Germantown Friends School

Coordinates: 40°01′58″N 75°10′18″W / 40.03278°N 75.17167°W / 40.03278; -75.17167 Germantown Friends School (GFS) is a coeducational K-12 school in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States under the supervision of Germantown Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). It is governed by a School Committee whose members are drawn mainly from the membership of the Meeting and the School's alumni. The School's current head of school is Dana Okeson Weeks.

Since the 1930s, Germantown Friends has been a respected and influential private day school, educating students in traditional humanistic studies in the light of the Quaker tradition. Many graduates have gone on to leading colleges and universities in the United States, including Ivy League institutions. In 1925, admission statistics at the University of Pennsylvania showed that 10-20% of the Germantown Friends School graduating class matriculated at the University. Due to the strong academic preparation of the school, the percentage of Germantown Friends graduates who matriculate at Penn remains about 10-20%. Other popular college destinations include Princeton University, Dartmouth College, Haverford College, Brown University, Trinity College, and the University of Chicago. Present Germantown Friends students generally have a reputation for community service, intellectual boldness, and broad artistic interests.

List of Friends schools

Friends schools are institutions that provide an education based on the beliefs and testimonies of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). This article is a list of schools currently or historically associated with the Society of Friends, regardless of their current degree of affiliation.

Friends schools vary greatly, both in their interpretation of Quaker principles and in how they relate to formal organizations that make up the Society of Friends. Most Friends schools are similar in their mission however: to provide an academically sound education while also instilling values of community, spirituality, responsibility and stewardship in their students.

Some institutions founded by Friends were never formally "Quaker Schools." Some historically Friends institutions are no longer formally associated with the Society of Friends. Those that continue to call themselves "Quaker schools" may have formal oversight from a Friends yearly or monthly meetings (often called coming "under care of" a meeting), and others are governed by members of the Society of Friends and/or adhere to aspects of Quaker practice.

Friends School (Japan)

Coordinates: 35°38′46.16″N 139°44′30.45″E / 35.6461556°N 139.7417917°E / 35.6461556; 139.7417917

Friends School (普連土学園, Furendo Gakuen) is a women's junior and senior high school (7th - 12th grades), authorised by the Japanese Education Law, of Religious Society of Friends in Minato, Tokyo, Japan.

In 1887, Women Evangelical Friends from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA founded it for the purpose of education for women on the advice of Uchimura Kanzō and Nitobe Inazō. The School is still the only Friends' educational organisation in Japan. Whilst all the pupils are not Friends, they receive education about Quakerism including about Inner light.

The School says that the name in Japanese means "universal connection with all global places". This is derived from an idea of Tsuda Sen, who was the father of Tsuda Umeko, the founder of Tsuda College.

External links

Friends School (Casco, Maine)

The Friends School is a historic schoolhouse in the village center of Casco, Maine. Built in 1849, it is a well-preserved example of a 19th-century one-room schoolhouse. Now a museum operated by the local historical society, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. It is located behind the town office building on Maine State Route 121.

Description and history

The Friends School is located in the village center of Casco, on the west side of Meadow Road (SR 121), behind the town offices and library, between the municipal parking lot and a tennis court. It is a small single-story wood frame structure, with a gabled roof and clapboard siding, and is set on concrete piers. The front facade has a single doorway on the far right, and a sash window on the far left, with a now-covered window-sized opening in the gable. The sides have three windows each. The interior has a small vestibule, which spans the building width, and a single classroom, finished in wainscoting below, and plaster on lath above.