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An Episcopal, co-educational 100% boarding school in Middletown, Delaware for grades 9 – 12

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  • Your adventure starts here.

  • Accessible to all, regardless of means.

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Learning from Primary Sources, Not Textbooks

III Form students in Ms. Wilson’s US History class spent part of the fall term working through a unit on the pre-Revolutionary period. They read the Virginia Resolves of 1765 and the Declaratory Act, then discussed (seen here) what each document revealed about the colonies’ relationship to Britain and Britishness. The bulk of St. Andrew’s history course readings are primary sources; by studying original sources, students learn to how to evaluate and use evidence to make their own arguments, thereby developing analytical skills that will serve them in college and beyond.

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Exploring History Through Electives

The History Department offers a wide variety of elective course each year, from Latin American History to the Modern Middle East; from American Social Reform Movements to Athens in the 5th Century. Click here to explore all the history courses you can take at St. Andrew’s.

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Conversation as a Means to Learning

Seminar table is love. Seminar table is life. Roundtable discussions have been incredibly helpful in shaping my ideas and in learning to allow my own thinking to be shaped with the help of others."

-VI FORM STUDENT

Learn more about our discussion-centered classrooms 

Student doing classwork

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Renovated Dorms Reopen to Residents

This fall, Pell and Moss Dorms, our residence halls for III and IV Form students, reopened to residents after a multi-stage renovation and expansion. Moss residents are seen here enjoying a post-study hall ice cream function!

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Why Boarding School?

Living on a dorm is what makes a boarding school experience so unique. On dorm, students, seniors, and faculty create this awesome and inclusive dynamic—you function like a family. After a long day of classes and sports, you gather together and unpack the little and the larger things that took place throughout the day. Living with your classmates offers a unique opportunity to form genuine connections and friendships that you couldn't make anywhere else. 

-Darden Shuman ’23

Click here to learn more about dorm life at SAS 

Student doing classwork

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Saints Girls Cross-Country Are State Champs! 

On November 12, St. Andrew's girls cross-country team dominated the course and the competition at the 2022 DIAA Cross-Country State Championship Meet. The girls placed first as a team, with all seven runners finishing in the top 50, and three runners—Lily Murphy ’23 (4th), Leah Horgan ’25 (7th), and Lia Miller ’23 (8th)—finishing in the top 10. Saints boys cross-country placed second at the same meet! 

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A Winning Tradition

This is St. Andrew’s 42nd state title in school history.

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A True Championship Season

Click here to read more about about the girls cross-country team’s standout season, which also included a county championship and a conference championship.

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Meet Coach Carroll

Girls XC Head Coach Jenny Carroll was a two-sport athlete at Hamilton College, where she ran cross-country and played lacrosse. During her senior year at Hamilton, she captained the 2008 NCAA National Champion lacrosse team and won All-American honors. 

Get to Know Coach Carroll

All About St. Andrew’s

Looking Back on the Past 18 Months...
Redefine Your "After School"
You Haven't Met Your St. Andrew's Self Yet
Turn Our Front Lawn Into Your Back Yard
Get to Know Our Places & Spaces
One Day in the Life of a Saint

We are all St. Andreans

Since the founding of the school in 1929, St. Andrew’s has been a school affordable to all students who are qualified for admission, regardless of their financial means.

What matters most is your character and the contributions you will make to our community and our world.

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100%

of your family’s financial need will be met if you are admitted to St. Andrew’s

92

For 92 years, we've offered revolutionary need-based financial aid to all admitted students—ever since our founding in 1929. Our mission is—and always has been—to be a school accessible to all, regardless of means. 

January 15

is the deadline to apply for financial aid

37%

of the student body receives grants

$5.7M

in financial aid granted this year

$49,301

is the average financial aid grant this year

Tristan Kalloo ’24
Rose Soriano ’23

Why 100% Boarding?

We not only learn together, but live together—and that fundamentally changes the nature of your high school experience.

Hear from current students on the ways in which living at St. Andrew's has transformed them.

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Meet a Saint

Meet a Saint: Charlie Lunsford ’24

Catching up with Charlie Lunsford ’24 can be difficult, what with his classes, sports, community service, chapel, clubs… the list goes on. Despite his myriad commitments,the multisport athlete is focused as he heads into his junior year. While it is only fall and he is playing varsity soccer, one can often find Charlie on the squash courts or getting a tennis workout in.

“Tennis is my number-one sport and I plan to play in college, so even though it isn’t tennis season, I am always working on my game,” Charlie says. 

Last year, Charlie was seeded in the top spot for St. Andrew’s, and competed hard during the state tournament, which was held on campus. He finished the season among the top 10 boys in the state.

“I was focused on the match and I remember looking up and seeing my entire class there to support me,” he says. “You wouldn’t get that anywhere else except at St. Andrew’s.”

The school’s culture is what initially attracted the multi-sport athlete to St. Andrew’s.

“Just walking around, everyone is friendly and welcoming. They don’t have to be that way—no one tells them to be that way—they just are. It’s just the way of life here,” he says.

Charlie, who hails from Charlotte, North Carolina, never planned to go to a boarding school. “I always thought kids were sent to boarding schools; not that they chose to go,” he says. That all changed when he visited St. Andrew’s to see his cousins. 

During his visit, the energy of the students and life on campus resonated with him. He met with Director of Admission & Financial Aid Matt Wolinski and started the application process.

Since becoming a student, Charlie has continued to revel in the connections that first impressed him so much. “Some of my best memories are getting to know my dorm parents and teachers. Everyone here wants to be here, which is what really drew me to St. Andrew’s,” he says. “You get to have deeper relationships with students and adults—it is unique to this school.”

It was at St. Andrew’s that Charlie first played squash. His winter sport had been basketball for several years, but at SAS, he decided to try something new—and after all, squash aligned with his passion for tennis. 

“I loved it right away,” he recalls. “It’s incredible and intense.”

In the current season, Charlie and the soccer team are working hard to get to the state finals again. “I love athletics here. We are really competitive, but even if you didn’t play [a sport] before coming here, you can work hard and get a spot [on a team],” he says. “There’s no limit to where you can go.”

In the classroom, Charlie loves the lively discussions and advanced topics his classes tackle. “St. Andrew’s does a great job of increasing the academic challenge as you go, in terms of workload and difficulty,” he says. “I really notice how much more organized I am and how much I have learned when it comes to balancing my workload and managing my time.”

As a junior, he looks back on the past two “pandemic years” and notes that even though students were not always on campus, the bonds they created are deep.

“Whenever I get stuck on work or something, I can just walk next door and ask someone. There’s always someone around who can help,” he says. “That’s one thing I love about living in a dorm. I love dorm functions and spending time with everyone.”

As Charlie looks ahead to the rest of his junior year, he hopes to continue to build on the solid foundation of friendship, academics, and athletics.

“Every single person here is special and everyone gets to explore their passions and talents,” he says. “As soon as I met my friends here, I instantly knew that they would be my friends for life. The connections you build here will last.”

Learn more about athletics at St. Andrew’s.

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Daniel Kye ’23 is Building Math Culture

All-school "Math Monday" challenge makes math fun for all students

St. Andrew’s senior Daniel Kye ’23 loves math. In fact, he loves it so much, he’s on a personal mission to help all St. Andrew’s students fall in love with math, too. 

This fall Daniel and his classmate Sarah Rose Odutola ’23 launched “Math Mondays”—a weekly math challenge open to the entire school community.

Each Monday, students pick up a new math puzzle—chosen by Daniel and Sarah Rose—from a bin in the Main Common Room. The puzzles are not necessarily complex equations, but rather are often patterns or games that require the application of logic and analysis. “I try to select a variety of types of problems to keep it interesting,” he says. Students work on the problems throughout the week and turn their answers in by Sunday. Problem sets are graded then tallied by dorm; at the end of the competition, the winning dorm will receive a pizza party. With only a few weeks left to go in the competition, the leading dorm changes each week. 

“I’ve heard students talking about [Math Monday problems] on the way to lunch,” Daniel says. “I’ve heard others discussing it between classes. It’s great to hear it!” Daniel notes his hope for the weekly competition is that it makes math more accessible and fun for all.

Daniel, who was born in Seoul, South Korea, but spent parts of his youth in California, discovered his love of math in middle school. “I always enjoyed math, but in middle school my passion really grew,” he says.

His family moved to California during his freshman year of high school, and Daniel found he enjoyed engaging discussions during his classes. Prior to his junior year, Daniel began to consider changing schools, both in an effort to find himself, and to feel more engaged with his peers. “I heard that boarding schools often lead when it comes to discussion-based learning, so I started investigating them,” he says. 

He soon found St. Andrew’s and, during the pandemic, did a virtual tour. “I had looked at some other boarding schools, but I felt a connection with St. Andrew’s,” he says. 

He landed on campus for his junior year and hasn’t looked back. “Everyone was warm and inviting. There is a sense of family here,” he says.

During his first year at SAS, Daniel had heard from peers that some of the spark of community St. Andrew’s is known for—and specifically the collaborative, exploratory math culture at the school— had faded a bit during the pandemic, under the pressure of all its health protocols.

“Coming into my senior year, I wanted to bring math culture back and really make it something accessible to everyone on campus—even people who do not love math,” Daniel says. 

“It makes me proud to know that I have worked hard to give this to students,” he says.  “I hope to give back to our school community in other ways during my last year here."

Here’s an example of one of the recent Math Monday puzzles:

Sample Math Monday puzzle
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Faculty Voices

"To Work in Community, and Be Changed by Community"
Danica Tisdale-Fisher

The work of inclusion and belonging at St. Andrew’s is to lift up the voices of our students, faculty, and staff; to appreciate the diversity of our community; and to fully recognize each other’s humanity. Our classrooms, our residential spaces, and our playing fields offer countless opportunities for us to embrace inclusive practices, celebrate differences, and consider our collective responsibility to create the just and equitable world in which we want to live. 

To share a bit about myself, I am a native Delawarean who also calls South Carolina “home.” I am a fourth-generation educator who follows a long maternal line of Black women who’ve served both within the classroom and in school administration. My great-grandmothers were teachers and principals in segregated high schools in Montgomery, Alabama. My grandmother and mother, both English teachers, were outstanding influences in my life—and are the reasons I chose English as a major in college. My late mother, Alice Carson Tisdale, was selected as District Teacher of the Year in Smyrna, Delaware, in 1986. As one of a handful of Black teachers in the district at that time, this distinction was one in which she, and our entire family, took great pride. My mother retired in 2019 after 21 years in secondary education, and a subsequent 25 years of service as a college administrator.

Standing on the shoulders of these women, I see education as a calling and feel grateful to work at a school where my talents can be put to good use. I am a very proud graduate of Spelman College, a private, historically black, women's liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia. I completed an M.A. at Temple University and a doctorate at Emory University. My career has taken me all over the country, and I have had the great fortune of working in both higher and secondary education settings. To share what I’ve learned as a student, as an educator, and as a servant leader with this community is an incredible privilege.

My decision to join St. Andrew’s as a dean of inclusion and belonging was not made lightly. In my first conversation with Head of School Joy McGrath ’92, however, I began to understand just how special this school is and how committed our students, faculty, and staff are to the practice of inclusion and belonging. When I visited the school last spring, I met with students who were enthusiastic about rolling up their sleeves and working diligently to ensure that St. Andrew’s is a place where all students can thrive. I was also deeply inspired by the faculty and staff whose unwavering commitment to students is unmatched. I knew, after that visit, that St. Andrew’s was not only a place where I could be impactful, but a place where every day would offer me—and my family—opportunities, as American author and social activist bell hooks writes, “to work in community, and to be changed by community.” 

I am honored to be entrusted with the awesome responsibility of building upon the foundation laid by those committed to this important work at St. Andrew’s before me: Treava Milton ’83, Stacey Duprey ’85 P’04,’10, Giselle Furlonge ’03, and Devin Duprey ’10. I lift these names up to acknowledge the considerable contributions of alumnae of color whose dedication to advancing diversity and inclusion at St. Andrew’s, both past and present, cannot be overstated. My goals for this year extend from their work and include developing a formal infrastructure for the office of inclusion and belonging; offering effective and meaningful diversity education programming for students, faculty, and staff; and providing robust educational opportunities for affinity group faculty leaders and affinity group members.

I look forward to working in collaboration with colleagues, students, parents, and alumni to meet these broad goals and to reconnect. I welcome your ideas, your curiosity, and your honest feedback on our work together. I am deeply grateful for your generous support and am excited about all that is to come!

In community,
Danica Tisdale Fisher
Dean of Inclusion and Belonging
dtisdalefisher@standrews-de.org

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The Joy of Connection
Gretchen Hurtt

How was the first day of classes? 

The familiar question, asked in the hallways at school and over phone, email, and text from everyone close in my life, feels particularly poignant this year. 

In short, Tuesday, September 7 felt to me like a celebration. Students donned dress code outfits—not without much debate and perhaps some consternation on the part of a few students—and found their way to classes in Amos, Founders, and O’Brien. Teachers enjoyed coffee and breakfast pastries in the new faculty room. And all our beautiful campus spaces—no classroom tents this year—were gleaming and ready for the learning to begin. Great anticipation, planning, and energy went into our collective preparation for the first day and for the 2021-22 school year. 

Teachers and students alike have been thinking deeply about the opportunities and the challenges before us. All our students, faculty, and staff are back together again on campus, and we once again have the ability to hold immersive, 75-minute in-person classes. Because we’re returning from a period of interruption and distance, we’re noticing with fresh eyes what it means to learn and teach here at St. Andrew’s. It’s almost as if all of us are new this year. 

During our opening meetings, faculty focused intensively on ways to build and rebuild our inclusive, collaborative academic culture, and how to teach the habits and skills of genuine intellectual engagement. With those goals in mind, on the first day of class, teachers talked a lot about:

  • how to listen
  • how to take part
  • how to support
  • how to concentrate
  • how to manage time

These skills are the first rails on the scaffolding we will build for our newest and youngest students as they learn to problem-solve, reason, write, debate, and deduce. But after the dislocation of the past 18 months, even our VI Formers—indeed, even our faculty—may need to dust off their intellectual toolkits. As teachers, we attended closely to where students are in their learning of these core skills and content—or, as we say in the Faculty Handbook: we worked to get to know each student as a learner. Our job as teachers is to adapt and build from there. 

We asked III Form students in a survey this week what they most looked forward to; the top responses were building relationships with teachers and classmates. And in our meetings with new faculty in August, teachers explained that they joined St. Andrew’s to be part of a school where positive teacher-student relationships, strong engagement, and respect and trust between all members of the community are the foundation of the culture. The “joy of learning”—something we talk a lot about here—is always going to be rooted in that moment of discovery, or that feeling of understanding or doing something that you previously thought you could not. However, this year, I think all of us appreciate more than ever the type of intellectual joy that is rooted in making connections—not just between concepts, but with other people. We are even more aware of the joy of togetherness—the joy of listening, taking part, and supporting each other. Of course, all of those skills can be practiced over Zoom, but there is a kind of irreplaceable intellectual alchemy that occurs when humans occupy a space together. 

So what will we do with our togetherness this year? That’s what we’re all here to find out. 
 

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Learn About Our Campus

Get to know some some of our beautiful buildings and outstanding facilities—and come see them in person (or on Zoom) with a campus tour!

Let’s explore