The Hockaday School

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Hockaday School

Excellence
Established	1913
School type	Private, Non-sectarian
Headmistress	Jeanne Preston Whitman
Location	Dallas, Texas, USA
Students	1,020 girls
Faculty	105
Mascot	Killer Daisy
Athletics	13 sports
Website	www.hockaday.org

The Hockaday School is an independent school, non-sectarian college preparatory day and boarding school for girls located in Dallas, Texas. The boarding school is for girls in grades 8 – 12 and the day school is from pre-kindergarten to grade 12.

1 History
2 The school today
3 Academics
4 Boarding
5 Campus facilities
6 Tuition
7 Athletics
8 The arts
9 Clubs and organizations
10 Famous alumnae
11 References
12 External links

[edit] History

The school was founded in 1913 by Ela Hockaday in response to parental demand for a college preparatory school for girls. While the school is noted for its students' continuing on to a variety of prestigious universities today, early on the school sent many girls to Smith College. The first class consisted of only ten students. Miss Hockaday's friend, Sarah Trent, was one of the first teachers at the school and was influential in its development.

Miss Hockaday founded her school on four cornerstones that were to form the basis of the students' educations: character, courtesy, scholarship, and athletics. Today, the Founder's Day award is the most noteworthy a graduating senior can receive; the honor is given to the girls who best exemplify these four cornerstones. Community service and participation in the fine arts have also become hallmarks of the school.

[edit] The school today

Hockaday has occupied its current campus in a residential area of Northwest Dallas since 1961. The enrollment is approximately 1000 students from pre-K to 12, about 450 in the Upper School. The student to faculty ratio is approximately 10:1. Hockaday students enjoy also a 100% acceptance rate to college. Recent graduates have attended Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Harvard, Olin College, Princeton University, Rice University, Stanford, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, University of Texas at Austin, Vanderbilt University and Yale.

The school colors are green and white, and the current school uniform for Upper and Middle School consists of saddle-oxfords, white dress shirts or polo shirts, and a uniform green and white plaid skirt. Green blazers are added on "dress uniform days" for grades 5 – 11, while seniors gain the privilege of wearing white blazers. It is viewed as a rite of passage to earn one's white blazer, along with the class ring, at the end of junior year.

The school crest bears a unicorn, but in the 1980s the student council voted to adopt the "Killer Daisy" as a mascot. This stems from the nickname for students at Hockaday: Hockadaisies.

[edit] Academics

The minimum graduation requirement for Upper school students is 16 course credits, although virtually all students exceed this criteria and pursue additional study in particular areas of interest. Girls must complete four years of English (English I, English II, English III, and Senior English, where students may pursue 2 semesters of seminar study or enroll in AP English), 3 years of math (through Algebra II), 2 years of the same foreign language, 2 1/2 years of history (World History, United States History, and United States Government), 3 years of science (Physics, Chemistry and one more year of the student's choosing), 1 1/2 years of fine arts (one full year of applied art and History of Art and Music), as well as a Physical Education requirement each year.

The customary course load for Upper School students is 5 curricular solids (English, history, foreign language, science, and math), 1 fine art, and 1 block of Physical Education. However, it is relatively common for seniors to "double-up" on a particular subject.

No student is permitted to enroll in more than 5 solids at any time or more than 4 Advanced Placement classes at any time.

Advanced Placement courses offered include English Language, English Literature, Spanish Language, Spanish Literature, French Language, French Literature, Latin: Vergil, Latin Literature, Economics, United States History, European History, World History, Calculus AB, Calculus BC, Statistics, Computer Science, Chemistry, Physics B, Physics C, Biology, Environmental Science, Studio Art, and Music Theory.

The faculty consists of 105 full-time teachers and 9 part-time teachers, of whom 62 have a Master's degree and six hold Doctoral degrees. The average tenure of the faculty is 10 years. Recently the school has undergone major construction and innovation initiatives, which have included the introduction of a laptop program (now all Middle and Upper Schoolers are issued laptop computers to use in and out of school for their assignments) as well as the addition of Smartboard technology to each classroom.

The School follows a semester system with 80-minute classes that each meet three times in a six-day rotation. Exams for Upper School students take place only once per school year, in mid-March immediately prior to Spring Break.

The ranges of SAT scores for the middle 50% of the Class of 2005 were SAT I: Verbal, 740-600, and Math, 730-620; SAT II Subject Test scores were: Writing, 750-630; Math 1C, 720-610; Math 2C, 760-650; American History, 720-650; Spanish, 720-600.

[edit] Boarding

Hockaday's Residence Department is comprised of approximately 60 boarding students from numerous states and as many as 14 different countries. Girls who board live in one of the School's two dorms -- Morgan and Trent. Hockaday Boarders have the opportunity to take advantage of the educational offerings of Hockaday as well as the many extracurricular activities, including sports, clubs and organizations, and community service. They are able to enjoy the activities of any teenage girl, participating in shopping excursions, seeing movies, attending concerts, and visiting museums. The Host Family Program involves the School's faculty and parents as surrogate families to a resident, providing support in athletic activities and inviting them to join in family activities.

[edit] Campus facilities

The academic classrooms for the Middle and Upper Schools are held in two adjoining and parallel two-story buildings near the center of campus recently renovated in 2005. They house Hockaday’s Middle and Upper School foreign language, history, English, and math classes in addition to two student commons and break-out study rooms.

The Crow Science Building features several chemistry, physics, and biology labs as well as a greenhouse and Clements Lecture Hall.

The Horchow Fine Arts wing features a classroom for Hockaday’s art and music history courses; music and practice rooms; a black box theater and rehearsal space; a fully equipped ceramics studio with kilns; photography labs; and a sun-filled art studio. It is also home to Hoblitzelle Auditorium.

Completed in 2002, the Liza Lee Academic Research Center, known as the LLARC, is a state-of-the-art facility that houses Hockaday’s libraries, technology hub, science exploration lab, audiovisual editing bays, and publications rooms.

The Lower School Gym, known as the Small Gym, contains two basketball courts, Hockaday’s indoor pool, and a variety of equipment. Middle and Upper School physical education and wellness classes take place in the Penson Athletic Center.

Adjoining the Penson Athletic Center, Hockaday's Wellness Center, completed in 2003, includes the 5,000-square-foot Hill Family Fitness Center, a 1,800-square-foot aerobics room with state-of-the-art aerobic and resistance equipment, and athletic training facilities that are fully equipped for the treatment of sports-related injuries.

Hockaday’s athletic fields are located east of Penson Athletic Center. They include five playing fields, a softball diamond and an all-weather six-lane track. The tennis center includes a covered gallery and 10 tennis courts, some of which are lighted.

The Ashley H. Priddy Lower School building adjoins the Liza Lee Academic Research Center. The artwork of Lower School students lines the hallways; and a large common room is the stage for many special events, such as Pioneer Day and the Medieval Festival. The Lower School building also houses a spacious art room and several music rooms as well as a French café.

The Lower School Addition, which houses pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and primer classrooms, opened in the fall of 2001. Each room features such details as hand-painted tiles created by the Lower School girls themselves and child-height cooking and food preparation areas. The space is finished with a wall of windows that look out on Hockaday’s playground, the duck pond, and the new Wellness Center.

[edit] Tuition

The 2005-2006 tuition for Upper School day students totaled $18,488. For resident students, costs are approximately $33,780. Financial aid is granted on the basis of demonstrated family need and the school's availability of funds. In 2005-2006, 143 students received financial aid.

[edit] Athletics

Athletics are another major aspect of student life at Hockaday. The school participates in 14 different interscholastic sports as a member of SPC. In the 2005-2006 school year, Hockaday varsity athletic teams captured championships in swimming/diving and golf, as well as placing second in lacrosse and tennis. Physical education and personal wellness are emphasized in the curriculum at all ages. From age 4, girls participate in daily PE classes, and even in high school, students must participate in either physical education class or athletics (varsity, junior varsity, or out-of-school with demonstrated level of intensity) during every quarter.

[edit] The arts

The Fine Arts Department sees the Arts as central to intuitive, affective, and aesthetic education and to the development of both right-brain and left-braining thinking. The Arts should be learned in a mode that is active rather than passive with as much authentic and hands-on experience as possible. At all grade levels, the Arts at Hockaday utilize developmentally appropriate challenges in basic and critical thinking skills: perceiving, distinguishing, organizing, analyzing, synthesizing, conceptualizing and expressing. The Hockaday curriculum seeks to balance ways of responding to art with ways of producing or performing that art. One of the basic responsibilities of the Fine Arts Department and of its curriculum is the advocacy of the talent of the individual student -- an advocacy that enables her to balance the demands of the overall Hockaday curriculum with her personal artistic growth.

[edit] Clubs and organizations

Hockadaisies are known for their activism and participation in the life of the campus community. In the studio, on the field, through the hallways or within the classroom, each girl will graduate having left her mark on her alma mater. Some of the more popular clubs are Quizbowl, JETS (Junior Engineering Technical Society), Fashion/Advertising/Design, Mosaico (the Spanish literary magazine), Crossword Puzzle Club, Environmental Awareness, Video Yearbook, and ROAR (a school spirit booster organization). If a particular club does not exist, students may enlist a faculty sponsor, recruit members, and create a chapter on campus.

Middle School and Upper School schoolers are given the opportunity to contribute to various student-run publications. In Middle School students learn leadership and responsibility in addition to journalism skills as they write, edit and conduct interviews for Newsway, a student-run newspaper that is published several times a year. They also put out Banner, a literary magazine which teaches them skills in editing and drawing, layout and design, cooperation, and public speaking. In Upper School, students have the opportunity to experience the atmosphere and process of a professional newspaper while working on The Fourcast. The Vibrato literary magazine showcases the works of upper school students and for the second year in a row has been awarded the prestigious Pacemaker Award. The school yearbook, "Cornerstones," is produced entirely by students and as such, students are responsible for the design, layout, copy, and photographic content.

Beginning in the fifth grade there are many areas for extracurricular leadership by serving as a club officer or participating in an elected council. Middle schoolers may participate in student government, community service board, or the honor council; the opportunities expand in Upper School to include athletic board, fine arts board, technology board, form council (grades 9-12 are referred to as forms I-IV), academic council and house council (boarding department governing system) as well.

The school has a well-known community service program, which operates in conjunction with St. Mark's, and which requires every upper school student to perform at least 15 hours of service every year, although many students far exceed this quota. H-Club, the school's hosts and tour guide society, is a popular program. Another notable organization is Hockaday's debate team, which ranks in the top five nationally for secondary schools.