A Journey of Excellence: Providence Day School

A JOURNEY OF EXCELLENCE

T H E

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PROVIDENCE DAY SCHOOL

Building a Community from the Ground Up By Matthew Heyd ’88 Dad called recently and said it was time for me to pick up my stuff. For three decades, my parents kindly curated artifacts of my childhood that were carefully packed into twenty-two boxes. Those boxes show a clear picture of the debt I owe to our school—because I grew up at Providence Day. n At the bottom of one box was my yellowed 1976 admissions letter. I now have the experience of searching for the right schools for my own children. I recognize the enormous trust that choosing a school requires. Our son has special needs. As a first grader, I did, too. As it happens, PD was just the school that I needed.

A Journey of Excellence: Providence Day School

Published on May 27, 2021

Bookhouse Group

About

On September 28, 1970, 112 students and five teachers gathered in a converted house on a former horse pasture at the intersection of Sardis and Rama Roads, near the Olde Providence neighborhood. The parents who gathered throughout 1970 to create Providence Day —amid busing that had begun in the 1969-70 school year—said publicly that the busing was their motivation, and they wished to preserve a neighborhood school and avoid the disruptions that long bus rides brought to their children. They were part of a trend, both locally and nationally, of independent schools founded during this era. Within a year, this new school received approval from the state Department of Public Instruction and began adding grades. A new headmaster, Dr. William Townsend, and new athletic director and coach, Gil Murdock, soon rounded out the school’s launch. The hardworking group of founding parents oversaw the construction of first the Williams Building, then Providence Hall, completed by 1973.

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