ACADEMIA Palm Beach Day Academy celebrates its 100th year. by elizabeth meigher

100 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE

BY ELIZABETH MEIGHER

THE 2020-2021 SCHOOL YEAR marks Palm Beach Day Academy’s Centennial as the beloved “school by the water.” PBDA is known for being a welcoming “family school,” a description that rings true in its meaning; it’s a school that is treasured by its children, teachers, and parents. At Palm Beach Day Academy, Florida’s first independent school, students live in a school culture that expects and honors personal effort, achievement, and character. Ranging from Pre-K (2 years old) through 9th Grade, attendees of PBDA are taught the value of perpetual effort, focused thinking, open-mindedness, and consideration for others. Graduates are instilled with lasting confidence that will provide them with the ability to speak up, take risks, show compassion, ask questions, and adapt to the demands of an ever-changing world. Teachers at PBDA are committed to finding the best balance of nurturing support and challenging requirements needed for each child, in an impressively 7:1 student-teacher ratio environment. Mentors and advisors to their cherished students, teachers’ dedication at PBDA reaches well beyond time in the classroom to extra curriculars, extra academic help, and athletics. Athletics and the arts are key at PBDA. Athletes and artists of varying abilities are given the opportunity to perform and flourish.

From above: A Boys Outing at Palm Beach Private School in 1962. The Outing has now become a tradition for Upper Campus students in grades 4-7. Physical Education for 1st Graders on PBDA’s Lower Campus in 2021.

Clockwise from top left: Field Day in the 1970s. Eeach year, students from Kindergarten through 9th grade compete as Pelicans or Flamingos for the coveted Walter H. Butler Field Day Cup; Palm Beach Day Academy’s Centennial Gala Co-Chairs, from left: Allyson Mashek, Emilia Fanjul Pfeifler, Shayla McGuire, and Brandie Herbst. PBDA’s Centennial Gala is scheduled to take place on April 29, 2022; PBDA’s Upper School, 1953; PBDA’s school seal; parents look on during a “Hatching Ceremony” (2021), wherein students open golden eggs to reveal for the first time whether they are to assume lifelong memberships with PBDA’s team Flamingos or Pelicans; Kindergarten Class in 1992 including Natalie Mathews, Nathanial Wish, Bettina Anderson, Jordan Bradway, Perry Edelman, Stefanie Mendes, Andrew Krumholz, Heather Terry, Laurel Cummings, Nick Keenan, and Fritz Van der Grift.

100 years ago Palm Beach Day Academy was originally established as two separate schools. In 1921, forward-thinking educators founded both a boys school and a girls school to serve families during the season, the time between Thanksgiving and George Washington’s birthday. The Palm Beach School for Boys was headed by Willard W. Ferguson and Edward M. Shields, while The Palm Beach School for Girls was headed by Ada E. Davis. Ten years later in 1931, understanding the need for a co-educational school, a small group of philanthropic parents, whose names are associated with the growth of the town, founded the Palm Beach Private School, merging the school for boys and the school for girls. With exemplary leadership and financial support, this original Board of Trustees led the school through the Depression and World War II, eventually turning over ownership of the school to the families who attended the school. In 1965, Palm Beach Private School became Palm Beach Day School (1967 was the school’s last year with a 12th grade). In the succeeding decades, the school responded to social, cultural, and economic changes by adding electives, expanding and upgrading the Palm Beach campus, and eventually merging with the Academy of the Palm Beaches to accommodate its growing student

From top: Palm Beach Day School’s Class of 1984 including familiar faces like Marjorie Gubelmann (5th from left) and Headmaster Walter H. Butler, Jr. (far right), whose tenure began in 1965 and lasted for 23 years; PBDA’s Upper Campus Awards Assembly in 2021; Fanning M. Hearon III, appointed Palm Beach Day Academy’s 14th Head of School in 2019; young members of the Flamingo team enjoy Field Day in the 1970s; Hatching Ceremony on the Lower Campus in

September of 2021.

body. Through this history of change, the tradition of academic, athletic, and artistic excellence has remained the same.

From its onset core values have remained an integral part of the curriculum and students learn firsthand that giving your all means giving back to one’s community. Students are encouraged to step out of their comfort zone and to ponder their role in the future of the country by participating in experiential learning opportunities in locales as wide-ranging as the mangrove swamps of Florida’s intercoastal, to the Renaissance chapels of Italy. PBDA strives to ensure that its students will graduate as confident young men and women who are thoughtful, generous, and kind—leaders who will make a lasting difference in an evolving world. PBDA graduates are accepted at appropriate, highly esteemed secondary schools. As they move onward and upward, they carry with them the values of their school family and the self-assurance to remain humble, stay focused, speak up, show compassion, and face challenges with integrity.

With a recently renovated and expanded Lower Campus on Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach coupled and its historic Upper Campus on Seaview Avenue, PBDA is now proudly home to 550 students and 115 faculty and staff – an impressive 30% increase in enrollment since 2019. Strategic leadership, mission-focused programming, and the support of loyal current families and alumni who have continued to endorse the institution to friends and colleagues near and far, have provided PBDA with the means to not only survive—but thrive. A staple and building block of the

Palm Beach community for over 100 years, Quest honors PBDA in celebrating this remarkable milestone and we look forward to seeing its hallowed halls and rolling fields through another 100 years of excellence. ◆

Clockwise from top: The graduating Class of 1967, the school’s last 12th grade high school class; 5th grade science at PBDA; Palm Beach Private School purchased property in the 1950s as part of its expansion program: PBDA’s first bulldog mascot in 1967; Field Day in the 1940s.