Welcome from the Head of School

What makes FCDS different from other schools is our intentional approach to the art and science of an all-boys education.  The earliest, more formidable years--Kindergarten to Grade 9--can be overlooked in larger schools, seen as only an educational building block..  

 

That’s not so at Fairfield Country Day School.  

 

We recognize that a “lifer” at FCDS will spend more time behind our celebrated Blue Door than he will in high school and college combined.  The lessons an FCDS boy learns, the skills he acquires, the risks he learns to take, and the relationships he makes provide the foundation for a leader who is prepared to Meet the Moment.  At FCDS, we shine a bright light on the development of boys. Few schools—private or public—do the same.

 

I remember walking up the Upper School stairs in 2003, and meeting my first class of seventh-grade boys.  I was their new, part-time Study Skills teacher.  The students eyed me with some trepidation-- their blazers rumpled and ties slightly askew.  We dumped out backpacks, sorted loose papers, and disposed of snack wrappers and broken pencils.  I was struck by how comfortable the boys were at school.  They were at home in their classroom, at ease on the fields and acted like family in the dining room.

 

From that day on, I was committed to FCDS.  I witnessed boys benefiting from a single-sex education in ways I didn’t expect.  Quiet and shy boys shared personal stories on stage, athletes played the violin in school concerts, teachers and students learned side by side in the classroom, cheered each other on in advisor Wiffle ball, and met for extra help before and after school.  I appreciated the limited age group at FCDS-- no college admissions process to bog down a boy’s education.  I was reminded of the most powerful class I took in graduate school, titled The Middle School. The professor passionately promoted the years before high school as critical and often unrecognized in a student’s trajectory.  I could see that philosophy in action here.  It became clear to me that FCDS was both a boy’s foundation and his future. 

 

FCDS is where boys are free to find themselves.

 

I am excited about the future of our School.  We have over 85 years of experience behind us and many generations ahead of us.  Never has it been more important for boys to become good men who are ready, willing and able to meet every moment with confidence, courage and compassion, no matter how big or small. I look forward to helping guide and mentor each and every boy, intentionally.  

 

Fairfield Country Day School was founded in 1936 by Laurence W. Gregory, a 1909 graduate of Yale University, "...to provide superior academic instruction to boys in an environment that fosters the scholastic and extra-curricular activity of each boy."