Wheeler School | |
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Address | |
216 Hope Street Providence, Rhode Island 02906 United States |
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Coordinates | 41°49′44″N 71°23′52″W / 41.828954°N 71.397875°WCoordinates: 41°49′44″N 71°23′52″W / 41.828954°N 71.397875°W |
Information | |
Type | Private |
Motto | The Spirit Giveth Life |
Established | 1889 |
CEEB code | 400170 |
NCES School ID | Wheeler: 01258081 Hamilton: A9300828 |
Head of School | Dan Miller |
Faculty | Wheeler: 123 Hamilton 16.3 |
Enrollment | Wheeler: 788 Hamilton: 72 |
Student to teacher ratio | 6.2:1 |
Campus | Urban, 12 acres (4.9 ha) Farm, 120 acres (49 ha) |
Color(s) |
Purple Gold |
Athletics | SENE and Rhode Island Interscholastic League |
Mascot | The Warrior |
Accreditation | NAIS |
Average SAT scores | 680 [Math] 660 [Reading] 690 [Writing] 2030 [Composite] |
Yearbook | Gyre |
Website | www |
The Wheeler School is a coeducational independent day school located on the East Side of Providence, Rhode Island, United States. The school serves students from the nursery level through twelfth-grade.
School founder, Mary Colman Wheeler was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on May 15, 1846. She graduated from Concord High School and Abbot Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. She began her educational career teaching mathematics and Latin in the Concord school system. In 1868, she moved to Providence, Rhode Island to teach at Miss Shaw's, a finishing school for young ladies. In the 1870s, Wheeler twice traveled to Europe to study art and painting and between her trips enrolled in a variety of art history courses taught by Brown University professors. In 1882, she opened an art studio in the Waterman Building on North Main Street in Providence. Two years later she moved into a house and studio she built at 24 Cabot Street and began to offer painting classes for young women three days a week, and for children on Saturdays. In addition she held an evening lecture series on Greek literature and early American history.
In 1887, Wheeler took a group of young women to Giverny, France for a summer of painting, art history and French. These trips were repeated many times through the next two decades and link Wheeler to a number of American Impressionist artists as well as French Impressionist Claude Monet.
In 1900, adding an academic college preparatory curriculum to her art instruction, Mary Wheeler accepted ten female students as boarders and officially founded The Mary C. Wheeler School. A building on Brook Street was purchased in 1898 to house girls enrolled in the preparatory program for her Cabot Street School.
In 1910, Hope Building was constructed to provide living and dining facilities required by a growing student body and faculty. In 1912 the original Fresh Air Building was completed, though it was later rebuilt. The Mary C. Wheeler School thus became one of the first American schools to use the principles of Dr. Montessori in its kindergarten instruction. Wheeler also purchased the Froebel Kindergarten School and the School admitted boys into its pre-primary grades until the 1950s.