North Shore Country Day School is a selective prep school in Winnetka, Illinois. It was founded in its current form as a coeducational school in 1919 during the Country Day School movement, though it followed the Rugby School for Boys (1893-1900) and Girton School for Girls (1900-1918). It consists of a lower school, a middle school, and an upper school.
History
In the 1893, Francis King Cook opened the Rugby School for Boys in the nearby village of Kenilworth. Within the next decade, due to the opening of the fee-free Joseph Sears School, Cook moved his school to the present site today in Winnetka. Shortly after, the school reimagined itself as the Girton School For Girls. The school built three more buildings on what was then known as the Garland Estate, but by 1918-19 the school began to encounter funding difficulties. A group of parents and alumni from the Girton School and local area came together in 1919 and chose Perry Dunlap Smith to found the North Shore Country Day School for girls and boys of all ages. With the popularity of the Country Day School movement, this was seen as the next logical step for the school. The school continues to have no class rankings and no academic awards. As it became clear the Country Day school would outlast its time as a traditional school, the founder and first headmaster Perry Dunlap Smith hired Chicago area architect Edwin H. Clark to redesign the school grounds.
The school was one of 27 schools selected from a group of 250 candidate schools in the U.S. chosen in 1933 for alternative admission standards for admission to 200 selective colleges. As a progressive country day school, there was to be an enriched core curriculum with independent study. The school sought to fit the curriculum to the students' needs, rather than to require a fixed course of instruction.
At the height of the Civil Rights Movement in 1963, the school was one of 21 schools that publicly supported the Kennedy administration's policies of racial equality, stating that independent schools must offer the benefits of a quality education to all qualified students.
In July 2016, following the retirement of W. Thomas Doar III, Dr. Thomas J. Flemma became the ninth head of school in North Shore's history. Prior to being hired by North Shore, Dr. Flemma was the Associate Head of School and Dean of Faculty at the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut.
Academics
Curriculum
The school follows a standard US AP curriculum, with selected subjects offered from grade 10. Should a subject not be offered, the school allows for it to be taken at nearby Northwestern University.
Rankings
In 2017, the school was ranked the 3rd best private high school in the state of Illinois (of 119), and 57th best in the country (of 3,231)
ACT results
For the Class of 2016, the middle 50% ACT range was 29-33. The exam is marked out of 36.
Schedule
After two years of research and development, the school introduced a new schedule for the 2015-16 academic year.
Post-secondary
Typically, NSCDS has a 100% success rate in university and college placement. In 2013, 8% of graduates chose universities outside the United States.
Sport
Physical education is required at all grade levels, and interscholastic competition is required of students in 6th to 11th grades. North Shore is a member of the Chicago Independent School League and competes against eight other secondary schools in the Chicago area.
As of 2016, the following sports were available:
- Fall
- Cross Country (coeducational varsity)
- Field Hockey (girls: varsity, JV, middle school)
- Football (boys: varsity, JV, middle school)
- Golf (varsity and girls varsity)
- Soccer (boys: varsity, JV, middle school)
- Tennis (girls: varsity and JV)
- Volleyball (girls: varsity, JV, freshman/sophomore, middle school)
- Winter
- Basketball (boys and girls: varsity, JV, freshman/sophomore, middle school)
- Track & Field (boys and girls: varsity)
- Spring
- Baseball (boys: varsity, JV, middle school)
- Soccer (girls: varsity, JV, middle school)
- Tennis (boys: varsity, JV)
- Track & Field (coeducational varsity, middle school)
Notable alumni
- Pete Wentz 1997 - Bassist, lyricist, and backup vocals for Fall Out Boy
- Richard Marx 1981 - Adult contemporary singer, songwriter and record producer; and 2007 Stanton Recipient
- Rocky Wirtz 1971 - Owner of the Chicago Blackhawks
- Jessica Harper 1967 - Actress, producer, singer, author
- Alex Moffat 2000 - Saturday Night Live cast member
- Richard Appel 1981 - Writer for The Simpsons, actor, producer
- Peyton Young 1962 - game theorist, James Meade Professor of Economics at University of Oxford
- John R. MacArthur 1974 - President of Harper's Magazine
- Dick Meyer 1976 - Journalist and producer, CBS News, BBC America and NPR
- Bruce Jarchow 1966 - Film and TV actor
- James L. Oakes 1941 - Senior Judge of U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1992 to 2007
- John Macy 1934 - Chairman of United States Civil Service Commission, recipient of Presidential Medal of Freedom
- Aaron Swartz 2004 - Computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist
- Thomas F. Geraghty 1962 - Co-director of the Northwestern University Legal Clinic
- John Ott 1927 - Creator of time-lapse photography
- Roger Fisher 1939 - Editor of the Harvard Law Review, Harvard Law School professor
- John Baker Saunders 1972 - Founding member and bassist for grunge rock supergroup Mad Season
- Jory Vinikour 1981 - Harpsichordist
- John A. Howard 1939 - Founder of the Rockford Institute
- Anne Young 1965 - Former Chief of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and current Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School
- Stokely Webster 1930 - Impressionist
- Joel de la Fuente 1987 - Actor in film, television and theater
- Charles Hamilton Newman 1956 - Author, Northwestern University English professor
- Francis Daniels Moore 1931 - former Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and member of the first surgical team to perform a human organ transplant
References
External links
- North Shore Country Day School â€" official site
