Scattergood Friends School

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Scattergood Friends School is a college preparatory school for grades 6 through 12 (the day for middle grades boarding and day for upper grades) located on 126 rural acres in the greater Iowa City area. Our campus features a working organic farm, restored prairie, pastures, and pond. These serve as living laboratories for inquiry and project-based learning.
Scattergood's journey from conception to realization was a long one. Quaker pioneers arriving in Iowa from Ohio, known as The Hickory Grove Quarterly Meeting, longed to create a boarding school where their children could receive a "guarded education," free-from "early knowledge of, or contact with, the evils of the world." While initial preparations began in 1870, it was 20 years before Scattergood Friends School would open in 1890. According to early notes, "… the school aims to give a substantial English education, suited to fit the average person for the ordinary duties of life, and at the same time prepare students for higher institutions of learning, yet it is still its distinctive purpose to shield the young from hurtful temptations and distracting tendencies during the character-forming period." The first student body was exclusively Quaker and consisted of 25 pupils, each paid full tuition of $100 per year.
In 1917, Hickory Grove Quarterly Meeting left its parent organization, The Ohio Yearly Meeting, to become part of the Iowa Yearly Meeting. With that, the ownership of Scattergood Friends School also transferred to the Iowa Yearly Meeting, and that ownership continues today. This transition brought about many changes, from the addition of new buildings and fences to a loosening of the dress code for students-girls were no longer required to wear bonnets, and boys no longer had to turn in coat collars.
Though our students and staff are persons with diverse identities, cultures, belief systems, and backgrounds, we share the commitment to live out these Quaker testimonies in community life. We share our lives authentically. Most students live with a roommate in one of two dorms on campus, and most staff live with their families in campus housing. Everyone is on a first-name basis. We skip titles and honorifics.
We respect students' diverse identities in the classroom, dorms, and beyond. Our staff and students come from a variety of backgrounds. All are welcome. We are all workers. All students and staff work together for about 45 minutes per day on our rotating crew system to cook, clean, do maintenance, and take care of the farm. Students learn new skills and gain confidence in their abilities.

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