Church Farm School
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The School at Church Farm, until the mid-1990s known as Church Farm School, was founded in 1918 by Charles Shreiner, "the Colonel", a former steelworker. Established along the lines of the Hershey School for Boys (now known as the Milton Hershey School), founded nine years earlier.
Shreiner, an Episcopal priest, founded his school in Glen Loch, Pennsylvania, between Paoli and West Chester as a boarding school for "white boys from broken homes." The school's charter was amended to delete the racist reference in 1963 and African-Americans began attending beginning in 1964. They now comprise over a third of the student body. Benjamin Wright was the first African-American student to attend. After the Colonel's death in 1965, the school was placed under the direction of his son, Charles Shreiner Jr., "Mr. Charles", a World War II veteran and former major league baseball prospect, until he retired in 1987. Presently the school's headmaster is Charles "Terry" Shreiner III, Mr. Charles' son.
The school, while having a college preparatory orientation, also focused heavily on vocational education in the context of a semi-military school environment. Until the mid-90s the school encompassed approximately 1700 acres with a dairy farm with over 200 cows, over 500 hogs, and a substantial hen and egg operation. Students were required to work half of each day and half of every summer. The students' labor, in addition to its pedagogical and disciplinary value, was used to defray part of the cost of their education. This resulted in tuition that was at a reasonable level. Also, to help keep operating costs down, the farm operation sold its products to the public (its scrapple having been a local delicacy).
The work ethic inculcated into the students of CFS has made them survivors in life and successful at work and their careers, with alumni including more notably a retired Brigadier General of the Army ('64), the chief financial officer of a major Hollywood studio ('71) and the pastor of a leading African-American church in Washington D.C. ('68). In addition to West Chester University, Penn State, Penn (University of Pennsylvania) and Temple University, achieving graduates have matriculated to Tufts University, the Naval Academy, the University of Chicago and the Princeton Theological Seminary.
During the 1930s, the Colonel was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Pennsylvania along with Helen Keller and the governor of that state for his work at CFS and in setting up boarding schools and orphanages in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Presently its program is designed for boys in grades 7-12, the "junior school" of grades 5-6 having been phased out in the 1960s. In addition, as part of the changes instituted during the 1990s, day students were accepted. The school is affiliated with the Episcopal Church but is moderately conservative viewing its mission as inculcating in its students Christian values and the work ethic.
In the 1990s much of the farm land was sold-off to developers for over $40 million, making CFS one of the most highly endowed private secondary schools in the United States along with the most prestigious academies of New England — quite an achievement for such a humble institution.
