Neha Patil (Editor)

High Point Friends School

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Type
  
Private, Coeducational

Principal
  
David Girardi

Team name
  
Falcons

Founded
  
1953

Colors
  
Blue, Brown

Religious affiliation(s)
  
Quakers

Grades
  
Kindergarten–8

Phone
  
+1 336-886-5516

Lowest grade
  
Kindergarten

High Point Friends School

Athletics conference
  
Independent Schools League

Address
  
800-A Quaker Ln, High Point, NC 27262, USA

Accreditation
  
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools

Similar
  
Wesleyan Christian Academy, High Point Christian Academy, Westches Country Day School, The Piedmont School, Shadybro Elementary School

Profiles

High point friends school allows me to be me


High Point Friends School (HPFS), also known locally simply as "Friends School" is a Quaker institution in High Point, North Carolina, United States. It is an independent, secondary school serving approximately 300 students, ages 12 months through 8th grade.

Contents

Founded by members of High Point Monthly Meeting in 1963.

High point friends school high point nc


Facilities

High Point Friends School is located on the grounds of High Point Friends Meeting, at 800 Quaker Lane in central High Point. HPFS's primary building is the Honbarrier Educational Center, made possible by a generous gift of the Honbarrier family. The brick, Georgian Revival-style building includes an outdoor amphitheater, a media center, and classrooms for Lower and Middle School classrooms.

History

HPFS was established as a Preschool and Half Day Kindergarten in 1963. The school developed a strong reputation and quickly became an educational tradition for many families. In 1998, members of the meeting gathered to discuss the possibility of expanding the school to include grades 1 - 5. With approval from Monthly Meeting, this expansion was approved and funding secured. The First Grade met in August 2001, and subsequent grades have been added. In 2003, the new Honbarrier Educational Center opened to house all functions of the Lower School. In 2006, the school embarked on an expansion that included a Middle School, with grades 6-8.

Campus

The South Woods adjacent to High Point Friends School is a rare surviving fragment of native forest near downtown High Point.

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When the Meeting purchased the property around 1948, the hilltop on which the meetinghouse and lawn stand was a sedge field, possibly left open from use as a pasture during the late nineteenth century. However, the area that is now the South Woods was wooded at that time, being of rugged terrain that may have made timber harvest difficult. A sand rock quarry stood north of the site.

After the meetinghouse was constructed in 1955, the woods were selected as a cool summer gathering place for picnics. A rustic shelter was erected in the woods, and many covered-dish dinners and family cookouts were held under the tall limbs of the woods.

In 2003, 50 years after completion of the meetinghouse, the lower school building of High Point Friends School opened just north of the woods. The proximity of the school to the woods ensured use of the woods by future students of the school for science, ecology, biology, geology and tree identification.

Today, the site harbors indigenous trees that would have been found in the area long before High Point was founded. Soaring canopy trees, understory trees, shrubs and ground cover typically found in the Carolina piedmont, include hardwoods White Oak (Quercus alba), Southern Red Oak (Quercus falcata), Shagbark Hickory (Carya ovata), Tulip Poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), Blackgum (Nyssa sylvatica), Sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua); softwoods such as Shortleaf Pine (Pinus echinata), and White Pine (Pinus strobes); understory trees such as Flowering Dogwood (Cornus Florida), Redbud (Cercis canadensis) and Sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum); and groundcovers such as Wood Ferns (Dryopteris spp.), Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) and even Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron toxicarium).

References

High Point Friends School Wikipedia