Germantown Friends School (GFS) is a private, coeducational PreK–12 school in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States under the supervision of Germantown Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). It is governed by a School Committee whose members are drawn from the Meeting membership, the school's alumni, and parents of current students and alums. The head of school is Dana Weeks.
Contents
History
Germantown Friends School was founded in 1845 by Germantown Monthly Meeting. The school was founded in response to a request from the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Until the early 20th century, Germantown Friends was a "select" school, meaning that only the children of Quaker parents were admitted. Germantown Monthly Meeting was an Orthodox meeting and valued classical education. Athletics and the arts were considered a diversion from the essentials young people needed.
Notable alumni
This list includes graduates and non-graduate former students.
Emily Bazelon, 1989, journalist
Eric Bazilian, 1971, musician and songwriter
Jesse Biddle, 2010, baseball player
Sandra Boynton, 1970, cartoonist and songwriter
Sarah Chang, violinist
Owen Chamberlain, 1937, physicist
Walter Cope, architect
Erica Armstrong Dunbar, 1990, historian and author, National Book Award Finalist
Garrett Dutton III, aka G. Love, 1991, musician and front man of the band G. Love & Special Sauce
Jennifer Fox (born 1959), film producer, director, cinematographer
Michael Friedman, 1993, composer
Janet Brown Guernsey, 1931, physicist
Nathaniel Kahn, 1981, filmmaker, writer and director of My Architect, a film about his father, Louis Kahn
Rob Monster, Dutch-American technology executive.
Tom Myers, 1976, sound engineer nominated for two Academy Awards.
Saul Perlmutter, 1977, astrophysicist; winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the accelerating universe
Edmund R. Purves, 1914, architect and executive director of the American Institute of Architects.
Esther Biddle Rhoads, educator, relief worker
Merrie Spaeth, Political public relations consultant; appeared in the film The World of Henry Orient while a sophomore at GFS.
Daniel Spielman, 1988, Sterling Professor of Computer Science at Yale, MacArthur Fellow
Makiko Tanaka, 1963, Japanese Foreign Minister, 2001–2002
Rebecca Traister, 1993, Journalist (New York Magazine, Elle)
Kristen Welker, 1994. NBC News journalist
Dan Wolf, 1975, Massachusetts state senator, founder of Cape Air
Entertainment
The main character from the TV series Twin Peaks, FBI Agent Dale Cooper, supposedly grew up in Germantown and attended Germantown Friends School (as created by director David Lynch, who spent many years in Philadelphia). They were also referenced in The Goldbergs' spinoff show, Schooled, in the fifth episode of the first season, "Money for RENT".