PDSCrusader

Presbyterian Day School
Building Boys, Making Men
General Information
Type	Private, All-Male
Motto	Building Boys, Making Men
Religious Affiliation	Christian, Presbyterian
Established	1949
Headmaster	Lee Burns
Ass't Headmaster for Teaching and Learning	Susan Droke
Prin. of the Elem. Division	Mark Fruitt
Head of Early Childhood	Debbie Isom
In-Depth Information
Faculty	100+
Grades	Pre-Kindergarten through 6th
Enrollment	633
Colors	Red and Blue.
Mascot	The Crusader
Accreditation(s)	SACS, NAIS, SAIS, TAIS, MAIS, IBSC, ERB.

Presbyterian Day School (PDS) is a private school located at 4025 Poplar Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee, 38111. It is one of the largest elementary school for boys in the United States, enrolling 633 students in grades pre-kindergarten through the sixth grade.

Founding

When Dr. Anthony Dick accepted the pastorate of Second Presbyterian Church in the summer of 1947, he expressed his desire that the church provide Christian elementary education with a day school. Dr. Dick followed through with his aspirations and opened a new kindergarten in the fall of 1949 at the intersection of Poplar and Goodlett, where school met Monday through Friday and Sunday school on Sunday. An introductory statement sent to church members stated, "We believe that this field (Christian education) offers a real challenge to us and through the medium of this weekday kindergarten, we are preparing to try to use this opportunity for the greatest good to these children, their homes, and to the highest glory of God." The school would later be named ‘Presbyterian Day School,’ known affectionately from its inception as PDS.

PDS registration was initially opened to church members on June 2, 1949, but was opened to non-members the following day. When the education building, the first of three planned construction units, was dedicated on September 11, 1949, thirty-five children were enrolled in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten.

About PDS

Presbyterian Day School, founded in 1949 as a mission of Second Presbyterian Church, strives to glorify God by developing boys in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men. Known for its rigorous curriculum taught by experienced and loving teachers who understand and appreciate the special nature and needs of boys, PDS has grown to become the largest elementary school for boys in the United States.

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The school enrolls 633 students in grades pre-kindergarten through the sixth grade.

PDS has been accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools since 1979. We are members of the National Association of Independent Schools, Southern Association of Independent Schools, Tennessee Association of Independent School, and the Memphis Association of Independent Schools. Other memberships include the International Boys' Schools Coalition and Educational Records Bureau.

Campus

PDS is located at 4025 Poplar Avenue. The Henry Edward Russell Building houses 34 classrooms, the 17,000 volume Sumner library, state of the art science lab, Morgan Technology Resource Center, art and music facilities, and administrative offices. The John de Witt Activities Center features a double gymnasium with an elevated indoor track. Spacious athletic fields and playgrounds on campus provide excellent spaces for boys to run and recreate.

Faculty & Staff

PDS teachers bring professionalism, immense talent, high standards, and creativity to the school. As a group, they bring to PDS 1,039 years of school experience and 47 advanced degrees. 61% of the faculty either have an advanced degree or are currently working toward it. They are a good balance of seasoned, veteran teachers and younger teachers more recently trained in their graduate schools. A growing number of the faculty and staff, now numbering 13, are men.

During the summer of 2008, Susan Droke, Assistant Headmaster for Teaching and Learning, Debbie Isom, Head of Early Childhood, and twenty-six teachers attended Harvard’s Project Zero bringing to 42 the total number of teachers having attended this weeklong institute. Project Zero focuses on five areas: teaching for understanding, multiple intelligences, critical and creative thinking, assessment of learning, and learning in and through the arts. It was a fast-paced and intense program of plenary sessions, mini courses, and study groups where researchers shared their most current findings with educators from twenty-five countries and thirty-one states.

Guiding Educational Principles

The following is the stated guiding educational principles of the school:

Principle 1 – We will take a holistic approach to education, meaning that we care about and intentionally educate and nurture the heart, soul, mind and body of each boy. As part of this holistic approach, we will teach and promote the development of strong morals and character and offer boys a vision of Godly manhood.

Principle 2 – We will know, nurture and love every boy at PDS as a unique child of a loving God, and we will keep at the front of our minds that we are teachers primarily of boys and secondarily of subjects and skills.

Principle 3 – We will, in an age-appropriate, gracious and faithful manner, teach the Bible and present and model the tenets of the Christian faith such that each boy, regardless of his background and beliefs, leaves PDS as a good student of the Bible and of the Christian faith, including knowing what the Christian believes is necessary for salvation. By how we intentionally relate our subjects and various ideas to a Christian worldview, we will also give each boy the opportunity to develop a Christian worldview that can serve as a lens or framework for how he may understand the world.

Principle 4 – We will, as a learning organization in the 21st century, be careful and deliberate students of our world, engaging in serious professional development, research, and curricular design. In a dynamic world, we shall consider divergent thinking, embrace change, innovate, and risk sometimes failing as we seek to design an ever-better curriculum and learning experiences.

Principle 5 – We will orient our curriculum and teaching to align with the skills, knowledge and perspectives required in the dynamic and diverse global community of the 21st century. Such skills include the ability to think critically, creatively and connectedly; see patterns in seeming chaos; make creative connections; apply knowledge to novel situations; design, create and tell stories; collaborate and communicate clearly; utilize technology facilely; wrestle with questions without simple solutions; manage ambiguity; adapt to change; and have the inclination and ability to embrace life-long learning.

Principle 6 – We will orient our curriculum such that it has a global perspective, and we will consider standards and comparisons to foreign schools and students in assessing how we are performing. Additionally, we will develop partnerships with outstanding schools in other parts of our country and the world.

Principle 7 – We will teach in a way that seeks to maximize learning for every boy. We believe that all boys can learn and have differing intelligences and learning styles, such that our teaching should intentionally incorporate this diversity and thus be flexible and versatile.

Principle 8 – We will view assessment as a way not simply to measure learning, but as a way to promote it. Our assessments will be increasingly varied and have a heavy mix of performance and other tasks, including many real world tasks, that not only demonstrate understanding, but that allow diverse learners flexible opportunities for demonstrating their learning. As necessary, we will create our own assessments that measure learning and progress, especially those that include skills not readily measured by standardized tests and that can help us chart the progress of boys over the course of a school year.

Principle 9 – We will seek to enroll boys from more diverse backgrounds. Recognizing that boys learn from one another and need the skill to develop relationships with people from various backgrounds, our greater diversity will be an asset to all boys and more consistent with the Biblical mandate to see past the superficial differences that easily divide us.

Principle 10 – We will, as a school, have balance among our overall programs, and excellence in each area.

Principle 11 – We will be boy-specific, boy-themed and boy-friendly in all aspects of PDS. As such, we will extensively study how boys best learn and develop, and we will apply such findings throughout all parts of the school.

Principle 12 – We will, by executing well the principles in this document, prepare our boys for scholastic success at any schools at which they would matriculate, and, though we will study the curriculum of the schools where our graduates matriculate, it is these PDS principles that will guide us as an institution.

Principle 13 – We will attend carefully and intentionally to our own health, well-being and growth, especially our spiritual growth, so that we will be at our best as we teach, model and mentor our boys.

Principle 14 – We will treat our teachers as professionals, holding very high standards for them and evaluating their performance against school goals; pushing them to grow continually; providing significant opportunities for professional growth, reflection and renewal; and rewarding excellence in tangible ways.

Notable Alumni

• Paul Tudor Jones, commodity trader
• Frederick W. Smith, founder of FedEx
• Hank Sullivant, musician, frontman for Kuroma, past bassist for The Whigs, touring guitarist for MGMT.
• Sid Evans, Editor, Garden & Gun Magazine
• Tom Hutton, former NFL punter, primarily with the Philadelphia Eagles
• J.R. Hyde III, founder of Autozone
• Hampton Sides, Author, Ghost Soldiers
• Dan Schneider, Nickelodeon producer

External Links

• Main School Page - http://www.pdsmemphis.org
• About PDS & Its History - http://www.pdsmemphis.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4&Itemid=7