Girls Preparatory School


Girls Preparatory School, or GPS, is an all-female college preparatory school in Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States. It was founded in 1906 by Grace McCallie, Tommie Payne Duffy, and Eula Lea Jarnagin. GPS enrolls students in grades 6-12. These students are taught by GPS's 66 faculty members, over 80% of whom hold advanced degrees. Since 2006, Girls Preparatory School has won 20 state championships in various sports. In addition, the school has graduated 49 National Merit Semifinalists in the past 13 years. For the 2019-20 school year, GPS enrolled 560 girls from 28 zip codes, with 210 in Middle School and 350 in Upper School.
For more than 110 years, GPS has been committed to academic excellence while educating the whole girl through a broad array of educational experiences. As students at GPS, girls grow in intellectual curiosity, honor individuality, learn to share their opinions with confidence, and discover the strength within them to change the world. Its brother school, The McCallie School, was founded a year earlier by McCallie's brothers. GPS's current Head of School is Dr. Autumn Adkins Graves, former president of Girard College.

History

Origins

In 1906, Duffy and Jarnagin, two public school teachers, asked the city school board to provide a fourth year of high school studies, including modern language and a lab science, so that girls, as well as boys, would apply for college. When their request was denied, they decided to create an independent school to prepare girls for higher education and convinced their friend Grace McCallie to join them.
In 12 weeks, they converted McCallie's former home to a school. The three founders pooled all of their money, $300, to equip and launch the school. The school opened on September 12, 1906, in a four-room schoolhouse at 106 Oak Street, which had formerly been McCallie's home. The ground floor contained classrooms with second-hand desks. There was also an alcove library and cloakroom.
The school welcomed 45 enrolled students on the first day of classes on September 12, 1906. Each girl paid $80 tuition per year, and at the end of the first year one of the students was accepted to and enrolled in Randolph-Macon Woman's College. In 1915, the school relocated to a larger brick building at 611 Palmetto Street. In 1947, GPS again moved, this time to its current home on Island Avenue, with 14 classrooms, a study hall, library and dining hall. Since the move, the campus has been significantly added on to and revitalized, with the addition of a separate middle school and high school, an 800-seat theater, and a new student center, among other facilities.
Girls Preparatory School celebrated its 100th anniversary during the 2005-2006 school year.

Milestones

Mission: Girls Preparatory School inspires each girl to lead a life of integrity and purpose by engaging her mind, cultivating her strengths, and nurturing her self-confidence and respect for others. Adopted 2016.
Vision: GPS strives to stand among the nation’s leading schools and is driven to educate and prepare our girls to be a strong force in the global community and to be recognized as models of active and ethical citizenship.
Adopted 2008.

Values

In partnership with parents, GPS pledges to integrate these values, not only in our policies but also in our daily lives. Adopted 2017.

Tuition

Tuition at GPS for the 2019-20 school year is $25,987, which includes lunch. Expenses not covered by tuition include uniforms, books, technology devices, and other incidentals.

Financial Aid

Each year, GPS awards over $2.5 million in need-based grants to nearly 40% of GPS girls and their families, helping the brightest and most capable young women of Chattanooga and the surrounding areas experience the benefits of an all-girls education. Funds for financial aid are made available by hundreds of generous donors who believe in GPS and its mission.

Academics

Middle School (Grades 6-8)

Middle School is a time for girls to begin an important journey of discovery. At GPS, the journey should be one of growing self-awareness and confidence, as girls make friends, explore the world through education, and develop their voice within it. The core tenet of the Middle School philosophy is to engage girls in "joyful learning," understanding that when children have interest, education happens. An expanded interdisciplinary program in all middle school classes keeps learning exciting and interesting. Additionally, they offer programming other area schools do not, such as required computer science in sixth and seventh grades. In addition to core classes, beginning in sixth grade, the girls take a dance class, Latin, a skills class, and SHAPE class.
As GPS prepares girls for their next step—in this case, upper school—the middle school culture equips them with the academic preparation they need, as well as strong organizational skills and social/emotional support. The middle school girls each receive an iPad on which to complete assignments, review their schedules, and use apps specific to their coursework.In an environment that is calm, predictable, and structured, girls learn how to make informed social decisions, cope with their emotions, and respond to social pressures. Eighth-grade middle school girls "walk across the lawn" the fall of their freshman year ready to continue their journey in becoming their best selves.

Upper School (Grades 9-12)

Upper school students begin to imagine the future they wish to pursue and focus on their path to college. The Upper School curriculum is designed to create students who are critical thinkers, articulate speakers and writers, empathetic collaborators, and resilient problem-solvers. The ultimate goal of the upper school is to prepare our students for college and beyond. As girls move through their upper school years, students expand their knowledge, practice and strengthen independence and self-advocacy, and assume the position in the driver's seat of their education. When girls move on from GPS, they are prepared to enter the college world equipped with the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to thrive.
The Upper School offers 24 Advanced Placement courses, ranging from AP Biology to AP Comparative Government and Politics. Students consistently score higher than the national and state average for males and females in every subject offered; in 2010-11, 80% of the sophomores through seniors taking the exams scored three or higher on the five point scale, and in the senior class of 2011, 70% were enrolled in at least one AP course. In ninth grade, students purchase a laptop for school use.
Class sizes are small, with the student-teacher ratio being 9:1. Each grade consists of 68-100 girls.

STEM

Whether she wants to be an engineer or an artist, a mastery of STEM principles is imperative as technology becomes the medium by which our world communicates. In many ways it is its own language, and GPS wants its students to be fluent speakers. That is why the faculty and staff are committed to growing a nationally recognized STEM program, leveraging their already robust curriculum with real-world integration and exposure to things like coding, programming, 3D printing, and engineering.
While STEM subjects have long been taught at GPS, the teachers continue to innovate and present opportunities for interdisciplinary learning, which becomes key to discovery. Not only are girls exposed to things like programming in computer science or a virtual reality tour of the heart in biology, subjects in history or English come alive with projects made on the 3D printer or laser cutter in the Makerspace.
As an all-girls school in the heart of GIG city, they are uniquely positioned to address the gaps between the interest in STEM subjects and the pursuit of STEM degrees by women.

Athletics

The GPS Athletics mission includes teaching girls to be team players, understand the importance of mental toughness, accept challenges enthusiastically, and value strength, fitness, stamina, and good health. The bonds of friendship that come from working hard every day as teammates—striving for excellence toward an ambitious goal and developing the fundamental values of discipline and self-improvement—all of these are part of athletics at Girls Preparatory School.
Ultimately, the GPS athletic environment is about aiming to be the very best on the field of competition, in the classroom, and in life. That attitude is shared by the outstanding staff of award-winning GPS coaches and more than 300 players who are involved at the varsity and middle school level.
GPS competes in the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association and its varsity sports are:

Cadek Conservatory of Music

The Cadek Conservatory of Music at Girls Preparatory School provides the highest level of musical instruction for students of all ages—from infants through senior adults—in private, group, and ensemble settings.

Partnerships in the Community (PIC)

A broad spectrum of community organizations and components of local governments are part of PIC: East Side Elementary School and Chattanooga Girls Leadership Academy; City of Chattanooga Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Northside Neighborhood House; Habitat for Humanity of the Greater Chattanooga Area and the Chattanooga Area Food Bank.

Tucker River Fellows

At the retirement of former longtime headmaster Randy Tucker, the GPS Board of Trustees and friends of the school joined together to honor his tenure with the establishment of the Tucker Fellows Program, a two-year student study of the Tennessee River. The mission of the program, which began in the summer before the 2014-15 school year, is to prepare future leaders to have an effect on the conservation of the Tennessee River. Fellows, selected prior to their freshman year, spend part of the summer and following academic year engaged in interdisciplinary scholarship and experiential learning about the many issues impacting their local watershed as well as learning about the historical, ecological, political, economic and aesthetic significance of the Tennessee River.  
During the second year in the program, fellows focus on leadership skills while continuing to learn about the river and watershed. They read and discuss the works of current and historic environmental thinkers. They choose a focus and work with local experts, scientific literature, and policy to become more knowledgeable about their chosen topic. They then collect, analyze, and publish data. Throughout the program, fellows become familiar with the various entities that implement, enforce, and monitor watershed policy. By the end of the program, fellows propose solutions to watershed problems and become lifelong advocates for clean, healthy watersheds in the Chattanooga area and beyond.

Traditions

GPS upholds many traditions that are celebrated throughout the school year, with many including community service opportunities.

May Day

While most traditions are school-wide, some focus on certain grades. One such tradition is May Day, a pageant that combines the old traditions of a May Day from the Renaissance and a debutante pageant. The senior class is presented in colorful dresses, one by one, with a May Court and May Queen introduced separately; the May Queen is the last presented. The May Queen and Court are nominated by the senior class and then chosen by the student body and faculty based upon personality and embodiment of a true GPS girl. After the class is introduced, festivities are held on the school's front lawn, and seniors, guests, and the student body watch as different grades dance to music chosen to match that year's theme. The last dance is the May Pole ceremony, in which sophomores wrap three traditional May Poles for the Queen to walk under, ending the ceremony.

Senior Chapel Talks

Another tradition is that of senior Chapel Talks. Each senior gives a three- to seven-minute talk about a subject of her choosing to her peers and invited guests during a schoolwide assembly, also called Chapel, which occurs several times a week.

Cat-Rat

Another highly celebrated tradition is that of Cat-Rat, a pairing of a senior with a new sixth-grader. In this tradition the senior Cat acts as a mentor and friend to the sixth grader, her Rat. Cats decorate their Rats’ lockers prior to the start of school, and the revealing of the newly decorated locker is a key part of the Cat-Rat Reveal. In addition, during the Cat-Rat Reveal, the sixth grade Rats take part in a random drawing which determines the order of their Cats’ Chapel Talks. Several parties, activities, and celebrations help the girls get to know each other better and allow the senior girl to guide the younger student through her school year. The long-standing tradition has been known to bond students as friends and even business partners well into adulthood.

Robin Hood

Formerly, a weeklong festival was planned each year by an elected committee of students, known as Robin Hood. In the festival, any school-recognized club or team is able to open a booth and sell a craft or food for a charity of their choice. The committee itself could also operate a booth, which would benefit the overall goal of that year's Robin Hood. In the past, the main goal has been to gift Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission To Promote Peace... One School At A Time and the founder of Central Asia Institute, with the money to endow a girls' school in Pakistan. Another year it was to help assist a like-minded Chattanooga school with a contribution to Chattanooga Girl's Leadership Academy, an all girls college preparatory charter school focusing on STEM education, the first public single-gender school in Tennessee. This long-standing tradition, however, was phased out by 2014.

MBD: Girl Edition

One of GPS's newer traditions, MBD: Girl Edition, is an entrepreneurial opportunity for girls in and around the Chattanooga area to seek knowledge and support from local professionals. It debuted in 2015 as a women's and girls' symposium, Mad Bad and Dangerous, and has hosted such notable guest speakers as Lori Greiner, prolific inventor and "Shark Tank" star. The most recent installment features a one-day Girls Marketplace, where girls can sell products and services, and a 24Hour Generator, which pairs students with mentors to help them solve real-world business problems as they compete for a cash prize. The event relies heavily on volunteers and financial support of businesses and community organizations.

Other

The onsite garden is maintained and cultivated by the environmental science class, a junior and senior science elective. The crops grown in the garden are chosen and raised by the students, harvested, and taken to the , or included in the school's lunch menu.
There are many other traditions as well, such as a long-standing partnership with , and leadership summer camps.

Honor Code & Honor Council

Honor Code

Developed around the belief that “a girl’s honor is her most valuable possession,” the honor system provides the guidelines for the community while allowing each student her individual freedom. Every GPS girl bears responsibility for abiding by and upholding the system, creating a solid foundation of honesty, trust, and respect upon which she and her classmates can learn and thrive. Each year, individual grades meet with the Head of School to affirm a commitment to the code and to reflect on what it means to attend a school that values honor and integrity. The girls read the Honor Code and sign individual papers that signify their acceptance of the tradition, a reminder of the expectation and responsibility.
Before every test, students sign their name, pledging “On my honor, I have neither given nor received help on this assignment, nor will I discuss it.” Students who are charged with violating the honor code must stand trial with the Honor Council.

Honor Council

The Honor Council oversees the upholding of the Honor Code. The purpose of the Honor Code is to help GPS girls lead lives of integrity by respecting themselves, each other and the community. The GPS community strives to uphold the Honor Code on campus, off campus and online.  
Girls elected to the Honor Council assume tremendous responsibility in evaluating cases and determining consequences for their peers, thus preparing them for ethical dilemmas they may encounter elsewhere.

Notable alumnae and faculty

Alumnae

Community Interactions

There is substantial tension among GPS and the surrounding neighborhood, which is primarily due to the reckless and dangerous driving by GPS parents. These issues have been reported in writing numerous times to GPS leadership. GPS leadership, including Head of School Dr. Graves, has taken no meaningful action to reduce the tension between GPS and the surrounding neighborhood. Additionally, Dr. Graves has deepened GPS's tension with neighbors by suggesting that short-term vacation rentals in the neighborhood might attract sex predators.