Friends Seminary

Friends Seminary educates students from kindergarten through twelfth grade, adhering to the values of the Religious Society of Friends. We strive to build a diverse school where students exercise their curiosity and imagination as they develop as scholars, artists and athletes. In a community that cultivates the practices of keen observation, unhurried reflection, critical thinking, and coherent expression, we listen for the single voice as we seek unity. The disciplines of silence, study, and service provide the matrix for growth: silence opens us to change; study helps us to know the world; service challenges us to put our values into practice. At Friends Seminary, education is rooted in the Quaker belief in the Inner Light – that of God in every person. Guided by the testimonies of integrity, peace, equality, and simplicity, we prepare students to engage in the world that is and to help bring about a world that ought to be.

Service is integral to Friends Seminary’s educational mission, along with the disciplines of study and silence. Our Community Service Program strives to instill a sense of stewardship of school community and respect for responsibility to our urban neighborhood and beyond. By providing opportunities within the curriculum and in other relevant activities for students to witness and understand the needs of others, we hope to prepare them for a life that includes service. Our goal is to integrate knowledge and undertaking with compassion and social responsibility. Only through reflection and understanding the need to put our values into practice will students be able to grasp the importance of the gift of caring for each other, for all humanity, and for the natural world.

The Society of Friends is founded in the belief that there is that of God in every person and that truth emerges as new voices are heard and incorporated in our understanding. We believe that the quality of the truths we know is enriched and deepened by welcoming people with diverse experiences of the world into our community.

We want to foster a community that addresses the challenge of valuing difference and making every individual feel welcome, supported, and safe: a community in which each person is asked to make the rigorous commitment to recognize the Light within every other, to hear that piece of truth each person brings to the continuing dialogue which is the foundation of our community. We want our daily interactions to demonstrate that maintaining respect and pursuing the hard work of understanding difference creates strength as we work to define and move toward common goals.

Our mission as an educational institution is to prepare our students to participate in an increasingly interdependent world and, by graduating an increasingly diverse group of students, to help build a more effective citizenry and representative leadership for the future. We seek to develop the skills and discipline necessary to communicate effectively and to learn from a rich variety of experiences and points of view. This work is central to valuing diversity, to the purpose of education and to the Quaker ideals of integrity, peace, equality and simplicity.

In a world in which people continue to suffer profound inequalities of opportunity, we dedicate ourselves to stretching what we have and are capable of: to working to become a community more representative of the city in which we live and to improving our ability to support a diverse student body. The gap between our ideals and the possible creates struggle to which we commit ourselves with energy and joy.

As our students, faculty and administrative staff go about the important work of learning and growing together throughout this academic year, construction continues on the Townhouses — a key component of our Campus Redevelopment Project funded by our community members who are Lighting the Future for our students today and tomorrow. In addition to the completion of floors five and six in Hunter Hall last school year, our Sky Field — a turfed play and practice space atop the sixth floor — is now open. Additionally, a new gym floor, scoreboard and climbing wall have been installed, underscoring our commitment to physical education and student athletes.

As a Quaker school, and as NYC’s oldest continuing coeducational school, Friends is distinguished by a legacy of intellectual vibrancy informed by Quaker values of integrity, equality, simplicity, community, service and peaceful conflict resolution. Optimism and a “can do” attitude resonate throughout the school; whether it be grappling with a literary analysis in English class, competing on the soccer field, or proactively supporting an important social issue. Friends students have the confidence to “go for it”, to problem solve and push reset when needed. At Friends, the joy of teaching, learning and engagement is a palpable experience.