Welcome to the Sandy Spring Friends School website. Whether you are visiting for the first time as a prospective student or parent, or an alum who checks in often, I hope your time online is worthwhile and will lead to a campus visit.

At Sandy Spring Friends School, we are a community of scholars, performers, artists, athletes, thinkers and doers, each with different strengths and interests, but bound together by a determination to honor Quaker values and to see that of God within each of us. Accordingly, we are a debate-driven community that is respectful of differences; we are open and sometimes noisy, but also reflective seekers of quiet. We celebrate being a marketplace of ideas while providing a safe place to explore new concepts with an incredibly vibrant and dedicated group of adults. Faculty and staff are here because they are deeply committed to providing PK through 12th graders with an education that will serve them well in the world that they will inherit.

Our School is located in Sandy Spring, Maryland, in Montgomery County, about 17 miles from the White House and 20 miles west of Baltimore. Sandy Spring Friends School is on an amazing 140-acre park-like property which even includes an Aerial Park. This year, we will have approximately 565 students in PK through 12th grade and 140 faculty and staff. While most students live in the neighborhood or have a short commute, our Upper School (9th-12th grades) also includes a boarding option (both five-day and seven-day) for about 70 students, including a robust international community.

Sandy Spring Friends School will be 50 years old next year. It has always been and remains a close-knit community: innovative, diverse, proud of its Quaker heritage, and welcoming to all.

Cordially,

Tom Gibian
Head of School

Overview

Sandy Spring Friends School is a pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade coeducational college preparatory day school with optional five- and seven-day boarding programs in the Upper School. SSFS is an independent school, under the care of the Sandy Spring Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.

Enrollment for the academic year 2009-10 is 558 students total in all three divisions: Lower School (158 students, pre-K through grade 5); Middle School (142 students, grades 6 - 8); and Upper School (258 students, grades 9 -12). We have 59 students enrolled in the Residential Program (26 5-day and 33 7-day boarders) and 42 students in the International Student Program.

Founded in 1961 by S. Brook Moore, the campus is located on a 140-acre wooded campus in the historic Quaker community of Sandy Spring, in the heart of Montgomery County, Maryland. The site is midway between Baltimore and Washington, and is served by three international airports: Baltimore/Washington, Dulles, and Reagan National.

The School offers strong academics, arts and athletic programs, with an emphasis on traditional Quaker values.