Company Profile
The Park School of Baltimore
Company Overview
THE PARK SCHOOL OF BALTIMORE
The Park School of Baltimore, Maryland is located on a 100-acre tract of wooded land in a suburb just north of Baltimore. Park is a non-sectarian, independent, coeducational day school of 875 students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade.
Founded in 1912 as one of the early progressive schools, The Park School continues to practice a distinctive educational philosophy. The core values today, as in 1912, are a belief in children’s capacity to enjoy learning, to act rationally, and to grow when inspired by highly qualified, caring teachers; and a commitment to inclusiveness and equity as fundamental human values.
Small classes (average 15) and close faculty-student relationships are integral to Park’s approach. Its academic program is ambitious, focusing from young ages on nurturing the child’s capacity for intellectual inquiry, analysis, problem solving, and independence of thought, as well as mastery of basic skills. Debate and discussion, substantial writing and reading, questioning and experimenting are basic modes of learning. For younger students, the program emphasizes experiential learning and significant individualization of instruction within an integrated curriculum. At upper grade levels, the program includes both required courses and a broad range of electives, with advanced courses in all disciplines, independent study options, and a special Senior Term program.
Park currently has 121 faculty members (104 full-time). Priority is given to recruitment of highly qualified, experienced faculty. The average teaching experience of current Park faculty is 20 years, the highest of any major Baltimore school, and two-thirds of the faculty hold advanced degrees. People of color include 22 faculty members (18.2% of faculty) and five academic administrators. In addition, the Lower School Intern Program, targeted to recent college graduates, brings aspiring teachers from diverse backgrounds to Park each year. Active efforts to increase faculty diversity are ongoing. At Park the teacher’s role is fully professional, with curricular development an essential component, and unusual latitude for the exercise of individual talent and initiative. Professional development receives distinctive support through a $5.2 million endowed program which currently funds over 40% of Park’s faculty each summer to work full-time, at full salary, on curricular projects. Because of its emphasis on guidance for each student, the school offers teachers a particular opportunity for work with students beyond, as well as within, the classroom.
In the past ten years, 92% of Park graduates have attended colleges ranked Most, Highly and Very Selective, including 46% to Most Selective and 32.6% to Highly Selective and Highly Selective+ categories. Recent graduates are attending a variety of colleges and universities, including Barnard, Bowdoin, Brandeis, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dickinson, George Washington, Harvard, Haverford, Johns Hopkins, New York University, Oberlin, Princeton, Stanford, Tufts, University of Chicago, University of Maryland, University of Pennsylvania, Vassar, Washington University, Wesleyan, and Yale.
Park’s increasingly diverse student body comes from Baltimore City and five surrounding counties. Currently 19% of students are African American, Asian, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, or multi-racial. Park is seriously committed to ongoing efforts both to attract students from diverse backgrounds and to make Park a welcoming environment. Park views varied perspectives, life experiences and talents as critical to its educational mission. (The school was founded on the principle of religious tolerance and was the first independent school in Baltimore to adopt a policy of racial integration.) One-quarter of Park’s students receive financial aid: 17% through the Financial Assistance Program, and 8% through the Faculty Tuition Remission Program. The school population includes a sizeable number of middle-income families.
The Park School moved to its present location in 1959. The main building has connecting Lower, Middle and Upper School wings, and a 300-seat theater. Two libraries, housing 46,000 volumes, were completely renovated in summer 2006. The pre-school is housed in a separate building. The campus includes five athletic fields and a regulation track, as well as an outdoor education initiative course. The school’s wooded areas, pond and stream enhance learning in science and other areas.
For the past ten years, The Park School has been involved in an ambitious program of construction to provide facilities for the school’s expanded student population. The plan has doubled the square footage of the school, with major new facilities for science, arts and athletics, new Lower School classroom wings, and complete renovation of Middle and Upper School buildings and the two libraries.
Science and technology facilities were radically upgraded with the opening of the 27,000-square-foot Morton K. Blaustein Center for Science, Mathematics and Technology in 1997. In addition to new laboratories for both Middle and Upper Schools, the Blaustein Center includes a 100-seat lecture hall and a rooftop observatory. The school’s technology facilities now include six computer labs, with both new construction and renovation of existing buildings designed to support full access to technology. For the Lower School, recent construction has included an expanded computer lab and a science resource room.
The Wyman Arts Center, a 44,000-square-foot addition, has added an array of state-of-the-art facilities to support Park's programs. For performing arts, facilities include a black box theater, music classrooms and practice rooms, a keyboarding laboratory, and a recording studio. Visual arts facilities include spacious 2-D and 3-D studios, photography and computer graphics laboratories, and an art gallery.
Park’s athletic facilities have greatly expanded within the last few years. The new Athletic Center includes three regulation playing courts and a fully equipped weight and fitness center. An eight-lane swimming pool adjoins the center. A new climbing wall complements Park’s outdoor education initiative course. In addition, the Lucille and Gordon Sugar Campus, five minutes from Park, now provides four additional athletic fields, as well as areas for nature study and camp activities.
Park’s Strategic Plan, adopted by the Board of Trustees in 2001, gives priority to the following areas: enhancement of faculty salaries and benefits, and enhanced funding for professional development; increase in the financial assistance program; ongoing efforts to diversity the school's faculty, students, administration, and Board of Trustees; and ongoing curriculum development, with particular attention to math and science.
The school seeks faculty who have strong academic credentials and prior experience, combined with a philosophic orientation compatible with Park’s approach. The school is particularly interested in faculty who have expertise in curriculum development and a demonstrated commitment to professional growth. Median salary in 2007-08 is $55,500.
Company History
Please see overview.
Benefits
For information about tuition remission program and paid faculty professional development program, please see overview.