Upper School

The Upper School at Carolina Friends, a progressive high school in Durham, NC, strives to be a learning community rooted in Quaker values where teenagers can find and create a safe place for the exploration of themselves and the world.

As an independent high school in Durham, NC, we believe that students have meaningful thoughts to express, and real lives to lead, right now. It’s our mission to help each one to find a voice and a path. Students are empowered to be co-creators of their educational experience, joining their teachers in a partnership that fosters the sharing of knowledge and exchange of ideas.

This sense of collaboration is infused in our curriculum. Through increasingly demanding and varied courses, we seek not just quality answers, but thoughtful questions and fresh insights. Our schedule and class offerings allow students the opportunity to be challenged appropriately, and to dive deeply into an area of particular interest, as well as to explore new topics and experiences.

We believe that a child’s secondary education experience should challenge them to develop the critical thinking, reading, and problem-solving skills that not only prepare students for life beyond graduation, but also for participation in the world as active agents right now. We entrust them with the responsibility to be the stewards of their own community.

Upper School Curriculum

College Counseling

Some of my child's classes I wish I’d been able to take myself! They were/are very important to my child's emotional and intellectual development. They are providing him with the kind of challenges which will prepare him to succeed in and enjoy college.Current Upper School Parent

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24

Student-organized extracurrciular clubs

18

Teams in 8 sports

97%

Graduates who attend colleges or universities of their choice

Advisee Groups

The Advisory Program is central to our shared life together as an Upper School. Advisee groups, consisting of about ten students, provide a venue for students to participate in and care for the community, as well as deepen their own social, emotional, and academic learning. Advisees get to know each other as well as their advisor, a staff person who provides them with academic guidance, as a mentor, advocate, and coach.

Role of the Advisor

A student's advisor is a key partner for families, acting as a primary point of connection with the Upper School. One of the most important things that advisors provide to advisees is assistance in building their academic schedules, ensuring that each student is on a clear path toward successful completion of their course of study. In addition to being familiar with Upper School course requirements, advisors meet with advisees regularly throughout the year to learn about their progress, as well as their goals, interests, and curiosities. The advisor is also the first person a student should seek out with questions, concerns, or when confronting a problem with another member of the community, and the advisor helps students to employ their best voice in such situations.

Power of Peers

Each group plans various activities over the course of the year, including advisory lunches and outings, in addition to holding meaningful advisory meetings several days a week.

Advisories are places where students have fun and get to know each other, as well as being the setting for many of our student discussions. Students learn about navigating conflict, dialoguing across differences, and how to advocate for oneself. Community-building begins in advisories, which can be seen as the gardens in which our shared values are born and flourish.

Restorative Practices

We build our Upper School community around mutual trust and unconditional positive regard. When student actions cause harm or break trust, we use Restorative Practices to help them restore these positive relationships with their peers and their community. That means that consequences are aimed toward healing both the student and the community trust. We believe that this creates greater accountability than consequences that are simply punitive.

Restorative Practices are grounded in:

Building relationships and community
Teaching and showing respect
Learning to take responsibility
Teaching proactive relationship skills

Restorative Practices provide an alternative to harmful power structures while centering student safety and well-being. Across all of Carolina Friends School, we work to establish common language and community norms, methods of building and maintaining healthy relationships, respect for boundaries and consent, and processes for conflict resolution. These proactive measures take place throughout the year, with emphasis on setting norms early in the school year.

We recognize that conflict is natural, especially as teenagers learn the skills for acknowledging differences of opinion and conflict with respect. When conflict arises or harm has occurred, students enter into a process based on reflection, listening, sharing perspectives authentically, working towards solutions, and repairing harm. The first step in this process is determining if an alternative space/setting is necessary in the short-term for students involved. Our aim is to allow students to speak directly from their experiences, listen to one another, focus on impact above intention, work towards problem-solving, and fulfill logical consequences. We see conflict as an opportunity for growth, and we are committed to actively addressing harm when it occurs.

End of Year Experience

The End of Year Experience is a co-curricular program designed to give students and teachers an intensive opportunity for experiential learning, service, and community-building that goes beyond the regular schedule.

From trips to internships to on-campus experiences, these experiences often impact the lives of those involved in potentially life changing ways. End of Year Experiences occur in the last few weeks of the school year; all classes end mid-May and all staff and students participate in this program. Most End-of-Year Experiences are staff-designed, but students also have the opportunity to design their own internship.

Mentored Leadership

Student agency extends beyond course selection and extracurriculars — Upper School students are given active roles in shaping their community values and expectations, as well as the guided support to grow as leaders, citizens, allies, and activists.

Active representation in decision-making and opportunities for advocacy include:

Our Teaching Methods course: students in their junior year have the opportunity to prepare a course of their own they would teach in their senior year
Hiring committees: students from all grades interview candidates for positions at the Upper School
Student Ambassadors: a service-based course in which students serve as ambassadors during enrollment events, plan Upper School activities, and support the Dean for Students
Mentoring for CFS Life: juniors and seniors can serve as mentors for the required ninth grade health class
Participatory budgeting: collaborating with other students to determine the use of a designated portion of the Upper School’s budget
Topic-specific committees, like the New Upper School Facilities Steering Committee
Planning student programming on topics of student interest, like antiracism
Access to conferences such as Quaker Youth Leadership, Triangle Diversity Alliance, and NAIS Student Diversity Leadership Conference
Clerk affinity, alliance, and justice groups like Students of Color, Teens Advocating for Consent, Equity Justice Committee