William Penn Charter School

William Penn Charter School
Motto	Good Instruction Is Better Than Riches
Established	1689
Independent
Coeducational
Affiliations	Religious Society Of Friends
Headmaster	Darryl J. Ford, PhD
Founder	William Penn
Students	960
Grades	Pre-K – 12
Location	3000 West School House Lane, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Accreditation	Pennsylvania Association of Private Academic Schools (PAPAS)
Campus	Urban
Colors	Blue and Yellow
Nickname	PC
Mascot	Quaker
Rival	Germantown Academy
Yearbook	'The Class Record'
Newspaper	'The Crapper'
Website	http://penncharter.com

The William Penn Charter School for boys and girls

William Penn Charter School (commonly known as Penn Charter or simply PC) is an independent school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, founded in 1689 by William Penn. It is the oldest Quaker school in the world, the oldest elementary school in Pennsylvania, and the fifth oldest elementary school in the United States following The Collegiate School (1628), Boston Latin School (1635), Hartford Public High School (1638), and Roxbury Latin (1645). Today, Penn Charter enrolls boys and girls in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. It is considered to be an exclusive private school in terms of admission criteria and is ranked among the top schools in the Philadelphia area. According to Worth Magazine, Penn Charter ranks within the nation's top 100 private and public schools that send the most students to Harvard, Princeton and Yale. The school motto, taken from one of Penn's writings, is "Good instruction is better than riches."

History

Penn Charter is among the first schools in the United States to offer education to all religions (1689), financial aid (1701), matriculation to girls (1754), and education to all races (1770). The "Charter" in the school's name does not, as it might imply, mean that it is a charter school. Rather, it is a reference to the historic document that was signed by William Penn to establish the first Quaker school in America. Originally located on the east side of Fourth Street below Chestnut, the school officially consolidated in 1874 as an all-boys college preparatory school at 12th and Market Streets. Penn Charter moved to its current forty-four acre East Falls campus in 1925. In 1980 the school became fully co-educational by allowing girls to continue past the second grade, thus graduating the first co-ed senior class in 1992.

Traditions

While the school is not under the care of a formal monthly Meeting, in keeping with the school's Quaker heritage, the Overseers, a board of 21 trustees established by William Penn, still governs the affairs of the school through Quaker consensus. Anne Marble Caramanico is the current clerk of the Overseers. All students attend a weekly Meeting for Worship. Faculty meetings and all-school assemblies and some classes begin with a moment of silence.

Service learning is integral to the school and incorporated in the pre-K to 12 curriculum. To earn an activity credit, many Upper School students complete 40 hours of community service a year. A van of students leaves the campus after school every day to perform community service in various locations throughout the Philadelphia area.

Color Day, celebrated on the Friday before Memorial Day, is a tradition in which two teams sporting the school's colors, blue and yellow, compete against each other in playful contests, concluding with a 12th grade Tug-of-War.

The school's Senior Steps are a central stairway that only current seniors, faculty and alumni are permitted to use during school hours.

Activities

The school newspaper, "The Mirror", is the oldest secondary school student newspaper in the United States, having been published since 1777.

The Quakers Dozen is the school's most-selective co-ed a cappella group. During the last week of classes before the winter recess, the group greets the community in the morning with holiday music on the Senior Stairs.

In the summer months the school runs a popular day camp for children of all ages that offers activities like swimming, tennis, archery, computers, team sports, art, music, a talent show and an end-of-camp fair. It also hosts enrichment activities for its own students as well as a number of special programs for local public middle and high school students.

Sports

Penn Charter is a member of the Inter-Academic League (Inter-Ac), the nation's oldest high school sports league, and shares the nation's oldest continuous football rivalry with Germantown Academy, celebrated every year since 1886 during PC/GA Day. The game has been played more times than the Army-Navy Game and the Harvard-Yale Game.

Campus

On the 44-acre (180,000 m²) campus, the three divisions of the school (Lower, Middle, and Upper Schools) have their own designated buildings. All classrooms are equipped with SMART Board interactive whiteboards. The campus has four art studios, a darkroom, and a film-editing lab; various computer labs and mobile laptop carts; a state-of-the-art performing arts center with separate band and choral spaces, recording studios and a 650-seat theater; and nine science labs, all with Smart Boards, WiFi access, and gigabit LAN. Athletic facilities include nine playing fields, including a synthetic turf field; seven tennis courts; new squash courts; a synthetic six-lane oval track and five-lane straightway; a wrestling facility; a six-lane competitive swimming pool; three gymnasiums; and a field house equipped with a state-of-the-art training facility and fitness room.

Leadership

After 31 years as Head of School, Earl J. Ball III retired in June 2007. Darryl J. Ford, former director of the Penn Charter Middle School, was appointed as Head of School, by the Board of Overseers after conducting a national search. Dr. Ford is the school's first and only African American head of school.

Notable alumni

Education and Academia

• Henry Joel Cadbury, OPC '99 (1899), Quaker scholar, teacher, Harvard Divinity chair 1934–54
• J. Presper Eckert, OPC '37, University of Pennsylvania researcher, computer pioneer, co-creator of the world's first electronic computer, ENIAC
• David W. Leebron, OPC '73, president of Rice University in Houston, Texas.
• David W. Oxtoby, President of Pomona College and Professor of Chemistry.
• David Riesman, OPC '26, former Harvard University sociology professor, lawyer, author of sociology classic "The Lonely Crowd."

Government and Public Service

• Charles Gwynne Douglas, III, OPC '60, former Supreme Court Justice from the state of New Hampshire, former US Congressman
• Joseph M. "Joe" Hoeffel, OPC '68, Pennsylvania 13th District Congressman
• Endicott Peabody, former Governor of Massachusetts, member of the College Football Hall of Fame (defense for Harvard).
• Grover C. Richman, Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey (1951–1953) and New Jersey Attorney General (1954–1958)

Business and Industry

• Pierre S. DuPont OPC '1886, industrialist, philanthropist, and educational visionary, DuPont Corporation director, one-time Chairman of General Motors.
• Irénée DuPont OPC '1892, DuPont Corporation Director.
• Richard B Fisher, OPC '53, chairman emeritus of Morgan Stanley
• Howard Head, OPC ’32, founder of Head Ski Company & Prince Manufacturing Inc. 1914–1991

Science and Medicine

• Crawford H. Greenewalt, OPC '18, chemist, head of DuPont Corp. '48–'67, developed nylon fabrics.^{[citation needed]}

Entertainment and the Arts

• Adam F. Goldberg, OPC '94, television and film writer.
• William Guttentag, OPC '75, Academy Award winning filmmaker
• John S. Kalinger, OPC '92, Philanthropist and Tony Award Winning Choreographer
• Richard Lester, director of The Beatles' films A Hard Day's Night, and Help!
• Robert Picardo, OPC '71, The Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager
• David Sirota, OPC '94, The New York Times Bestselling author, journalist, and political strategist
• J.C. Spink, OPC '90, Golden Globe-nominated producer of A History of Violence

Sports and Athletics

Rubén Amaro, Jr.

• Mark Adzick, OPC '07, Philadelphia Phillies draftee 2007, Wake Forest University baseball
• Chris Albright, OPC ’97, current Philadelphia Union and US National Team soccer player
• Rubén Amaro, Jr., OPC '83, former Philadelphia Phillies player and current Phillies General Manager
• David Berkoff, OPC ’84, Olympic medalist in swimming
• Bobby Convey, '98 (did not graduate), Sporting Kansas City and US National Soccer Team player
• Mark Gubicza, OPC '81, former pitcher for the Kansas City Royals
• John B. Kelly, Jr., OPC ’45, brother of Grace Kelly, Olympic medalist and former president of the U.S. Olympic committee
• Melissa T. Knight, OPC '01, former University of Miami women's basketball captain, and starting forward, 2001–06
• Rob Kurz, OPC '04, Power Forward for the Chicago Bulls
• John Robert "Jack" Meyer, OPC '50, former pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies
• David Montgomery, OPC '64, President of the Philadelphia Phillies
• Browning Nagle, '86 (did not graduate), quarterback for NY Jets, Indianapolis Colts, and Atlanta Falcons
• Tony Resch, OPC '81, former professional lacrosse player, current coach, and NLL Hall of Fame inductee
• Matt Ryan, OPC '03, quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons
• Sean Singletary, OPC '04, University of Virginia and Charlotte Bobcats point guard

Military

• Colonel Raynal Cawthorne Bolling, OPC '96 (1896), the first high-ranking U.S. officer to be killed in combat in World War I
• Colonel Douglas Macgregor PhD., is a retired American senior military officer and author.
• General Frederick F. Woerner, Jr., OPC '51, former Commander-in-Chief, United States Southern Command (1987–1989)

External links

• William Penn Charter School