Choice Awards Winner: Forsyth Country Day School
By Joyce G. Henson, Interim Head of Forsyth Country Day School
It’s an all-too-familiar story: when the state seeks to slash budgets, it looks invariably to our schools. Teachers are laid off, class sizes increase, and programs judged “unnecessary” are eliminated or drastically reduced.
Unlike the public schools, however, Forsyth Country Day School has choices, and we make those choices with the best interests of our students in junior pre-k through twelfth grade and their families in mind. The best interests of our children are served by our rigorous college-preparatory curriculum, which includes an impressive array of Advanced Placement and Honors courses, a rich tapestry of visual and performing arts, foreign languages including Spanish, French, Latin, Mandarin Chinese, and American Sign Language, technology, and physical education.
At Forsyth Country Day, we don’t call subjects beyond the “three Rs” of “reading, writing, and ’rithmetic,” extra-curriculars, because they are integral to an FCDS education. Art, foreign language, technology, and physical education are as important to the development of the whole child as learning to read or solve math problems. At FCDS, the arts are infused into the daily lives of our students. The youngest take music several times a week from Beth Frack, our gifted artist-in-residence. Older students take more formal visual arts classes and perform in one of our choirs, concert bands, or orchestras. Physical education from junior pre-kindergarten through ninth grade helps build strong bodies, and an expansive athletics program that supports a full roster of athletic teams from middle school to varsity builds not only physical strength, but teamwork and leadership.
Although we believe strongly in art for art’s sake, studies support that involvement in the arts benefits students in other ways. A University of California at Los Angeles study of more than 25,000 middle and high school students found that young people with high arts involvement scored better on standardized test than their less-involved peers. Further, this study showed that these art-involved students did more community service, were less bored in school, and watched less television.
Another choice Forsyth Country Day makes for its students is to hire and retain the most gifted and talented teachers. These professionals – each and every one a master teacher in his or her field – love what they do and care about the young people they teach. They never stop finding new ways to reach and teach our students. If one method of instruction doesn’t “reach” a student, our innovative faculty will find another way to teach the material to that child – and they do this for every student they teach.
Forsyth Country Day School offers truly child-centered learning, focusing on what’s best for our students and families. We know that you, as parents, have choices to make for your children every day, and where to send them to school is one of the most important. Please look into what we have to offer online at www.fcds.org, or call Cindy Kluttz, our Director of Admission and Financial Aid, at 945-3151 ext. 340 to schedule a tour.
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