Friends' Central School

Friends' Central School (FCS) is a Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) school located in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, a section of Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania. With more than 1000 students ranging from pre-kindergarten to grade 12, Friends' Central School is one of the largest Friends schools in the Delaware Valley. "Friends' Central," as the school is casually referred to, was founded in 1845 in Philadelphia, near the current location of the United States Mint. The school contains three divisions: a lower school for grades pre-K through 4th, a middle school for grades 5th through 8th and an upper school for grades 9th through 12th. While the middle and upper school share the same campus, the lower school is on a separate site in Wynnewood. Friends' Central is well known for the quality of its education and its highly liberal and active community.

History
Friends' Central was founded in 1845 as an upper school for the Quaker primary schools in Philadelphia, serving only grades 7 through 12 it was located at 4th and Cherry Streets. In 1857, the school moved to 15th and Race Streets. It remained at the Race Street campus (modern day site of Friends' Center) until 1925, when it moved to its campus on City Avenue, formerly the Wister-Morris Estate. The main administrative building of the school is still the main house of the estate. In 1988, due to continuing growth in the size of the school community, Friends' Central purchased the Montgomery School's property and relocated the lower school to that campus, where it still is today. Friends' Central continues to expand by renovating its buildings and building new, more modern buildings (i.e., Fannie Cox Center and Shimada Athletic Center) while still keeping some of the older ones such as the Wood Building, constructed as a house in 1862.

All students are required to attend weekly Meeting for Worship on Wednesdays for 40 minutes, regardless of personal religion. The community convenes in one central room in silence and individuals stand when "moved to speak" to express a thought to the community, though only once per meeting. This creates an atmosphere of tolerance and equality, where students must listen to the voices of others. Students are also required to perform service outside of the school, for a set of mandatory hours. In the middle and upper school, students are required to take two religious courses: in the middle school it is taught in the 5th and 7th grade and covers on the history and faith of Quakerism, and the one taught in the upper school is one based on Quakerism, while the other one based on the Bible. However, both are taught from a non-religious perspective. In these classes students are taught the history of the Society of Friends, and the central philosophies of Quakerism. These philosophies are still the foundation of the school's close-knit small community and liberal and open-minded education.