, including computer science. Many other electives for other courses are available as well. The student-teacher ratio at Overlake is nine to one and the average class size is thirteen.
The theater department at The Overlake School has grown substantially since the addition of The Fulton Performing Arts Center in 2002. Since then, the school has put on two to three performances per year. In 2005 the school became host for the August portion of the Seattle Chamber Music Society's summer festival of chamber music. Beginning in 2007, the school began to submit their theatre productions to the 5th Avenue TheatreHigh School Musical Awards program. The Fulton Performing Arts Center also houses the school's choir groups, orchestra, concert band, and jazz band.
Global service programs
In 2002, members of the Overlake community raised the funds to construct an elementary school in rural Pailin, Cambodia. This school serves students from pre-kindergarten through sixth grade. Beginning in 2003 and continuing every other year, the school has sent groups of fifteen to twenty students to Pailin to teach classes and connect with students. The participants in these trips have installed computers and internet on the campus and constructed a playground. The Overlake School has also sent students on service trips to Ghana and Uruguay, and to play baseball and participate in community service in the Dominican Republic.
