Detroit Country Day School

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Detroit Country Day School (DCDS, DCD, or Country Day for short) is a private, secular school located in Beverly Hills, Michigan, northwest of Detroit.

DCDS was founded in Detroit in 1914, inspired by the Country Day School movement. In addition to the main campus in Beverly Hills, which includes the Middle and Upper School, two other campuses (the Lower school and the Junior school) are located in nearby Bloomfield Hills.

The school's motto is 'Mens Sana in Corpore Sano' or 'Sound Mind in a Sound Body'. It is considered one of the top college preparatory schools in the Midwest, and has a long tradition of both athletic and academic excellence. In addition to a fine series of honors and Advanced Placement (AP) programs, students at Detroit Country Day have the opportunity to study for and receive an International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma. Thanks to its rigorous requirements and attendance caps, class sizes are quite small; most graduating classes have 120-150 students, and few classes contain more than 25 students. Unlike most public and many private schools, DCDS requires students to participate in activities that most schools make optional. Under the "points system," these requirements are tracked by the accumulation of blue points (athletics), gold points (clubs) and white points (service). All students must play two competitive sports (one point may come from strength training, varsity debate, science fair, robotics, drama, or extracirccular activities deemed appropriate), join one club, and perform ten hours of volunteer work per year. Students attending DCDS on scholarship may face more stringent requirements depending on the terms of the scholarship.

Detroit Country Day School is well respected in Class B MHSAA athletics, frequently sending teams to regional and state finals in soccer, basketball and tennis. Additionally, the school fields teams in dozens of other sports, notably football, golf, lacrosse, field and ice hockey, baseball and softball, volleyball, skiing and track and field. The school also sponsors intramural Ultimate Frisbee, Mountain Biking, Snowboarding and Bowling teams. The DCDS mascot is the Yellow Jacket. St. Mary's Preparatory, Cranbrook Kingswood School, Brother Rice High School (Michigan) and Greenhills School are DCDS's major rivals. The Yellow Jacket athletic program has been a point of controversy for the school, however. In 2006, the Michigan High School Athletic Association requested that DCD remove its boys basketball state championship banner due to the fact that eventual University of Michigan and NBA star Chris Webber was receiving illegal payments from U of M booster Ed Martin. The school, however, refused to do so.

[edit] History

The Detroit Preparatory School was founded in 1914 by F. Alden Shaw, based on an educational philosophy espoused at the Country School for Boys in Baltimore, MD. The original school opened with four pupils, was briefly taught out of Mr. Shaw's mother's dining room, and stressed both academics and athletics. By 1923, the school had acquired a new name - Detroit Country Day School - and moved to a new campus on Seven Mile Road in the upscale neighborhood of Palmer Park.

During the immediate pre-war era and World War II, DCDS took on some aspects of a military academy. The school brought in Army instructors to teach physical education, and students were encouraged to enlist upon graduation. The school reverted to a civilian footing with the end of the war.

The period 1950-1980 marked a large expansion in DCDS' student body and facilities. By the mid-1950s, the school had outgrown its Palmer Park campus, and the school's directors designed plans to expand into the northern suburbs. In 1957, the school moved into a considerably larger new campus on Thirteen Mile Road in the suburb of Beverly Hills. Shortly thereafter, further growth necessitated the split of the school into three (later four) campuses: the Lower School at Fifteen Mile and Lahser, and the Middle and Upper Schools at the 13 Mile campus. In 1986, DCDS added a fourth (Junior School) campus, and the Middle School moved into its own building behind the Upper School in 1991.

Until 1940, DCDS was strictly a boys' school. Girls were first admitted to Grades K-6 in 1940, but were not allowed admission to the Upper School until 1972.

With the completion of the World Campus capital campaign in 2000, the 13 Mile Campus underwent a comprehensive program of expansion and upgrading. Improvements included a larger, renovated library, a new computer laboratory, two new wings of classrooms, a renovated Common Room, and a new Performing Arts Center (previously, morning assemblies were held in the gym and dramatic productions staged in the cafeteria). Other upgrades included new landscaping, restoration of the River Rouge watershed that borders the campus, and improved student and faculty parking. Additionally, the building was completely wired for Ethernet and partially for Wi-Fi connectivity in preparation for the pioneering "Knowledge Technologies" student computing program, which kicked off in the 1999-2000 school year. DCDS was one of the first K-12 schools in the nation to require every Middle School and Upper School student to own a laptop PC, and remains at the forefront of technological integration in the classroom.

The Seligman Family Performing Arts Center, which opened in 2000, is a "top of the line" theater with state-of-the-art digital sound, lighting and projection equipment, allowing for the production of all forms of performing art as well as films and lectures. For reasons of student safety, however, the PAC lacks a fly system. The PAC has housed Off Broadway shows such as "The Stoop on Orchard Street" and is the home venue for the Detroit Chamber Music Society. In addition to this, the theater also hosts all school assemblies and three major school productions (typically two dramas and one musical) per year.

The current headmaster of Detroit Country Day School is Gerald Hansen. However, he has announced that he will retire at the end of the year. The school has begun to search for a new headmaster. The interviews have started and they are bringing the final candidates to the school.