In 1922, nine local women, including Evelyn Fortune Lilly, Edith Whitehill Clowes, Martha Carey, and Mary Carey Appel, established an experimental first grade based on Marietta Johnson’s “Organic School Model.” Mary Stewart Carey, mother of two of the school’s founders and, later, founder of The Children’s Museum, donated her home and apple orchard at 5050 North Meridian Street for the school, which opened October 2, 1922, with 20 students.

The founders initially arranged for the Indianapolis Public Schools to operate the parent-funded school under its auspices. When the school board mandated that only neighborhood children could attend the school, thereby excluding the founders’ children, Orchard’s executive committee severed its ties with the Indianapolis school system.

Orchard Country Day School moved to a larger building at the corner of West 42^nd  Street and Byram Avenue in 1927. It remained at that location until 1957 when it relocated to a 43-acre site at 615 West 64^th  Street. A building program in 1976 doubled the size of the school, and a capital improvement program fully refurbished the 164,000-square-foot building in 2002.

From its inception, Orchard School has offered a progressive curriculum in its lower school (through grade four) and upper school (grades five through eight). It provides classes for children as young as 2 1/2 years old and transitional programs for kindergarten and first grade. Orchard emphasizes individual educational goals for each student and uses standardized testing to help determine such goals. Periodic performance reports rather than letter grades are used for children through grade six. Students in the upper grades receive quarterly letter grades.

Orchard School is operated by The Orchard School Foundation, established in 1950 and directed by a board of governors. One of its principal benefactors was Eli Lilly, who gave the foundation 20,000 shares of Lilly stock in 1950 and 123,961 shares at his death in 1977.

The school, unclassified by the Indiana Department of Education, is a member of the Independent School Association of Central States, the National Association of Independent Schools, and the Indiana Association of Independent Schools.  An endowment fund enables the school to provide tuition assistance to almost 30 percent of its students.

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