The Barstow School

The Barstow School, previously called Miss Barstow’s School 1884 known as oldest private school for girls in Kansas City, is a secular, coeducational, independent preparatory school in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. It was co-founded in 1884 by Mary Louise Barstow and Ada Brann. The Barstow School enrolls 750 students from preschool through grade 12. History Mary Louise Barstow and Ada Brann, both graduates of Wellesley College, came to Kansas City in 1884, responding to the need to establish a local school comparable to the outstanding independent schools on the East Coast. With the support of several notable families in the rapidly growing city, they founded the Barstow School at 12th Street and Broadway on Quality Hill in Downtown Kansas City. As both the school and the city grew and prospered, the school moved several times: first to near Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral on Quality Hill, then to 40th Street and Westport Avenue, then to 4950 Cherry Street in the Brookside neighborhood, and finally in 1962 to 115th Street and State Line Road, a location then on the far outskirts of the city but today well within Kansas City's suburban sprawl. Although originally coeducational, in 1924 Barstow became an all-girls school except at the preschool level. The school resumed coeducation when it moved to its current location.