PFS History: "In 1781, a small school was opened in what we now call the Administration Building, on the 10-acre grounds of the Princeton Monthly Meeting. Contrary to the times, the little Quaker school was open to all, and students included children of slaves and Native Americans. A larger one-room schoolhouse, adjacent to the Meetinghouse, was built in 1800 and served the community for decades. After it fell into disrepair, the old schoolhouse was dismantled around 1900.
Almost 100 years later, Princeton Friends School was founded in 1987 by a small group of educators inspired by the ideals of both Friends education and progressive education. Renting space from Princeton Monthly Meeting, and later coming “under the care of” that meeting, the school opened with 19 students in 1st through 7th grades, two full-time teachers (Head of School Jane Fremon and Gale Whittier), and two part-time teachers (Assistant Head Nancy Wilson and PFS math teacher and advisor Richard Fischer). As the school gradually expanded over the following years, Princeton Monthly Meeting gave permission for the construction of a permanent home – the Schoolhouse – on the property.
In September 1997 the Schoolhouse opened its doors, providing for the school a central library, a large assembly space, faculty office space, and six classrooms. Portable classrooms in trailers that had for several years graced what is known as the school's “back circle” were retired, and Princeton Friends School now had the space to serve its enrollment of 125 students.
Ten years later, West House, with its two primary classrooms, two science labs, a Learning Center, an art room, and a nurse's office, opened its doors in September 2008. An outdoor hard-surface play court, an expanded playground, and a pair of outbuildings were also included in this project. "[3]
As of 2024, the interim headmaster is Craig Sellers. There is a search for a permanent head of school.
George School is a private Quaker boarding and day high school located on a rural campus in Middletown Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It has been at that site since its founding in 1893, and has grown from a single building to over 20 academic, athletic, and residential buildings. Besides the usual college preparatory courses, including an International Baccalaureate program, the school features several distinct programs deriving from its Quaker heritage. These include community service requirements, an emphasis on social justice and environmental concerns, required art courses, and community-based decisionmaking.
Friends Seminary is an independent K-12 school in Manhattan within the landmarked district in the East Village. The oldest continuously coeducational school in New York City, Friends Seminary serves 794 students in Kindergarten through Grade 12. The school's mission is to prepare students "not only for the world that is, but to help them bring about a world that ought to be." It is guided by a service mission statement and a diversity mission statement. Friends is a member of New York's Independent School Diversity Network.
One-room schools, or schoolhouses, were commonplace throughout rural portions of various countries, including Prussia, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Spain. In most rural and small town schools, all of the students met in a single room. There, a single teacher taught academic basics to several grade levels of elementary-age children. While in many areas one-room schools are no longer used, some remain in developing nations and rural or remote areas where scarce students and/or teachers complicate organizing the educational process differently.
Friends Select School (FSS) is a college-preparatory, Quaker school for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade located at 1651 Benjamin Franklin Parkway at the intersection of Cherry and N. 17th Streets in Center City Philadelphia. Quaker education in Philadelphia dates back to 1689. Friends Select, which was founded in 1833, has been located on this site since 1885.
Media-Providence Friends School is a Quaker school founded as Media Friends School in Media, Pennsylvania in 1876.
Sandy Spring Friends School (SSFS) is a progressive, coeducational, college preparatory Quaker school serving students from preschool through 12th grade. SSFS offers an optional 5- and 7- day boarding program in the Middle School and Upper School. 59% of its student body identifies as students of color, and 19 countries are represented in its boarding program. Founded in 1961, its motto is "Let Your Lives Speak" an old Quaker adage which expresses the school's philosophy of "educating all aspects of a person so that their life—in all of its facets—can reveal the unique strengths within." SSFS sits on a pastoral 140-acre campus in the heart of Montgomery County, Maryland, approximately midway between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. SSFS is under the care of the Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting and the Baltimore Yearly Meeting.
An open classroom is a student-centered learning space design format which first became popular in North America in the late 1960s and 1970s, with a re-emergence in the early 21st century.
Coventry Christian Schools (CCS) is a pre-K-12 classical Christian school located in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded by superintendent Mark E. Niehls. CCS first opened its doors in 1984 with only seven students in a two-morning preschool taught by two volunteer teacher
Abington Friends School is an independent Quaker school in Abington Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States, with a Jenkintown postal address. Serving students from age 3 to grade 12, Abington Friends School has stood on its original campus since 1697, and is the oldest primary and secondary educational institution in the United States to operate continuously at the same location under the same management. The school draws students from approximately 75 ZIP codes around the greater Philadelphia area, as well as international students from many regions of China.
Education in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania began with Benjamin Franklin's founding of the University of Pennsylvania as European styled school and America's first university. Today's Philadelphia region is home to nearly 300,000 college students, numerous private and parochial secondary schools, and the 8th largest school district in the country.
Norwood School is an independent co-educational day school in Bethesda, Maryland for students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade from 49 zip codes in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Norwood was founded in 1952. The school is located within the Potomac census-designated place, and it has a "Bethesda, Maryland" mailing address. The current head of school is Matthew A. Gould.
Pickering College is an independent, co-educational school for children in grades from Junior Kindergarten through grade 12. It is located in Newmarket, Ontario in Canada on a 17-hectare property on Bayview Avenue. The school accepts both day students and boarders.
Newtown Friends School is a coeducational prekindergarten through eighth grade Quaker independent school founded in 1948 and located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Though its name and address indicate it is in Newtown Township, it is physically located in Middletown Township. Newtown Friends' campus adjoins with that of George School.
Olney Friends School is a small, co-educational boarding and day school affiliated with the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Barnesville, Ohio, the school "challenges students to grow, celebrates intellectual vigor, provokes questions of conscience, and nurtures skills for living in community." Students come from around Ohio, around the country, and around the world to study the college prep curriculum. Currently (2017-2018), the school is attended by 53 students from 14 US states and 10 countries.
The Plainview-Old Bethpage Central School District (POBCSD) is the public school district which serves the Nassau County, Long Island communities of Plainview and Old Bethpage, as well as small parts of Farmingdale.
Stony Brook Meeting House and Cemetery are historic Quaker sites located at the Stony Brook Settlement at the intersection of Princeton Pike/Mercer Road and Quaker Road in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The first Europeans to settle in the Princeton area were six Quaker families who built their homes near the Stony Brook around 1696. In 1709 Benjamin Clark deeded nine and three-fifths acres in trust to Richard Stockton and others to establish a Friends meeting house and burial ground.
Oakwood Friends School is a college preparatory school located at 22 Spackenkill Road in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. With roots going back to Nine Partners Boarding School, founded in 1796, it is the oldest co-educational boarding and day school in New York state.
Westfield Friends School is a private, coeducational Quaker day school in Cinnaminson, New Jersey, United States, within the Philadelphia metro area. Founded in 1788 and under the care of the Westfield Friends Meeting, it is the oldest Friends school in the United States operated by a meeting. The school's grounds are an 8+1⁄2-acre suburban campus.
A two-room schoolhouse is a larger version of the one-room schoolhouse, with many of the same characteristics, providing the facility for primary and secondary education in a small community or rural area. While providing the same function as a contemporary primary school or secondary school building, a small multi-room school house is more similar to a one-room schoolhouse, both being architecturally very simple structures. While once very common in rural areas of many countries, one and two-room schools have largely been replaced although some are still operating. Having a second classroom allowed for two teachers to operate at the school, serving a larger number of schoolchildren and/or more grade levels. Architecturally, they could be slightly more complex, but were still usually very simple. In some areas, a two-room school indicated the village or town was more prosperous.
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