Moorestown Friends Celebrates Kindergarten Milestone

Young people generally don’t view school as a place they want to go to—it’s somewhere they have to go.

But Moorestown Friends School (MFS) senior Steven Mannion never felt that way. Steven, who began attending MFS as a kindergartener, is now considered one of only a few “Originals”—students who stayed at the school for the entirety of their pre-college education—and said he never dreaded going to class.

“I wanted to come here. I was ready to learn,” said the 17-year-old. “The most important thing I learned ... was that it was fun to come to school. It’s not dreary. It’s exciting.”

That excitement for learning is something MFS educators have refined in the 130 years since the school established its kindergarten program. Moorestown Friends celebrated the program’s 130th birthday Thursday with a special party that brought together Originals, like Steven, and the current crop of kindergarteners.

The MFS kindergarten program is especially distinguished as it was established roughly a decade before American public schools began integrating kindergarten on a national level, and 10 years before the establishment of the International Kindergarten Union, according to a release from the school. Only 6 percent of American kindergarten-aged children attended kindergarten in 1900.

“In a way, it’s not that surprising,” Head of School Larry Van Meter said of MFS’s standing as one of the earliest adopters of kindergarten. “It’s indicative of the progressive views of Quakers.”

Lower School Director Kelly Goula, who has overseen the kindergarten program for the last nine years, called it “a natural fit.”

Van Meter himself is an Original, a member of the kindergarten class of 1954. While the ensuing years were equally important to his growth as a person and as a student, Van Meter doubts he would be where he is today had it not been for that formative first year at the school.

“I’m pretty certain if I hadn’t had that experience (starting as a kindergartener), I wouldn’t have returned 13 years ago to be the head of school,” he remarked. “It’s the totality of that experience I value so highly.”

The enthusiasm exhibited by the kindergarten students—many of whom sprint into school each day, “smiles on their faces”—is no accident either, Van Meter said.

“If the kids are not having fun, not being engaged, they’re learning less,” he said.

The Moorestown Friends School kindergarten program is also notable for one of its earliest alumni, Alice Paul, who was one of 11 students enrolled in the kindergarten class in 1891, according to the school. Later known as one of the country’s leading advocates for women’s rights, Paul graduated from Moorestown Friends in 1901.

Goula explained that celebrating MFS’s kindergarten birthday serves as a reminder of the school’s standing in the greater community.