Episcopal School of Acadiana
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Episcopal School of Acadiana (ESA) is a coeducational, Episcopal, and private lower, middle, and high school located in Cade, LA between Lafayette and New Iberia, although it serves most of the seven parish Lafayette metro area. The school serves grade levels 6-12, but has recently expanded to include a lower school in Lafayette, Louisiana.
| Episcopal School of Acadiana | |
| Location | |
|---|---|
| Cade, LA, U.S. | |
| Information | |
| Religion | Episcopal |
| Headmaster | Christopher Taylor |
| Enrollment |
478 Students |
| Faculty | 78 |
| Type | Private |
| Campus | Suburban |
| Athletics | Participatory |
| Motto | Learning Living Growing |
| Mascot | Falcon |
| School color(s) | Blue & Grey |
| Established | 1979 |
| Homepage | www.esacadiana.com |
Contents |
[edit] Founding & History
The Episcopal School of Acadiana was established with grades 6 through 12 in 1979. The first Headmaster, the Reverend Rodney Smith, Assistant Headmaster Tom Olverson, and the founding Board of Trustees led by Dwight “Bo” Ramsay emphasized that expenditures be made for a national caliber faculty and curriculum instead of an expensive physical plant. To this day, ESA still educates its students in a rural, rustic atmosphere. The Upper and Middle School campus of ESA is situated in the midst of a working sugarcane farm in south Louisiana. With cypress buildings for classrooms surrounding the gymnasium, clapboard buildings housing administrative offices, soccer, baseball and rugby fields, gravel roads and parking lots mixed with paved ones, and only one brick structure on campus - the Chapel - ESA humbly blends into the rural south Louisiana landscape.
From the beginning, ESA’s philosophy had three main points: the best academic program in its geographic area; an institution drawing on the history and traditions of the Christian church; and a solid athletic program with intramural and varsity teams.
Originally, eleven teachers and 87 students met in the basement of the First Baptist Church in Lafayette, Louisiana. In 1980, the school moved to its current, Cade campus, a seventy-five acre (now one hundred acre) site donated by Mrs. Betty Smedes Jardine from her family’s Oasis Plantation and Sugar Mill. Mrs. Jardine stipulated that ESA should make provisions to educate the “less fortunate.” The early physical plant included the Old Chapel, administrative building and a building known as the “barn,” all originally part of the plantation complex. Remnants of the old sugar mill which was destroyed by fire over 50 years ago still sit at the back of the campus.
In 1981, ESA’s second Headmaster, the Reverend C. Robert Nielsen, became even more academically focused, encouraging the arts, attracting a diverse and talented faculty, initiating the senior class trip to Europe and establishing the school as the premier college preparatory institution in the area. ESA decided that the best way to fulfill Mrs. Jardine’s stipulation to educate the less fortunate would be to have an active scholarship program dedicating at least 7% of tuition revenue to students in need.
In the summer of 1990, ESA’s third Headmaster, Dr. Thomas D. Grayson, began a year and a half period as Headmaster. Under his leadership, long range planning was begun, computer access expanded into individual departments, teacher continuing education was emphasized, and the financial stability of the school was strengthened.
In the 1990s under Headmaster Hiram Goza, the school grew in student population, faculty and facilities, including new classrooms, decks and playing fields, and a new chapel was built and dedicated in honor of Bishop Willis R. Henton, one of ESA’s most ardent supporters.
In 2004, ESA opened a Lower School serving grades PreK-3 through 5, located in Lafayette. Its program is founded on the Schoolwide Enrichment Model, a model developed by Joseph Renzulli of the University of Connecticut, a leader in the field of gifted education, and emphasizes independence, problem-solving, creative thinking and continued progress for every child in the program - priorities that are mirrored in the Middle and Upper Schools. As ESA has grown, so have its standards and reputation for academic excellence. It has steadfastly maintained its rural charm, strong record of college placement, sense of Christian community, Honor Code, and trusting relationship between teachers and students.
In 2005, ESA welcomed its fifth Headmaster, Christopher Taylor. With the support of the Board of Trustees, Mr. Taylor has established an endowment, initiated a teacher evaluation program and developed a five-year strategic plan for ESA’s continued success. ESA is universally considered one of the preeminent secondary schools in Louisiana.
[edit] Affiliations
The school is a member of several local, regional, and national educational and religious associations.
Athletically, the school is in the "B" Division (schools without a football program) of the Louisiana High School Athletic Association (LHSAA). ESA supports several sports including cross-country, boys' and girls' soccer, boys' basketball, baseball, swimming, track and field, and boys' and girls' tennis. The girls' volleyball team holds a national record of 16 consecutive state-championships. While the school lacks a football team, it is proud to be the instigating force and first school to support a full boys' rugby team under the leadership and guidance of Coach and History Chair Brian McIntyre. Since then, several other rugby teams have sprung up in the New Orleans area. While the other schools often intimidated ESA's rugby team (also known as Legion Rugby Football Club) with numbers and size, ESA captured the state championship in 2006.
[edit] Schedule
The schedule is divided into eight forty-five minute class periods, a thirty minute chapel, a twenty five minute lunch, and a fifteen minute break between chapel and mid-morning classes. The schedule is a rotating schedule, which means that the students classes are at different times each day.
[edit] Trivia
- Professional Tennis Player Chanda Rubin graduated from ESA in 1993.
- The founders of Animesecrets.net, the Internet's premire site for anime related content, both graduated from ESA in 2006.
- The school has won the Class B Ford Cup for the most outstanding athletics in the state of Louisiana for 10 years in a row
[edit] Colleges
Graduates from ESA have been placed in outstanding academic institutions such as Stanford, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Dartmouth College, Swarthmore, Boston College, College of William and Mary, Columbia, Agnes Scott, DePaul, Georgetown, Haverford, John Hopkins, Emory, Purdue, Rice, SMU, Tulane, Yale, Wash U, Wellesley, and Harvard.
