Head
School Report
2 0 1 2 – 2 0 1 3 A N N UA L R E P O RT
t h e s pa r k t h at k i n d l e s t h e m i n d a n d h e a r t
ILLUMINATES A LIFETIME
HEAD OF SCHOOL A Message from Steve Lisk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
FACULTY AND CURRICULUM Helping the Best Teachers Keep Learning.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-9 Building Relationships on Mutual Respect.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10-11 An Ever-Broadening Curriculum for Our Ever-Growing Student Body. . . . . . . . . . . 12-13
PROGRAMS
The Highest Guidance to Higher Learning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A New Age of Exploration.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 Good Apples Brighten the Bunch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arts and Athletics Get a Boost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
16-17 18-19 20-21 22-23
STUDENTS Strength in Numbers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26-27 A Full-Service Education .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28-29 Cougar Burgundy Goes Green. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30-31
CAMPUS MASTER PLAN The Path to the Future. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34-38
ANNUAL REPORT
Board of Trustees.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Report of Gifts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Benefactors’ Circle.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Gift Clubs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42-44 Giving by Constituency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45-51 Giving by Fund. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52-60 The Heritage Society. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Fundfest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61-62 EITC/OSTC Donors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
we are an institution with
POSITIVE MOMENTUM
T
hree years ago, after much thoughtful consideration of the school’s needs and consultation with teachers, parents, students and alumni, the LCDS Board of Trustees approved the 2010-2015 Strategic Plan, setting forth a number of aspirations and benchmarks for the school’s development.
In addition to acknowledging the dedicated donors in the Country Day community whose generosity helps ensure that our school continues to thrive and provide students the best education possible, the Annual Report of Charitable Gifts speaks to the health and well-being of this school.
Although the Annual Report is typically I’m very proud to report that we have produced as its own separate document, made significant progress toward realizing we’ve included it here as an appendix to each of the plan’s five overarching goals, steven d. lisk provide a more complete picture of the state and, with two years to spare, have also of the school. The life of our school operates Head of School fully achieved most of the subsidiary both within immediate annual cycles as objectives. The following pages will go into more detail about our specific accomplishments, but well as strategic cycles lasting as long as a decade. The I would like to take a moment to highlight goals that success of each cycle as well as the balance and play between appear in the Strategic Plan whose significance goes the two are important. Indeed, we derive the confidence to move forward with an ambitious multiyear strategic beyond a five-year timeframe. vision from those who invest in us annually. In a broad sense, we are an institution with positive momentum. In addition to the palpable positive feeling on our campus and within the community, we are actually able to measure certain aspects of school life, from curricular innovations to increasing enrollment to financial support for our school, that confirm our institution’s momentum.
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fa c u lt y e n r i c h m e n t l e a d s d i r e c t ly to
STUDENT ENRICHMENT
HELPING THE BEST TEACHERS KEEP LEARNING There are as many different ways of learning as there are students in a classroom. Country Day’s teachers recognize this, and the school actively supports their pursuit of professional development opportunities so the faculty can keep proven methods fresh while also cultivating new ones. “The fact that one of the school’s biggest fundraisers is dedicated to professional development every three years is just huge for teachers,” said Assistant Head of School Christina Simonds. “It shows them that the Country Day community as a whole supports them in pursuing their passion for teaching.” This goal of continual improvement led one teacher to apply, and win admission to an eminent history program at Stanford University, while another earned her master’s degree from New York University after several years of fitting postgraduate classes around her teaching schedule.
Faculty enrichment leads directly to student enrichment, and one can find perhaps the most impressive, heartening and entertaining demonstration of professional development at work in the first-grade classrooms of Carrie Haggerty and Liz Peters. Their 6- and 7-year-old authors spend almost an hour each day in “Writers Workshop,” a program Peters and several other Lower School teachers recently studied at Columbia University.
“ Th e fact that one of the school’s biggest
fundraisers is dedicated to professional development every three years is just
”
huge for teachers.
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lc d s p u t s t h e h i g h e s t p r e m i u m o n r e c ru i t i n g a n d
RETAINING THE BEST TEACHERS
BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS ON MUTUAL RESPECT Lancaster Country Day School puts the highest premium on recruiting and retaining the best teachers in the United States, and in 2011 added a line item in the school’s annual budget to help ensure we’re positioned to accomplish that goal. The first step involves identifying the needs of the students and the school and casting a wide net. Sometimes, however, the best candidate also happens to be the local candidate, but the rigors of the national search ensure that merit always counts more than correctly pronouncing “Lancaster.”
“ W hen a teacher walks into a room full
of students who are curious and engaged and excited about learning, that makes all the difference in the world because
”
it makes teaching fun.
However, sophisticated teacher searches wouldn’t be much use if teachers weren’t also searching for a school like Country Day. Assistant Head of School Christina Simonds has a theory of why LCDS might appeal to a potential teacher more than another school. “When a teacher walks into a room full of students who are curious and engaged and excited about learning, that makes all the difference in the world because it makes teaching fun. “And the kids think it’s fun because they don’t realize that it’s hard.”
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CURRICULAR INNOVATIONS
a n d e v o lv i n g d ay - to - d ay a p p r o a c h e s to l e a r n i n g
AN EVER-BROADENING CURRICULUM FOR OUR EVER-GROWING STUDENT BODY Chances are that this fall, at least one little boy will walk into Country Day for his first day of preschool holding his mother’s hand, and walk out of school 15 springs later holding a diploma and waving at that same glowing parent. With a broader and deeper reach than ever before, the faculty has begun tightly coordinating its lessons across all divisions so that the little boy’s introduction to the Declaration of Independence in Lower School prepares him for a deeper study of the Revolutionary War in Middle School, which culminates in his eloquent disquisition on Federalism when he takes the AP United States History Exam in Upper School. The school’s curricular innovations extend beyond the alignment of material and skill-development from yearto-year; Country Day students are thriving amid new and evolving day-to-day approaches to learning that material. These include student-centered discussions around Harkness Tables, activities designed with “Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning” or POGIL, and the establishment of a 1:1 iPad program for the entire Upper School as an expansion of last year’s wildly successful pilot project with just the ninth grade. Sitting at one of the Harkness Tables bought to further the goals of the Strategic Plan, “Everyone is on the same level,” said Middle School math teacher Rob Trubiano, “and you get that sense that we’re all in this together; we’re literally all seeing eye-to-eye. … I want there to be a common goal and a sense of community around the table.
“That trust has to be there for students to take the chance of being wrong, because without that, no one would ever attempt anything.” Lower School Science Coordinator Laura Trout is the editor-in-chief of the High School POGIL Initiative, which emphasizes learning through hands-on experience and encourages students to make connections through actively doing rather than passively listening. Trout has brought new levels of rigor and fun to Lower School science by reshaping the curriculum of the whole division “to put the material in the context of a 12-grade spectrum,” she said. To say the kids love it would be an understatement. “In 18 years of teaching, I’d never gotten five or six hugs in a day from students before,” Trout said. “I do now and I love it.” “As curriculum gets stronger, it appeals to a broader range of learning styles and appeals to more students,” said Assistant Head of School Christina Simonds. “The number of merit-based Jarvis Scholars at LCDS has never been higher, and stronger students lift up all their classmates too. “Small class sizes allow teachers to get to know each student’s individual skill sets and recognize if he or she isn’t challenged enough or not working to his or her full potential,” Simonds continued. “Together with the student’s parents, they can pool their efforts and help the child and realize his or her full potential.” head of school report | faculty head of and school curriculum report | 13
g u i d i n g a p p l i c a n t s to wa r d t h e s c h o o l s w h e r e
THEY’RE POISED TO THRIVE
THE HIGHEST GUIDANCE TO HIGHER LEARNING For many years, Director of College Guidance Linda Campbell also taught AP English, and while “Emma” never made it on to her syllabi, Campbell’s zeal for matchmaking would nevertheless make Jane Austen proud. By getting to know the students and cultivating relationships with colleges and counselors across the country, Campbell is able to help students and their parents navigate the thicket of options and guide applicants toward the schools where they’re poised to thrive. In summer 2012, our college counseling office expanded when Abby Kirchner came to Country Day from Franklin & Marshall College. Having worked on the receiving end of the college admission process, she’s gained experience that uniquely qualifies her to advise LCDS students on the sending side of the admission equation. The addition of Kirchner as college guidance assistant doesn’t merely lighten Campbell’s workload, but rather expands and enhances our ability to advise students, now including eighth-graders and their families, on getting into their preferred colleges. Besides the one-on-one counseling each student receives, the school also offers summer programs and group meetings devoted to explaining how to simplify the application and admission process.
There’s another important group eager to lend Country Day students a helping hand: the colleges and universities themselves. In the fall, not many days pass without the school’s intercom suggesting that interested students should head to the college guidance room to meet the representative from Georgetown or Colgate or Franklin & Marshall. “Enrollment in a college is the culmination of a lengthy and thought-provoking process that begins well before the end of the senior year,” Campbell said. “In the College Guidance Office we work as a team to help students and their families with a goal of matriculation into a school which will meet students’ intellectual, social and emotional needs and thus enable them to fulfill their aspirations. “We visit a variety of colleges and gain firsthand information about programs and opportunities,” she continued. “Because we interact with our students in a variety of settings, we know them well and are uniquely positioned to be able to advise them and subsequently write letters of recommendation which will characterize and individualize them to the colleges. We know that we have succeeded in our objectives when our alumni return to share stories of their various accomplishments at college.”
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o p p o r t u n i t i e s f o r c o u n t r y d ay s t u d e n t s to
ENRICH THEIR GLOBAL AWARENESS
A NEW AGE OF EXPLORATION The number of opportunities for Country Day students to enrich their global awareness has reached historic levels, and continues to climb through our signature travel courses, a growing international student population and relationships forged to create study abroad programs at sister schools. Whether learning the intricacies of international law to make a compelling case at the eminent Hague International Model United Nations conference in the Netherlands, or gaining deeper understanding of plate tectonics with the help of molten, erupting visual aids on the Hawaiian Islands, Country Day believes that lessons don’t necessarily end on the last page of a textbook. However, the benefit isn’t limited to those who strike off for foreign lands. The students who stay on this side of the Atlantic have the privilege of meeting new friends and broadening their cultural understanding when kids come to LCDS from places such as South Africa, China, Germany, France, Moldova and Scotland. Steve Lisk cemented our newest partnership in April, when he and two teachers travelled to Scotland to see if LCDS Middle Schoolers could benefit from — or downright love — experiences within Lomond School or John Jarvis’ alma mater, Kelvinside Academy. The answer was a resounding “yes.” Once the exchange is up and running, teachers will also have the opportunity to head abroad. “The professional development aspect is really exciting, and just such a natural extension of the foundation we’re putting in place. This program is something I expect to be going strong 50 years
from now,” he continued. “We’d only build something like this if we believed it would make a meaningful addition to the school and the students. “We think it will.” Country Day’s effort to provide a global perspective includes recruiting students from China who want to spend their high school years at LCDS. In 2011 and ’12, two Country Day representatives volunteered to travel to China on the school’s behalf, attending recruitment fairs, describing LCDS to interested parents and ultimately receiving more than 100 applications for the four available Upper School slots. The long-term vision entails attracting about a dozen students from China each year, and eventually expanding that number to include a greater number of students from other countries as well. In choosing candidates, the school looked at more than just academic strength and a command of English; we wanted to know who they were as whole individuals and how that might enrich the community. Last year’s group included an opera singer, soccer player and concert violinist. “Our planet is ever more interconnected and interdependent, and we know our students will experience a world that expects them to maneuver within different cultures,” said Lisk. “Taken together, our work to strengthen global programming helps ensure the relevancy of the LCDS education in the 21st century.”
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EMBRACING TECHNOLOGY a n d w e av i n g i t i n to o u r c o r e c u r r i c u l u m
200 GOOD APPLES BRIGHTEN THE BUNCH Last year’s ninth grade class will go down in LCDS history as the group that validated the iPad as an incomparable educational tool, blazing a trail that put Apple’s revolutionary tablet in the hands of every student in the Upper School and demonstrating the power and promise of 1:1 computing. Director of Information Services and computer science teacher Mike Schmelder put the value of the iPad program into a broader context. “We’re living through an information revolution,” he said, “but we cut kids off from that when they go into a classroom with no technology. If we want our students to become proficient 21st-century scholars and good digital citizens, they should learn how to use these things effectively and we can teach them to do that.” “We’re giving students a tool to develop understanding in ways that simply didn’t exist before,” said Head of Upper School Eric Bondy. “Whether it’s e-book annotation or using audio or video, or a combination of all of those, the classroom mirrors how the world operates today.” For example, in Olha Drobot’s French class, students record themselves speaking French and send the podcasts to her. “It creates 100 percent participation in class, where even the shiest and quietest students get to be heard,” Drobot said. In Elissa Quinn’s humanities class, the iPad provides a fast, easy way to display artwork and play music, and acts as a hub from which her students can access, share and edit materials.
The Upper School isn’t alone in embracing technology and using it to expand the horizons of education. In one typical Middle School class, students used iPads to make stunning presentations on Victorian England that incorporated photos, video, audio as well as their own synthesis of the material in a language far easier for their classmates to understand than Dickens. In Lower School, first-graders composed original fiction on the iPad’s virtual keys and illustrated their work using the nearly limitless art palette underneath the same screen. Said Head of School Steve Lisk, “We know that technology continues to move forward, ever faster, and impacts how we work and live. Our iPad program is a step toward embracing mobile technology and weaving it into our core curriculum.”
“ W hether it’s e-book annotation or using
audio or video, or a combination of all of those, the classroom mirrors how the
”
world operates today.
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a groundswell of support for
ARTS AND ATHLETICS
ARTS AND ATHLETICS GET A BOOST In summer 2012, a groundswell of community interest in both athletics and the visual and performing arts led to the creation of their respective booster clubs, the Cougar Club and Project Arts. Though still nascent efforts, both the Cougar Club and Project Arts have already achieved precisely the kind of successes they were designed to. Project Arts brought Country Day its first artist in residence, photographer Patricia Scialo. She managed to combine history, optics, engineering and chemistry into a single inspired lesson that saw Diane Wilikofsky’s Middle Schoolers building cameras out of oatmeal canisters and hat boxes, experimenting with light and composition and developing their film to see the results. In addition to exposing students to more world-class creativity with music assemblies and a field trip to the Philadelphia Orchestra, Project Arts expanded opportunities for student art exhibitions, including showings at the Ware Center, Demuth Museum and the Winter Center at Millersville University.
The world of LCDS sports became markedly wider last year too. The department fulfilled its goal of crafting a mission statement as well as expanding Lower School athletics programs to help ensure that the lacrosse and soccer offerings keep pace with students’ ever-growing zeal to throw on a jersey and play. In a boon for players, parents and sports fans in five counties, Country Day joined the Tri-Valley League, cementing full varsity sports schedules against consistent competition from comparably sized PIAA District III schools.
“ Th ough still nascent efforts, both the Cougar Club and Project Arts have already achieved precisely the kind
”
of successes they were designed to.
The art department also added a second Middle School arts block twice a week, which gave a home to animation art class, as well as adding seventh- and eighth-grade theater ensemble, Middle School dance group and a basic photography and multimedia class.
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A VITALITY AND HIGH-SPIRITEDNESS s u f f u s e s t h e s c h o o l a n d a n i m at e s o u r c o m m u n i t y
STRENGTH IN NUMBERS The Board of Trustees began sowing the seeds of the 2010-2015 Strategic Plan years before its publication, and in response to those students from larger graduating classes reporting a better experience, the board’s goal was to increase enrollment to 600 students. In ordinary times, this might have counted as a challenging, but hardly impossible objective. But as independent schools across the country continued to lose students in the face of the worst economy since the Great Depression, Country Day added to its rosters. Not only did the school hit the board’s target, it did so with three years to spare. Enrollment for the 2013-2014 school year is another all-time high, 613 students. Of course, while achieving record enrollment is an impressive feat, it’s only half of the story. Retention is the other half. With a student-faculty ratio of 8:1, average class size of 13, at least three hours of weekly art instruction in every grade and a 100 percent college admission rate among graduates, it becomes easier to see how LCDS achieves that too.
Because students want to stay and learn with teachers who want to stay and teach, a vitality and high-spiritedness suffuses the school and animates our community. This feeling of community extends across ages and divisions. The transition from Middle to Upper School is a significant move in any adolescent’s life, and one that can intimidate even the most swashbuckling eighth-grader. To ease them in, Head of Upper School Eric Bondy and Director of College Guidance Linda Campbell began giving the rising freshmen an orientation each spring, telling them what to expect and introducing them to Upper School teachers and students. Bondy and Campbell give parents a similarly gentle introduction, since the students’ lives aren’t the only ones that change once Upper School starts. For the younger students, Head of Middle School Rudy Sharpe and Assistant Head Sue Ziemer do the Middle School version of orientation for rising fifth-graders.
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c o m m u n i t y s e r v i c e i s b ot h a pa r t o f
OUR MISSION AND OUR IDENTITY
A FULL-SERVICE EDUCATION Whether serving the environment, their neighbors or total strangers whose lives have been upended by a hurricane, many Country Day students act to better the world around them cheerfully and without cynicism. In Middle School, good citizenship tends to begin closer to home. For example, the seventh-graders play math games with wide-eyed junior kindergarteners, who approach addition with a whole new gusto after their impeccably cool older buddies give math their stamp of approval. In recognizing that community service is both a part of our mission and our identity, LCDS created the official “Director of Upper School Community Service” position in 2011. For Upper School English teacher and newly designated Director of Service Mike Simpson, this kind of concrete, selfless action has a special resonance. “What we didn’t have before,” Simpson explained, “was a comprehensive way to find, to measure, to assess the kind of service students were doing. We do now, and in the one year that we have, we’ve been incredibly successful. Incredibly.” From helping children at Schreiber Pediatric Center to lending a hand to our neighbors at Reynolds Middle School, the students heeded Simpson’s call for broader, deeper and sustained action.
One measure provides a striking example of how much service learning flourished in the 2012-13 school year. Students who give more than 50 hours of service per year receive the Outstanding Service Designation. The previous year, Simpson gave the award to four students; last year, that figure climbed to 35. But Simpson stressed that, while all of these accomplishments deserve recognition and commendation, they’re parts of a much larger whole. “The important thing is that this becomes part of the Country Day culture. Service isn’t just something we do because I’m asking them to do it; it’s just what we do. It’s who we are.”
“ F rom helping children at Schreiber
Pediatric Center to lending a hand to our neighbors at Reynolds Middle School, the students heeded Simpson’s call for
”
broader, deeper and sustained action.
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ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS i s w o v e n i n to t h e c u r r i c u l u m a c r o s s g r a d e s a n d d i s c i p l i n e s
COUGAR BURGUNDY GOES GREEN One of the Strategic Plan’s goals is to educate our students in sustainability in its multiple dimensions, from the hyperlocal to the sweeping and global. Middle School teacher and Green School Coordinator Barbara Bromley is the person most directly responsible for helping Country Day realize that goal. “When Head of School Steve Lisk signed the Green School Alliance Pledge in 2011, he endorsed the school’s mission to promote the principles and actions of environmental stewardship,” Bromley said. She has helped design and build six learning gardens at the school, and works to ensure that the use of outdoor space and environmental awareness is woven into the curriculum across grades and disciplines. “An outdoor classroom experience is about the need to create a balance between the virtual world with which our children increasingly interact and the natural world in which they live,” Bromley said. By simply taking lessons outside and looking around with a critical eye, students learn to see and interpret the world around them in a whole new way.
But eco-learning extends beyond the school gardens and outdoor learning spaces. Green initiatives include annual Earth Day speakers, all-school recycling and energy conservation, the Upper School Green Committee and an EcoLiteracy series sponsored by the Parents Association that teaches Lower School children about the variety of fruits and vegetables and how to cook with them. “We’re all in this together,” Bromley said. “Almost all of the components of our green initiatives involve the entire school community. Older kids helping out younger kids, parents helping out students, teachers helping out parents: It all builds ties, both within the school and without.”
“ A n outdoor classroom experience is about the need to create a balance between the virtual world with which our children increasingly interact and the natural
”
world in which they live.
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LCDS MASTER PLAN OVERVIEW o u r n e x t s t e p to t h e f u t u r e
THE PATH TO THE FUTURE A great number of people devoted a great amount of time, thought and care to assessing Country Day’s leading strengths, as well as its chief needs. This devoted group of students, parents, alumni, faculty and staff worked tirelessly asking questions, finding answers and amassing a fount of information that proved invaluable to the Board of Trustees when drafting the 2010-2015 Strategic Plan. The plan lays out the Board’s vision for the near- and long-term future of Country Day and we are pleased to report that in just three years, and with the help of our dedicated community, we’ve achieved most of the goals set forth in the plan. Moreover, we’ve realized these major gains in almost every area of school life through thoughtful planning and consultation — and at minimal expense.
To meet the Strategic Plan’s remaining goals, the school has worked with architects, and once again engaged students, parents, faculty and staff to help crystallize a clear vision for future facilities. These many voices with a vested interest in Country Day’s continued excellence conducted plant evaluations and suggested potential improvements: The result is the Campus Master Plan. This Campus Master Plan takes stock of our existing facilities while asking what improvements are essential for us to continue to deliver the excellent programming that shapes the student experience at Country Day. The ambitious Campus Plan calls for investments in the building itself to enhance our already-strong academic programs, to meet the day-to-day needs of arts and athletics and to extend our commitment to safety, sustainability and technology.
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What follows is not an exhaustive list of every facet of the multiphase Campus Master Plan, but rather an outline of what we consider the most important proposed improvements, and the ones we’re most excited to share with you:
1 new spaces for all three divisions: The highest priority of the Campus Master Plan is to optimize
the classrooms and labs for our three divisions. To accomplish this, a new Upper School wing will be constructed, allowing
the Middle and Lower schools to move into the space currently occupied by the higher division. Importantly, our entire student body will remain under a single roof.
ower School: For all its charm and history, the dated L Lower School wing needs to join the 21st century, allowing teachers and students to more fully avail themselves of resources we already have to supplement the excellent education kids are already receiving. Under the proposed plan, the Lower School will move to the current Middle School, providing students more space, as well as classrooms that are not only more technologically advanced, but filled with natural light and more comfortable in all seasons. The space currently occupied by our Lower School library and computer science department will house a dedicated early childhood center.
36 | lancaster country day school
M iddle School: Our Middle School faces a decidedly good problem: Enrollment hit its maximum capacity several years ago and shows no signs of receding from the 100-percent mark. Like their younger schoolmates, the Middle School will move up a division, occupying the current Upper School and gaining much-needed space. In fact, the Middle School move will offer a significant programmatic opportunity: Thanks to its greatly increased space, Middle School will now be able to incorporate the fifth grade. Long discussed by our division heads as a move that would better serve the fifth-graders, the idea remained purely hypothetical since we lacked the facilities to accommodate it. The Campus Master Plan would make that idea a reality. Upper School: A newly constructed wing for the Upper School will remedy the same space constraints that our other divisions currently face. It will also feature a thoughtful distribution of “third spaces” (see below) to help foster a kind of intellectual serendipity, where students and teachers naturally congregate and further learning outside the classroom. Crucially, we will be able to install an infrastructure for the technology at the center of the modern classroom. This will allow for the seamless integration of devices and tools that didn’t even exist 10 years ago, in a manner far more effective — and far less expensive — than retrofitting existing structures.
2 expanded cocurricular spaces:
students and alumni a space to come together in both athletic and non-athletic settings.
Expanded cocurricular spaces: Priding itself on both academic
excellence and rich cocurricular offerings, LCDS needs to upgrade athletics and performing arts spaces to ensure that no student’s potential is stymied by structural limitations.
P erforming Arts: As with the Lower School, our performing arts program has thrived, though it could also greatly benefit from moving into a modern facility. When it was built, our current theater and practice space was designed as a gym, and the extent to which it would one day house a vibrant (and ever-growing) performing arts program was simply not a contingency anyone ever considered. We now know that we need new practice areas to ensure promising talents continue to flourish, as well as equipment upgrades to accommodate the programs’ spirited pursuit of the opportunities and challenges that animate all creative endeavors. A thletics: Creating new athletics spaces is the elder statesman of plant improvement aspirations; different boards and headmasters have been discussing this idea since the first President Bush was still settling in to the White House. An updated fitness center, additional locker rooms, restrooms, concessions and a reception area and mezzanine will directly support our program and our experience together as a community. Besides directly benefitting our teams, improved facilities will also encourage physical fitness and healthy lifestyles for all students, faculty and staff. The mezzanine and reception area will give parents,
3 creation of a k-12 science center: Investing in science, technology, engineering and math
(STEM), is both a national priority and a school priority. Our students have expressed tremendous interest and aptitude
in STEM programming, both as part of their Country Day education and to serve their professional aspirations.
To fully support our nationally recognized teachers and remove any potential barrier to achievement by our ambitious and accomplished students, we will update and expand our current science center and use construction as an opportunity to align the science curriculum across divisions. Providing our science teachers their own, dedicated space will foster collaboration and facilitate equipment-sharing. It will also provide designated space and tools for long-term work, where students will be able to collaborate on award-winning science fair projects next door to the teachers advising them.
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campus reorientation and parking: community and third spaces: The Country Day student body and faculty is larger than ever,
The gardens and green spaces that Green School Coordinator
same spaces we did when the school had far fewer students.
what the lexicon of modern school construction calls “third
but we’re still dropping off, picking up and parking in the Importantly, expanding parking and introducing a new traffic
pattern will improve pedestrian safety and also provide a framework for responsibly accommodating future campus development. In creating a new entrance facing President Avenue, we will not only unwind campus traffic snarls, but
symbolically embrace the city that has been our home for more than 100 years.
The Campus Master Plan continues our commitment to school safety. While the new traffic plan makes our grounds less congested, the plan keeps us a school under one roof. This holds school entry points at a manageable level. Country Day always has been and continues to be a safe school with no higher priority than the care of its students, but the realities of today’s world remind us of the importance of ongoing vigilance.
Barbara Bromley helped create are a good example of spaces.”
These are places on campus, apart from classrooms and the dining commons, where “teachers can break classes into small groups of three or four students for closer interaction,” said Head of Middle School Rudy Sharpe. These comfortable gathering spaces offer students a place to read quietly or have an impromptu discussion among themselves or with a teacher. “These kinds of informal exchanges help foster intellectual and cultural growth outside the classroom,” Lisk said. “When we create and maintain these spaces, we help strengthen the LCDS community.”
n e xt s t ep s : Because tuition and fees alone cannot fund these objectives, additional financial resources will need to be secured to make this vision a reality. Initial indications inform us that our community is eager to make these investments in our campus and is excited to have a chance to support them financially. And, as the title suggests, this is our next step to the future.
“ These kinds of informal exchanges help foster intellectual and cultural growth outside the classroom. When we create and maintain these spaces, we help strengthen the LCDS community.” 38 | lancaster country day school
725 ha milton r oad | lancaster, pa 17603 | (717) 392-2916 | www.lancaster countryday.or g