Delaware County Christian School
Encyclopedia
| Name | Delaware County Christian School |
| Short Name | DC |
| Headmaster | Dr. Stephen P. Dill |
| Address | 462 Malin Road Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, 19073 |
| Established | 1950 |
| Religion | Non-Denominational Protestant |
| Grades | K through 12 |
| Mascot | Knight |
| Colors | Green and White |
| Web site | www.dccs.org |
Delaware County Christian School (also known as "DCCS" or just "DC") is a Pre-K to 12 independent, coeducational, interdenominational day school with an enrollment of approximately 900 students located on two campuses in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The school's official mission is "to educate students who will serve God and impact the world through biblical thought and action."
Originally only at the Malin Road campus on the grounds of the George W. Strawbridge, Jr.
George W. Strawbridge, Jr.
George W. Strawbridge, Jr. is an American educator, historian, investor, sportsman, and philanthropist.-Biography:Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania he was the son of Margaret Dorrance and stockbroker George W. Strawbridge, Sr.. He studied at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut where he...
estate, it expanded in 1968 with the purchase of the Alice Grim school at Bishop Hollow Rd. and West Chester Pike for grades K-5. In 2009, DC made an arrangement with The Episcopal Academy to exchange campuses which allowed DC to move the Elementary program to a more spacious and accommodating facility.
Until 2007, DC was a member of the Southern Chester County League (SCCL). Almost the entire SCCL was absorbed into the Ches-Mont League except for Garnet Valley High School
Garnet Valley School District
Garnet Valley School District is located in the southeast corner of Pennsylvania in Delaware County. Garnet Valley enrolls more than 5,000 students in grades Kindergarten through 12 in five schools....
, Devon Preparatory School
Devon Preparatory School
Devon Preparatory School is a private, Catholic college preparatory school in Devon, Pennsylvania, founded in 1956 by the Piarist fathers. It is an all-boys school, divided into a middle school and an upper school , both located on the same campus of...
, and DC (the latter two were the league’s smallest members). For the 2008-2009 academic year DC, joined the Bicentennial League rejoining former SCCL rival Devon Prep. The school's mascot is The Knight and its colors are green
Green
Green is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 520–570 nanometres. In the subtractive color system, it is not a primary color, but is created out of a mixture of yellow and blue, or yellow and cyan; it is considered...
and white
White
White is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in nearly equal amounts and with high brightness compared to the surroundings. A white visual stimulation will be void of hue and grayness.White light can be...
. The Varsity boys lacrosse team is currently a part of the Tri-County League.
History
In 1949, a group of parents met together, sharing the belief that their children should be educated in a Christian environment. These parents were determined to start holding classes by September of the next year (1950). That fall, Delaware County Christian School opened to enroll 48 families, 58 students in grades K-5. For the next few years, classes met in the basement of the First Presbyterian Church of Springfieldwith a staff of four teachers.
DC first moved to Newtown Square with the purchase of the 11 acres (44,515.5 m²) George Strawbridge Estate in 1955. In 1964, the school took on its first building project: a gymnasium-auditorium (now the upper gym). When the gym was complete, DC held the first DC Invitational Boys Basketball Tournament, the oldest continuous Christian high school basketball tournament in the United States. Over the next 15 years, DC would acquire five adjacent acres and build the High School building (formerly called the Science building) and the Lower Gym/Middle School building (formerly the Elementary building).
Running out of space to build, DC needed more space for the growing enrollment. Marple Newtown School District
Marple Newtown School District
Marple Newtown School District is the school district for Newtown Township and Marple Township in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. The student demographic is about 86% Caucasian, 11% Asian, 2% Black, and 1% Hispanic with 51% being male and 49% being female. The entire district has around 3,500...
was selling the Alice Grimm School at 2 Bishop Hollow Road, about a mile from the existing campus. DC, not wanting to let such a perfect opportunity go to waste, purchased the campus for elementary classes in 1983.
Starting in the 1990s, DC's construction projects began to focus toward the artistic sides of modern education. In 1994, the Art Building (officially called The Lowrie Annex, after one of DC's headmasters) was built on the Malin Road (upper) campus to move art classes out of the basement of the Strawbridge Mansion. The art building, designed by DC art teacher Linda Unger, provided two art rooms (one for middle school and one for high school), a drama room, a dark room for photography, and an additional classroom.
In the interest of furthering the arts even more, DC broke ground on the Arthur and Nancy DeMoss Center for Worship and the Arts in the summer of 1999. The new building, connected to the upper gym, adjacent to the Mansion, houses a 554-seat auditorium, music room, bigger drama room, computer lab (computers have since been moved to the high school building), kitchen and a large room (called the “Commons Room”, or “CR”) principally for study halls and wrestling
Wrestling
Wrestling is a form of grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position...
practices. For the 2008-2009 school year the kitchen was upgraded to be able to offer hot lunches for sale in the CR.
In early 2009 DC completed a property negotiation that would exchange the Alice Grimm/Bishop Hollow Campus and a cash sum for a campus in Devon. This Devon campus, originally the Haas Estate (as in Rohm & Haas), had been used as an elementary school by The Episcopal Academy, which moved all of its students to a new campus in 2009. DC made notable changes to the interior of the Devon Campus upon purchase, principally to expand some classrooms, allowing for a raised student cap and increased class size. [DC has an average class-section size of 24, while Episcopal had 18 at Devon.] This move provided DC with new breeds of facilities that were physically impossible at the Bishop Hollow Campus, in the center of bustling Newtown Square. Amenities include a full-size gym with locker rooms, ample field space, a chapel, air conditioning (a feature lacking at the previous campus) and more classrooms - all of which allow for a growth in the DC elementary program.
Academics
DC Faculty and parents pride themselves on the integrity of their academic system. A complete list of Academic offerings can be found at http://www.dccs.org/page.cfm?p=351. This list includes:Bible
- Life with Christ
- DoctrineDoctrineDoctrine is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the body of teachings in a branch of knowledge or belief system...
- RomansEpistle to the RomansThe Epistle of Paul to the Romans, often shortened to Romans, is the sixth book in the New Testament. Biblical scholars agree that it was composed by the Apostle Paul to explain that Salvation is offered through the Gospel of Jesus Christ...
- ApologeticsApologeticsApologetics is the discipline of defending a position through the systematic use of reason. Early Christian writers Apologetics (from Greek ἀπολογία, "speaking in defense") is the discipline of defending a position (often religious) through the systematic use of reason. Early Christian writers...
- Christian TheologyTheologyTheology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
- Contemporary Issues in Christianity
- Calvin's Institutes
- RevelationRevelationIn religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing, through active or passive communication with a supernatural or a divine entity...
- Discipleship
- Biblical Drama
Sciences
- Advanced Topics in Science
- AP Physics BAP Physics BAP Physics B is an Advanced Placement science course that is divided into nine different sections: Newtonian Mechanics, Electricity and Magnetism, Fluid Mechanics and Thermal Physics, Waves and Optics, and Atomic and Nuclear Physics. The course is equivalent to a one-year college course that...
- Honors PhysicsPhysicsPhysics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
- PhysicsPhysicsPhysics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
- AP ChemistryAP ChemistryAdvanced Placement Chemistry is a course and examination offered by the College Board as a part of the Advanced Placement Program to give American and Canadian high school students the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities and earn college-level credit.-The course:AP Chemistry is a course...
- Honors Chem II
- Chem for Health Sciences
- Honors ChemistryChemistryChemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
- ChemistryChemistryChemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
- Chem Survey
- AP BiologyAP BiologyIn the United States, Advanced Placement Biology , is a course and examination offered by the College Board to high school students as an opportunity to earn placement credit for a college-level biology course....
- Advanced BiologyBiologyBiology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
- Microbiology
- Environmental Issues
- Intro to ForensicsForensicsForensic science is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to a legal system. This may be in relation to a crime or a civil action...
- Biology II
- Honors Biology
- Biology
Mathematics
The DC math program has a notably rigid structure, with varying requirements for graduation depending on placement. Starting with the class of 2011, the progression generally follows:- Algebra I (Honors available)
- Geometry (Honors available)
- Algebra II (Honors available)
- Algebra III or
- Honors Math Analysis (a pre-calculus course)
- AP Probability and Statistics
- Honors Intro to Calculus
- AP Calculus AB
- AP Calculus BC
English
- AP English Literature and Composition
- English 12 (Honors available) - British Literature and Composition
- English 11 (Honors available - Some Honors students take the AP English Language and Composition Exam to receive college credit) - American Literature and Composition
- English 10 (Honors available) - Genre, Logic and Composition
- English 9 (Honors available) - Grammar, Literature, and Composition
History
- AP Government
- AP European History
- AP United States History
- United States Government & Economics
- United States History (Honors available)
- World History II (Honors available) - 1550AD to 1990
- World History I (Honors available) - The Beginning to 1500AD
Foreign Languages
High school students are required to complete through level III of a modern foreign language. The GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
department currently runs an exchange program with the August-Hermann-Francke-Schule in Giessen, Germany (a city north of Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
).
- German
- German I
- German II (Honors Available)
- German III (Honors Available)
- German IV (Honors Available)
- AP German
- Spanish
- Spanish I
- Spanish II (Honors Available)
- Spanish III (Honors Available)
- Spanish IV (Honors Available)
- Spanish V
- AP Spanish
Artistic Courses
DC proudly boasts an award-winning fine arts program, especially in the categories of Studio Art, Graphic Arts, Photography and Drama. All students are required to take a fine arts course during their time as a DC Student.- Freshman Art Elective
- Art Major I
- Art Major II
- Art Major III
- Honors Art Major IV
- Computer Graphics I
- Computer Graphics II
- Computer Graphics III (Honors Available)
- Intro to Photography
- Photography I
- Photography II
- Photography III
- Knight Tones (the elite choral group)
- Concert Choir
- Vocal Workshop
- Concert Band
- Drama I
- Drama II
- Drama III
- Drama Elective
- Technical Theatre
- Film
- Yearbook
Theatrical Arts
Throughout the year, DC runs three major shows: the middle school play in the fall, the DC Players (formerly known as the high school Drama Club) show in the fall, and the High School Musical in the spring.Middle School Play
The Middle School play is usually a playPlay (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
based on a children's book, with middle school actors and high school crews. Since 2005, the middle school production has included full sets and theatrical lighting and sound. Recent productions include:
- The HobbitThe HobbitThe Hobbit, or There and Back Again, better known by its abbreviated title The Hobbit, is a fantasy novel and children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald...
(Fall 2005) - Holes (Fall 2005)
- Alice in Wonderland (Fall 2006)
- Charlotte's WebCharlotte's WebCharlotte's Web is an award-winning children's novel by acclaimed American author E. B. White, about a pig named Wilbur who is saved from being slaughtered by an intelligent spider named Charlotte. The book was first published in 1952, with illustrations by Garth Williams.The novel tells the story...
(Fall 2007) - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Fall 2008)
- Peter PanPeter PanPeter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie . A mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with...
(Fall 2009) - Cheaper By the Dozen (Fall 2010)
DC Players
The DC players (formerly known as Drama Club) produce a show every year, usually two shortened plays. Every play is acted, directed, produced and managed by high school students. This program has grown drastically since its conception. Originally staged in the drama room, the show moved to the auditorium in 2008 to accommodate the growing audiences. Recent productions include:- Arsenic and Old LaceArsenic and Old Lace (play)Arsenic and Old Lace is a play by American playwright Joseph Kesselring, written in 1939. It has become best known through the film adaptation starring Cary Grant and directed by Frank Capra. The play was directed by Bretaigne Windust, and opened on January 10, 1941. On September 25, 1943, the...
and Memorandum (Fall 2007) - The CrucibleThe CrucibleThe Crucible is a 1952 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatization of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay during 1692 and 1693. Miller wrote the play as an allegory of McCarthyism, when the US government blacklisted accused communists...
and The Ugly DucklingThe Ugly Duckling"The Ugly Duckling" is a literary fairy tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen . The story tells of a homely little bird born in a barnyard who suffers abuse from his neighbors until, much to his delight , he matures into a beautiful swan, the most beautiful bird of all...
(Fall 2008) - The Seven and The Miracle WorkerThe Miracle WorkerThe Miracle Worker is a cycle of 20th century dramatic works derived from Helen Keller's autobiography The Story of My Life. Each of the various dramas describes the relationship between Keller—a deafblind and initially almost feral child—and Anne Sullivan, the teacher who introduced her to...
(Fall 2009) - A Murder for Love and The Dining Room (Fall 2010)
High School Musical
The High School musical is indisputably the largest stage production at the school. Originally alternating with plays, 2009 saw a rise in talent and the growth of DC Players into the year's high school play, which cleared the way for an annual musical. Productions principally feature high school actors (sometimes middle school actors fill child roles), with high school crew members, directed by a team of teachers. Past productions include:- Nicholas Nickleby (the final spring play) (spring 2007)
- The Music ManThe Music ManThe Music Man is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson, based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. The plot concerns con man Harold Hill, who poses as a boys' band organizer and leader and sells band instruments and uniforms to naive townsfolk before skipping town with...
(spring 2008) - AnnieAnnie (musical)Annie is a Broadway musical based upon the popular Harold Gray comic strip Little Orphan Annie, with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, and the book by Thomas Meehan. The original Broadway production opened in 1977 and ran for nearly six years with a blonde Annie as the poster...
(spring 2009) - Fiddler on the RoofFiddler on the RoofFiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in Tsarist Russia in 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters by Sholem Aleichem...
(spring 2010) - Beauty and the BeastBeauty and the Beast (musical)Beauty and the Beast is a musical with music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice and a book by Linda Woolverton, based on the 1991 Disney film of the same name. Seven new songs were written for the stage musical...
(spring 2011) - A Christmas CarolA Christmas CarolA Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of...
(fall 2011)