Friends Central School
| Friends' Central School | |
|---|---|
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| Location | |
| Wynnewood, PA, USA | |
| Information | |
| School type | Private |
| Established | 1845 |
| Headmaster | Craig Normile Sellers |
| Grades | N–12 |
| Gender | Co-educational |
| Enrollment | 802 |
| Student to teacher ratio | 9:1 |
| Athletics conference | Friends' Schools League |
| Mascot | Phoenix |
| Average SAT scores (2010) | 649 Math 669 Verbal 666 Writing |
| Affiliation | Quaker |
| Website | www.friendscentral.org |
Friends' Central School (FCS) has been consistently ranked among the best-performing academic, athletic, and artistic college-preparatory schools in Greater Philadelphia. It is a Quaker school which educates students from Nursery through Grade 12 and is located in Wynnewood, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania in Greater Philadelphia.
The school was founded in 1845 in Philadelphia, near the current location of the United States Mint and currently has an enrollment of more than 800 students from Nursery to grade 12.
Informally known as "Friends' Central," the school encompasses three divisions: Lower School (nursery through 5th grades), Middle School (6th through 8th) and Upper School (9th through 12th). The Middle and Upper Schools share their campus, and the Lower School occupies its own site.
The school is widely known for the quality of its education, consistently as one of the top schools in the Philadelphia area.
Friends' Central School was founded in 1845 in Philadelphia at 4th Street and Cherry Street, serving as an upper school for the Quaker primary schools with grades 7 through 12. In 1857, the school moved to 15th and Race Street, remaining at this location until 1925, when it then moved to its current campus on City Avenue (formerly the Wistar Morris Estate). The main house of the estate, constructed in 1862, remains and serves as the administrative building of the school as well as an architectural focal point of the campus. In 1988, due to the growth of the student body, Friends' Central acquired the Montgomery School's property and relocated the lower school there. Recent expansion includes construction of the Shimada Athletic Center (2000) and the Fannie Cox Center for Science, Math and Technology (2003). In 2011, David Felsen retired after 23 years of service as headmaster; beginning in the 2012 school year, Craig Sellers was named Head of School.
Quaker values such as community, service, equality and integrity are all incorporated into student life. All students attend a weekly Meeting for Worship on Wednesdays for 40 minutes, sharing messages when "moved to speak". The community convenes in one room in silence and individuals stand when expressing thoughts to the community. Students are also required to perform off-campus service for a set of mandatory hours. In the middle and upper school, students are required to take three religious courses concerning the history of the Society of Friends and the central philosophies of Quakerism from a non-religious perspective. In middle school, 5th and 7th grade learn the history and faith of Quakerism, and the 9th grade course further explores the Quaker faith and practice, focusing on a deeper understanding of the religion's history and its testimonies. 11th and 12th graders may take additional study in the origin and philosophy of religion in general.
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