Abington Friends School
Abington Friends School | |
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Location | |
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575 Washington Lane Jenkintown postal address, PA 19046 United States | |
Coordinates | 40°05′42″N 75°07′14″W / 40.0949°N 75.1205°W |
Information | |
Type | Private |
Religious affiliation(s) | Quaker |
Established | 1697 |
Head of School | Rich Nourie |
Number of students | roughly 600 annually |
Color(s) | Blue and white |
Athletics conference | Friends Schools League |
Mascot | Kangaroos |
Website | www.abingtonfriends.net |
Abington Friends School is an independent
Campus
Abington Friends School sits on a fifty-acre (20 ha) campus which includes a meadow, Quaker meeting house, a portion of Jenkintown Creek, and extensive playing fields. Lower, middle, and upper school buildings and athletic facilities sit at the center of the campus.
Campus facilities include:
- The Faulkner Library and Learning Center, a dramatic space which is home to a collection of over 25,000 print volumes, special collections including a peace collection and a leadership collection
- The AFS Outside Classroom, the first nature playground and outdoor classroom in Pennsylvania to be accredited by the National Arbor Day Foundation
- A media and design lab, home to computer assisted design and engineering software workstations
- The Wilf Center, which provides resources to enrich skills of active engagement, discernment, collaboration leadership, and continual learning
- The Josephine Muller Auditorium, a fully equipped professional theatre
- The Black Box Theatre, a flexible space for student-produced performances, cabarets, and open mic nights
- Art, Ceramics and Photography Studios, housing multiple potters wheels, five kilns, and a fully furnished dark room and lab
- Choral, instrumental and music classrooms and an electronic music studio, featuring Apple and Roland recording software and hardware, baby grand pianos, and a full instrumental backline
- Athletic Facilities that include the fully furnished Thode Fitness Center, four soccer fields, six tennis courts, and several baseball and softball diamonds[6][7]
Academic program
The Early Childhood and Lower School Program at AFS serves students age 3 to 4th grade, the Middle School Program 5th through 8th grade, and the Upper School program 9th through 12th grade.[6]
History
Abington Friends School was founded in March 1697, when John Barnes, a wealthy tailor who belonged to the
In its earliest days the school was located in one large room in the Friends' meeting house, with the principles of the Religious Society of Friends dominating virtually every aspect of school life. In the 1780s the school moved to a structure of its own, the present day caretaker’s house adjacent to the meeting house on Greenwood Avenue. Boys occupied the first floor room, while girls were instructed in the upstairs room. Boys were responsible for supplying firewood for the stoves in each room and the girls collected drinking water from the Jenkintown Creek behind the meeting house.
Coeducation was not the only way in which the School observed the Quaker testimony of equality. By the mid-18th century, Abington Friends School admitted
The foundations for the modern school we know today were laid in the 1880s, when the school was transformed from an ungraded primary day school with around 90 students and two teachers to a boarding school that served kindergarten through twelfth grade. The new school was opened in 1887 on the triangular property bordered by present-day Greenwood Avenue, Jenkintown Road, and Meetinghouse Road.
By 1931, the school had become an all-girls college preparatory school, which offered a more progressive education than many of the all-girls schools by including exchange programs with European schools, mandatory community service and greater diversity in student enrollment.
The School Committee of Abington Monthly Meeting decided to return to coeducation in 1966. By 1975 all grades, kindergarten through twelfth, contained both boys and girls. Under the leadership of headmaster Adelbert Mason, the school's facilities expanded, with new buildings for the lower, middle, and upper schools. Growth continued in the late 1980s with a new science and arts wing in the lower school.[8]
Athletics
AFS offers a sports including
The boys basketball team has been the school's most successful team, winning numerous Friends School League titles under the coaching of
AFS has also enjoyed sending several distinguished non-basketball student athletes to college. In 2014, Nate Simon (
Notable alumni
- Bryan Cohen (born 1989), American-Israeli basketball player in the Israeli Basketball Premier League
- Joey Lawrence (born 1976), American actor and singer
- Matthew Lawrence (born 1980), American actor and singer
- Jabril Trawick (born 1992), basketball player in the Israeli Basketball Premier League
References
- ^ "Zoning". Abington Township. Retrieved March 11, 2024. - School is at F5, indicated with "▲1"
- ^ "Home". Abington Friends School. Retrieved March 11, 2024.
575 Washington Lane, Jenkintown, PA 19046
- Despite the Jenkintown postal address, the school is outside of the borough limits. - ^ From Abington Friends Facts & Figures
- ^ "Fast Facts". Abington Friends School.
- ^ "Abington Friends".
- ^ a b "Abington Friends School Viewbook". Issuu.
- ISBN 9780738562421. Retrieved February 2, 2014.
- ^ "History". Abington Friends School.
- ^ "Player Bio: Jabril Trawick - GUHoyas.com". www.guhoyas.com. Archived from the original on September 27, 2011.
- ^ "Started from the bottom - the griff". Archived from the original on October 6, 2014. Retrieved October 2, 2014.
- ^ "Ten Gettysburg College baseball players named to All-Centennial Conference team - Evening Sun". Archived from the original on October 6, 2014. Retrieved October 2, 2014.