MICDS Welcomes Close to 1,000 Visitors at Open House

What an exciting day it was at MICDS on Saturday, October 5, when we welcomed nearly 1,000 visitors to campus for our annual Open House! Amid a gorgeous day, MICDS faculty, staff, current students, and parents gathered to show prospective families what being a Ram at MICDS is like as they consider our School for the next academic year. Thank you to all those who joined us!

The JK-12 event was segmented into a Lower School-specific program and a Middle/Upper School-specific program, with all programs offered twice on Saturday. Attendees arrived at the Lower School event and were greeted by a few of our Middle School Cheerleaders at registration. Then, the Lower School event officially began with a presentation in the Beasley Dining Hall led by Head of Lower School Amy Scheer, Fourth Grade Homeroom Teacher Donna Waters, Lower School Learning Specialist Centron Felder, and two students, Narya Phatak ’26 and Cecilia Mileusnic ’29. Panelists answered questions about their experiences at MICDS and detailed some of the day-to-day learning. Families then spent time visiting homeroom and specialist classrooms, where they interacted with faculty and parents before finishing off the morning on the playground with treats and a visit from MICDS mascot, Charger the Ram!

The Middle/Upper School event welcomed families with band and orchestra performances before kicking off with a leadership presentation session featuring Head of School Jay Rainey and seniors Grant LaMartina ’25 and Lilly Loeb ’25. From there, families learned more about the Middle or Upper School, respectively, from Head of Middle School Jen Schuckman, and Head of Upper School Scott Small, and from Middle School Dean Eric Taylor, and Upper School Dean Chris Ludbrook, who led an interactive Q&A with student panels. Next, families had an hour to talk with teachers and learn more about programs in a Curricular Fair, during which time they could also visit the Robotics Lab, Makerspace, and Country Day School archives. Many families took advantage of the beautiful day to walk the campus after the event and even took in some of the action at the varsity field hockey game.

One prospective parent shared the following reflection with our Admission Team which we’ve paraphrased here: « Thank you and the MICDS community for welcoming us today. We were touring the school to explore if it is a good fit for our children. What a great day!  The teachers we met with were incredibly helpful and patient with all of our questions and were wonderful. We were particularly impressed by the students who helped with the welcome. They were poised, confident, and friendly—a testament certainly to their parents but also to you all for fostering an environment that has given them confidence and provided them the opportunity to demonstrate leadership. It was great to see how comfortable and excited our son felt as well. »

Thank you to our Admission team and the full MICDS community for working together to demonstrate the potential of an MICDS education for each of our grades from Junior Kindergarten through senior year. Open House 2024 was a huge success! « We received so much positive feedback from prospective families! From hearing from and connecting with current students, learning more about classrooms and programs from our faculty, and experiencing the beautiful grounds of campus to catching a bit of the field hockey victories and seeing Charger, the mascot on the Beasley playground, it was a great day to be a Ram and welcome about 1,000 visitors! » To all who attended, we hope you felt a very warm welcome to MICDS!