Quaker principles set Friends schools apart from others

VIRGINIA BEACH

Palm-sized prints of snowmen and other wintry scenes hang in a row outside the library at Virginia Beach Friends School. Bright blue, the inky artworks by 3- to 6-year-olds are mounted behind glass in tiny wooden frames. A few are crooked or blurry.

"What most people see as flaws, we see as character," said art teacher James O'Connor. The philosophy carries over to leaky, creaky outbuildings that make up part of Friends' sylvan campus. But it could also refer to the Quaker philosophy.

Friends - also known as Quakers - believe a spark of divinity, or "inner light," is within everyone. That forms the basis for the 86 Friends schools in the United States.

Earlier this month, President-elect Barack Obama's daughters enrolled at Sidwell Friends, a Quaker school with campuses in Washington and Bethesda, Md. President Bill Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, went there.

Virginia Beach has had a Friends school since 1955. Buildings for the school and meeting house were constructed on then-rural Laskin Road.

It started as a primary school with 35 students and gradually expanded to a lower and middle school. The middle school closed in 1979 but reopened within a few years. Friends graduated its first high school senior in 1998.

With about 200 students from preschool to high school, Friends is outgrowing its 11-acre site and plans to move. Tuition ranges from $4,100 for part-time preschool to $11,320 for high school, with about half the students receiving financial aid.

The Quaker principles of equality, simplicity, harmony and community still guide the school.

Once a week, first- to 12th-graders gather for silent worship. The school is not religious, and only a few of the students are Quaker. But the 30 quiet minutes are a time to refocus.

A shadow moved slowly across the face of Michala Murray, 12, during a recent service, or "meeting."

"I think it's a wonderful school because we have this time to pray and have quiet time," she said afterward.

The school is different in other ways. Instead of Mr. or Mrs., adults there are called by their first name and the title "Teacher."

"That's the Quaker way - the way we express equality," said Jacquie Whitt, director of admissions.

Alexis Keen, 16, said Friends is unlike any other school she's attended. She sat in a tufted yellow armchair in study hall as a New Age CD played on the stereo.

When her father died last year, Alexis said the community - including the teachers - helped her pull through it.

"Whether it's personal or educational, you can go to all your teachers," she said. "They're your teacher, your mentor and your friend."

After study hall, Alexis shared bagels with classmates and Teacher James around a scuffed table behind the pottery studio. Teacher James led the four art history students in a discussion about a Brancusi sculpture called "The Kiss." Some days, the class meets at a coffee shop or the Chrysler Museum of Art.

"That's the best way for most people here to learn - hearing, seeing it, doing it," Alexis said.

"I believe in trusting them," Teacher James said.

Lauren Roth, (757) 222-5133, lauren.roth@pilotonline.com