North Shore Country Day School

North Shore Country Day School is a selective prep school in Winnetka, Illinois. It was founded in its current form as a coeducational school in 1919 during the Country Day School movement, though it followed the Rugby School for Boys (1893-1900) and Girton School for Girls (1900-1918). It consists of a lower school, a middle school, and an upper school.HistoryIn the 1893, Francis King Cook opened the Rugby School for Boys in the nearby village of Kenilworth. Within the next decade, due to the opening of the fee-free Joseph Sears School, Cook moved his school to the present site today in Winnetka. Shortly after, the school reimagined itself as the Girton School For Girls. The school built three more buildings on what was then known as the Garland Estate, but by 1918-19 the school began to encounter funding difficulties. A group of parents and alumni from the Girton School and local area came together in 1919 and chose Perry Dunlap Smith to found the North Shore Country Day School for girls and boys of all ages. With the popularity of the Country Day School movement, this was seen as the next logical step for the school. The school continues to have no class rankings and no academic awards. As it became clear the Country Day school would outlast its time as a traditional school, the founder and first headmaster Perry Dunlap Smith hired Chicago area architect Edwin H. Clark to redesign the school grounds.