Throughout the 2021-22 school year, numerous distinguished guests visited Friends Select or spoke at school-sponsored events, either in person or virtually, to share their expertise and experiences with our community.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony for our new Parkway Building spaces kicked off our academic year with a great deal of excitement. It marked the culmination of the Advance Friends Select: Transformation Campaign, our strategic plan that continues to guide the decisions we are making to ensure dynamic and engaging teaching and learning are happening in our classrooms.

The momentum of the Advance Friends Select: Transformation Campaign continues with the expansion of Friends Select’s campus across 16th Street. Work is under way on the historic townhome at 1520 Race Street, which will officially become the upper school’s center for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math (STEAM), with four floors and 15,000 square feet for classrooms, laboratories, and studios.
 

Designed by James Bradberry Architects, Friends Select’s newly transformed Parkway Building spaces are modern and inviting. However, the state-of-the-art design of the new lower school classrooms, art studio, and lobby is deeply rooted in Friends Select’s commitment to excellence in teaching and learning and best practices in education.

The past two years have called on us individually and as an institution to 
reexamine long-held assumptions, beliefs, norms, and ways of being. Throughout this issue of Select News, you will read about the ways that Friends Select is thinking and acting differently with increased clarity about our mission.

For the past three years at Friends Select School, Social Justice Week has become a fixture of the upper school’s educational program.