50th Timeline: 2006 – A Year in the Life of Friends School Mullica Hill – Opening Days

The academic year at Friends School opened in 2006, as it had for most all its history, with an all ages back to school picnic hosted by the Parents’ Association.  Throughout the School, there were 230 students, made up evenly of boys and girls, and with an average class size of 14 students.  Tuition varied by grade but was about $10,000, with 28% of families receiving financial aid from various sources, including local and regional Quaker organizations and the School’s Eleanor Bond Fund.  For Middle Schoolers, that Fall began as usual with their grade going on an overnight field trip.  Great field trips had been part of the School’s history from the very beginning, and it was now a Middle School tradition to start the year with a bonding journey that helped reveal the special qualities of the school, the teachers, and the students themselves.  The 8^th graders travelled to Wallops Island in Virginia where much learning and laughing was done.  The 7^th grade visited the Pocono Environmental Education Center (P.E.E.C.) where the students deepened their appreciation for nature.  The 6^th graders visited Camp Onas, a Quaker retreat in Bucks County that has been hosting students from Friends schools since 1922.  Meanwhile, 2006 was the fifth year for one of the newer Fall traditions at Friends School, the Monarch Butterfly Parade.  Young students under the guidance of Teacher Nancy Goldsmith released Monarch Butterflies they had nurtured so that they could fly south to Mexico.  Parent Emily Blanck remembered, “I’m sure there are going to be plenty of people who explain the magic of Teacher Nancy, but she was great at helping children grow from being toddlers into being school-aged children.”  Three years later, in 2009, the School made the Monarch Butterfly program the center of a year-long study of the fragility of the environment.