North Shore Country Day School is a selective prep school in

Winnetka, Illinois Winnetka () is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States, located north of downtown Chicago. The population was 12,316 as of 2019. The village is one of the wealthiest places in the nation in terms of household income. It was the secon ...

. It took its current form as a coeducational school in 1919 during the

Country Day School movement The Country Day School movement is a movement in progressive education that originated in the United States during the late 19th century. Country Day Schools sought to recreate the educational rigor, atmosphere, camaraderie and character-building ...

, though it started as the Rugby School for Boys (1893-1900) and Girton School for Girls (1900-1918). It consists of a lower school, a

middle school A middle school (also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school) is an educational stage which exists in some countries, providing education between primary school and secondary school. ...

, and an

upper school Upper schools in the UK are usually schools within secondary education. Outside England, the term normally refers to a section of a larger school. England The three-tier model Upper schools are a type of secondary school found in a minority of ...

. North Shore Country Day School offers a liberal arts education with students who represent the community values of respect and inclusiveness.

History

In the 1893, Francis King Cook opened the Rugby School for Boys in the nearby village of

Kenilworth Kenilworth ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Warwick District in Warwickshire, England, south-west of Coventry, north of Warwick and north-west of London. It lies on Finham Brook, a tributary of the River Sowe, which joins the ...

. 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

, 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 the Eight-Year Study: 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 The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

in 1963, the school was one of 21 schools that publicly supported the

Kennedy administration John F. Kennedy's tenure as the 35th president of the United States, began with his inauguration on January 20, 1961, and ended with his assassination on November 22, 1963. A Democrat from Massachusetts, he took office following the 1960 ...

'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, Thomas J. Flemma became the ninth head of school in North Shore's history. Prior to being hired by North Shore, Flemma was the Associate Head of School and Dean of Faculty at the

Hotchkiss School The Hotchkiss School is a coeducational preparatory school in Lakeville, Connecticut, United States. Hotchkiss is a member of the Eight Schools Association and Ten Schools Admissions Organization. It is also a former member of the G30 Schools ...

Lakeville, Connecticut Lakeville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States, close to Dutchess County, New York. It is within the town of Salisbury, but has its own ZIP Code (06039). As of the 2010 census, the population of Lak ...

Academics

Curriculum

The school follows a

liberal arts Liberal arts education (from Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as La ...

curriculum, offering classes in

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

, social studies, the

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...

world language In sociolinguistics, a world language (sometimes global language, rarely international language) is a language that is geographically widespread and makes it possible for members of different language communities to communicate. The term may also b ...

s, and the

fine art In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwor ...

s. Should a subject not be offered, the school allows for it to be taken at nearby

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

Rankings

In 2021, the school was ranked the 2nd best K-12 school in the state of Illinois (of 55), and 66th best in the country (of 2,402) according to

Niche Niche may refer to: Science *Developmental niche, a concept for understanding the cultural context of child development * Ecological niche, a term describing the relational position of an organism's species *Niche differentiation, in ecology, the ...

ACT results

For the Class of 2016, the middle 50% ACT range was 29-33. The exam is marked out of 36.

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.

Service learning

The school's dedication to service learning extends throughout the campus into other continents. In 2007, the junior class, (class of 2008), decided to raise money for helping a village in Tanzania. They organized a read-a-thon, and succeeded in raising almost $30,000 used towards buying land in Tanzania. Some of the students organized a trip to go to Tanzania at the end of the 2008 school year. Seniors are required to perform a Senior Service, which is a community service project lasting for two full weeks. They can work with friends at any community service place. After the Senior Service has ended students create presentations and show the parents and students the result of their community service. This occurs in the last few weeks of the school year.

Athletics

Physical education Physical education, often abbreviated to Phys Ed. or P.E., is a subject taught in schools around the world. It is usually taught during primary and secondary education, and encourages psychomotor learning by using a play and movement explorat ...

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 Independent School League or ISL may refer to: * Independent School League (Illinois), a group of nine Chicago-area preparatory schools * Independent School League (New England) The Independent School League (ISL) is composed of sixteen New Englan ...

and competes against eight other secondary schools in the Chicago area. North Shore's main rivals include the Francis W. Parker School, Latin School of Chicago, and the

University of Chicago Laboratory Schools The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools (also known as Lab or Lab Schools and abbreviated as UCLS though the high school is nicknamed U-High) is a private, co-educational day Pre-K and K-12 school in Chicago, Illinois. It is affiliated w ...

. As of 2019, the following sports were available: ;Fall * Cross Country (Boys and Girls varsity, boys JV, middle school) *

Field Hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ...

(girls: varsity, JV, middle school) *

Flag Football Flag football is a variant of American football where, instead of tackling players to the ground, the defensive team must remove a flag or flag belt from the ball carrier ("deflagging") to end a down. The sport has a strong amateur following ...

(coeducational: middle school) *

Golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

(Boys and Girls: varsity, JV, Development) *

Soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

(boys: varsity, JV, middle school) *

Tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball cov ...

(girls: varsity and JV) *

Volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Sum ...

(girls: varsity, JV, freshman/sophomore, middle school) ;Winter *

Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

(boys and girls: varsity, JV, freshman/sophomore, middle school) * Paddle tennis (varsity) *

Track & Field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

(boys and girls: varsity) ;Spring *

Baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

(boys: varsity, JV, middle school) *

(girls: varsity, JV, middle school) *

(boys: varsity, JV) *

(coeducational varsity, middle school)

Notable alumni

North Shore has more than 3,000 alumni residing in the United States and around the world. Notable alumni of North Shore in the arts include

Richard Appel Richard James Appel (born May 21, 1963) is an American writer, producer and former attorney. Since 2012, he has served as an executive producer and co-showrunner of ''Family Guy'' on Fox. He attended Harvard University and Harvard Law School. As ...

(1981),

executive producer Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the making of a commercial entertainment product. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights ...

and co-showrunner for ''

Family Guy ''Family Guy'' is an American animated sitcom originally conceived and created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The show centers around the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their ch ...

';''

Richard Marx Richard Noel Marx (born September 16, 1963) is an American adult contemporary and pop rock singer-songwriter. He has sold over 30 million albums worldwide. Marx's self-titled debut album went triple-platinum in 1987, and his first single, " D ...

(1981), Grammy Award-winning musician and the first solo artist to have his first seven singles hit the Top 5 on the ''

Billboard Hot 100 The ''Billboard'' Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), radio play, and online stream ...

'' singles chart;

Pete Wentz Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III (born June 5, 1979) is an American musician best known as the bassist and lyricist for the rock band Fall Out Boy since 2001. Before Fall Out Boy, Wentz was a fixture of the Chicago hardcore scene and was the lea ...

(1997), the bassist, lyricist, and backup vocalist for

Fall Out Boy Fall Out Boy is an American rock band formed in Wilmette, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, in 2001. The band consists of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Patrick Stump, bassist Pete Wentz, lead guitarist Joe Trohman, and drummer Andy Hur ...

;

John R. MacArthur John Rick MacArthur (born June 4, 1956) is an American journalist and author of books about US politics. He is the president and publisher of ''Harper's Magazine''. Biography MacArthur is the son of J. Roderick MacArthur and French-born Christ ...

(1974), President and Publisher of ''

Harper's Magazine ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...

'';

Alex Moffat Alexander Everett Moffat (; born March 25, 1982) is an American actor and comedian. He was a cast member on ''Saturday Night Live''. He started as a featured player in 2016 and became a main cast member in 2018. Moffat left ''SNL'' in 2022, aft ...

(2000), a ''

Saturday Night Live ''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves ...

'' cast member; and Jonathan Strong (1962), a critically acclaimed novelist. In sports, North Shore is represented by Jereme Richmond (attended for one year), former shooting guard for the Delaware 87ers and gold medalist with the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

team in the 2010

FIBA Americas Under-18 Championship The FIBA Under-18 Americas Championship is the Americas basketball championship for players under 18 years that take place every two years among national teams of the FIBA Americas zone. Before the 2006 edition, the tournament was played by unde ...

; Peter Callahan (2009), an All-American and seven-time

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...

title-winning middle distance runner while at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

; William C. Bartholomay (1946), an insurance executive and the former owner of the

Atlanta Braves The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East division. The Braves were founded in ...

responsible for moving them from

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee i ...

; Michael Reinsdorf (1985), President of the

Chicago Bulls The Chicago Bulls are an American professional basketball team based in Chicago. The Bulls compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Central Division. The team was founded on January ...

; and

Rocky Wirtz William Rockwell "Rocky" Wirtz (born October 5, 1952) is the principal owner and chairman of the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks. He is also president of the Blackhawks' parent company, the Wirtz Corporation, a diversified conglomerate headquartered in ...

(1971), billionaire owner of the NHL's

Chicago Blackhawks The Chicago Blackhawks (spelled Black Hawks until 1986, and known colloquially as the Hawks) are a professional ice hockey team based in Chicago. The Blackhawks compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Divisio ...

. North Shore alumni who played a role in

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

include

John Macy John Williams Macy Jr. (April 6, 1917 – December 22, 1986) was a United States Government administrator and civil servant. Biography Born in Chicago, he received a B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1938. In 1938 Macy moved to Washington, D.C. ...

(1934), former Director of the

Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Ex ...

and a recipient of the

Presidential Medal of Freedom The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merit ...

; Garrett Muscatel (attended for one year), member of the

New Hampshire House of Representatives The New Hampshire House of Representatives is the lower house in the New Hampshire General Court, the bicameral legislature of the state of New Hampshire. The House of Representatives consists of 400 members coming from 204 legislative district ...

from the Grafton 12th district and youngest openly

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term ...

politician in the country;

James L. Oakes James Lowell Oakes (February 21, 1924 – October 13, 2007) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and previously was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for ...

(1941), former

Vermont Attorney General The Vermont Attorney General is a statewide elected executive official in the U.S. state of Vermont who is elected every two years. It was created by an act of the Vermont General Assembly in 1790, repealed in 1797, and revived in 1904. The office ...

and Chief Justice of the

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (in case citations, 2d Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Its territory comprises the states of Connecticut, New York and Vermont. The court has appellate ju ...

; and

Aaron Swartz Aaron Hillel Swartz (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013) was an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, writer, political organizer, and Internet hacktivist. A prolific programmer, Swartz helped develop the web feed format RSS, the tech ...

(attended, but did not graduate), an

internet activist Internet activism is the use of electronic communication technologies such as social media, e-mail, and podcasts for various forms of activism to enable faster and more effective communication by citizen movements, the delivery of particular infor ...

, co-founder of

Reddit Reddit (; stylized in all lowercase as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and discussion website. Registered users (commonly referred to as "Redditors") submit content to the site such as links, text posts, imag ...

and member of the RSS development team. In the sciences, North Shore is represented by Katherine Sanford (1933), an American cell biologist and developer of the first lab test for

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As ...

;

Francis Daniels Moore Francis Daniels Moore (April 17, 1913, in Evanston, Illinois – November 24, 2001, in Westwood, Massachusetts) was an American surgeon who was a pioneer in numerous experimental surgical treatments. Among his many achievements, he refined burn- ...

(1931), a former Professor of Surgery at

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is cons ...

and member of the first surgical team to perform a human organ transplant; and Anne Young (1965), former Chief of Neurology at

Massachusetts General Hospital Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General or MGH) is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the third oldest general hospital in the United Stat ...

and current Professor of Neurology at

. File:Richard Appel (4842673626).jpg, ''

'' executive producer and co-showrunner

(1981) File:Aaron Swartz profile.jpg, Co-founder of

and member of the team that created RSS

(attended) File:Alex Moffat.jpg, ''

'' cast member

(2000) File:Pete Wentz Fall Out Boy May 2007.jpg,

bassist, lyricist, and backup vocalist

(1997) File:Jory Vinikour, harpsichord.tiff,

Grammy The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

-nominated harpsichordist

Jory Vinikour Jory Vinikour (born May 12, 1963 in Chicago) is an American born harpsichordist. He has been living in Paris since 1990, where he studied on a scholarship from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program with Huguette Dreyfus and Kenneth Gilbert. Vinikour ...

(1981) File:MacArthur john.jpg, President and Publisher of ''

(1974)

References

External links

North Shore Country Day School
— official site {{Authority control Educational institutions established in 1919 1919 establishments in Illinois Private elementary schools in Cook County, Illinois Private middle schools in Cook County, Illinois Private high schools in Cook County, Illinois Winnetka, Illinois