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Friends Seminary | |
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Address | |
222 East 16th Street , 10003 | |
Coordinates | 40°44′02″N73°59′07″W / 40.733997°N 73.985279°W |
Information | |
School type | Private |
Religious affiliation(s) | Quaker |
Founded | 1786 |
Principal | Robert "Bo" Lauder |
Faculty | 180 |
Grades | K–12 |
Gender | Mixed gender |
Age range | 5-19 |
Enrollment | 794 (2022-2023) 308 Upper School 222 Middle School 264 Lower School |
Average class size | 15 students |
Campus type | Urban |
Colour(s) | Red and White |
Song | "Alma Mater" [1] |
Athletics | 31 teams |
Mascot | Owl |
Accreditation | NYSAIS [2] |
Newspaper | The Insight |
Tuition | U.S.$53,900.00 [3] |
Former name | Founded as Friends Institute (1786-1860) |
Website | http://www.friendsseminary.org |
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 [2] 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. [4] Friends is a member of New York's Independent School Diversity Network.
Robert "Bo" Lauder is principal, the school's 35th. Lauder came to Friends in the fall of 2002 after serving as Upper School Head at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C.
Friends Seminary, established by members of the Religious Society of Friends, whose members are known as Quakers, was founded in 1786 as Friends' Institute through a $10,000 bequest of Robert Murray, a wealthy New York merchant. It was located on Pearl Street in Manhattan and strived to provide Quaker children with a "guarded education." In 1826, the school was moved to a larger campus on Elizabeth Street. Tuition in that year was $10 or less per annum, except for the oldest students, whose families paid $20. [5] (By 1915, tuition had risen to $250. [6] ) The school again moved in 1860 to its current location and changed its name to Friends Seminary.
In 1878, Friends Seminary was one of the earliest of schools to establish a Kindergarten. In 1925, it was the first private co-educational school to hire a full-time psychologist. [7] M. Scott Peck, who transferred to Friends from Phillips Exeter in late 1952, praised the school's diversity and nurturing atmosphere. "While at Friends," he wrote, "I awoke each morning eager for the day ahead ... [A]t Exeter, I could barely crawl out of bed." [8]
In 2015, based on recommendations made in 2005 by the Trustees of the New York Quarterly Meeting after completion of a study, the New York Quarterly Meeting reached consensus on the issue of incorporating the school and the New York Quarterly Meeting separately. [9] Under the agreement, Friends Seminary will pay the New York Quarterly Meeting $775,000 annually, and both sides will contribute an additional $175,000 to a capital fund to preserve the historic buildings. The Quakers will continue naming half the members of the school's governing board, and the agreement establishes a six-person committee to foster the school's commitment to Quaker values.
The school is divided into three sections:
The campus comprises six buildings. The largest building, known as Hunter Hall, built in 1964, holds classes for the entire Middle School, most of the Lower School and some of the Upper School. The building contains a basement-level gymnasium and cafeteria, library and media center, science laboratories, art studios, computer laboratories and classrooms for all grades.
Attached to the school is the historic Meetinghouse and The Fifteenth Street Monthly Meeting of The Religious Society of Friends. The Meetinghouse plays an integral part in student life at Friends Seminary. Outside the front doors of the Meetinghouse is the courtyard used for recess and other activities.
In 1997, the school purchased and renovated a former German Masonic Temple located on 15th Street. [11] The new building, called "The Annex", incorporates "green technology" to create a building with less of an ecological footprint than many other buildings in the city. The Annex includes more science labs, as well as three multi-use classrooms, and a black box theater.
The Meetinghouse, located on 15th Street at Rutherford Place (next to Stuyvesant Square), serves both as a place of worship and, traditionally, as a performance space, although the school has opted as of 2011 to perform in the Vineyard theatre on 15th Street. The Meetinghouse also serves as a home for the school's music program.
Friends Seminary completed an extensive redevelopment project in 2019. They designed an entirely new structure behind the facades of three 1852 townhouses and connected them seamlessly to the School's main building. The new structure provides separate access for the Upper School, in addition to a "Great Room," which is a multipurpose gathering space that opens onto a courtyard. The new space also features an Upper School Commons and Terrace along with new classrooms are that grouped around shared study and locker areas. A rooftop Greenhouse and play area was also developed.
Tuition for the 2023–2024, school year for all grades is US$60.500. In addition, there are fees for meals, technology resources, etc., in combination with the expense for books for grades 9–12, that would add approximately $6,000-$8,000 to the cost of attendance.
Sidwell Friends School is a Quaker school located in Bethesda, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., offering pre-kindergarten through high school classes. Founded in 1883 by Thomas W. Sidwell, its motto is "Eluceat omnibus lux", alluding to the Quaker concept of inner light. All Sidwell Friends students attend Quaker meeting for worship weekly, and middle school students begin every day with five minutes of silence.
Brooklyn Friends School is a school at 375 Pearl Street in Downtown Brooklyn, New York City. Brooklyn Friends School (BFS) is an independent, college preparatory Quaker school serving a culturally diverse educational community of approximately 900 students as of 2017–18, from preschool through 12th grade.
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.
Friends School of Baltimore is a private Quaker school in Baltimore, serving students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.
Haddonfield Friends School (HFS) is a private, Quaker coeducational day school in Haddonfield, in Camden County, New Jersey, United States. The school serves students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade.
Abington Friends School is an independent Quaker school in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, United States, serving students from age 3 to grade 12. Abington Friends School has stood on its original campus in the Abington Township neighborhood of Jenkintown 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.
A Friends meeting house is a meeting house of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), where meeting for worship is usually held.
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.
Convent of the Sacred Heart is an American independent Roman Catholic all-girls' school in the Manhattan borough of New York City.
Princeton Friends School (PFS) is an independent Quaker day pre-Kindergarten-8th grade school in Princeton, New Jersey. It is under the care of Princeton Monthly Meeting and located on the Meeting's historic Stony Brook Meeting House and Cemetery property, adjacent to both the Institute for Advanced Study Woods and the Princeton Battlefield. The school is governed by a board of trustees that includes members of the Religious Society of Friends, attenders of the Princeton Monthly Meeting, parents of students in the school, and members of the broader Princeton community.
The Friends School of Atlanta (FSA) is an independent school in Decatur, Georgia, United States for PreK3 through 8th grade.
Friends Meetinghouse is a historic Quaker meeting house at 4th and West Streets in Wilmington, Delaware in the Quaker Hill neighborhood. The meeting is still active with a membership of about 400 and is part of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. It was built in 1815–1817 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
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 ofd 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.
Millville Friends Meeting House is a meeting house located in Millville, Pennsylvania, and serves as a place of worship for the Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers.
Frankford Friends School is an independent, coeducational Quaker day school for students in grades Pre-Kindergarten through eight. It is located at 1500 Orthodox Street in the historic Frankford section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting is a monthly meeting (congregation) of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). First meeting in 1924, they were the first "United" monthly meeting, reconciling Philadelphia Quakers after the Hicksite/Orthodox schism of 1827. The original Meeting House, built in 1931, was located at 100 E. Mermaid Lane in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was replaced in 2012-2013 by the current meeting house, located at 20 E. Mermaid Lane, which incorporates a Skyspace designed by Quaker light artist James Turrell, the second such installation to be incorporated into a working religious space. The new Quaker meeting house is the first to be built in Philadelphia in eighty years.