Hathaway Brown School


Hathaway Brown is an all-girls private school in Shaker Heights, Ohio, founded in 1876. It is also Ohio's oldest continuously operating college preparatory school for girls. The HB offers early childhood programs, primary school, middle school, and upper school.

History

Founded in 1876, Hathaway Brown began as “afternoon classes for young ladies” at the all-boys private Brooks Military School in downtown Cleveland. Its original name was the Brooks School for Ladies. In 1886, the school was purchased by Anne Hathaway Brown. During her tenure, Miss Brown changed the school's name to “Miss Anne H. Hathaway Brown’s School for Girls” and introduced the school motto: non scholae sed vita discimus. At that point, only women were accepted.
After constructing a new school at East 97th Street in 1905, Hathaway Brown moved to its current location at 19600 North Park Boulevard in Shaker Heights. Mary Elizabeth Raymond and Miss Ann Cutter Coburn were notable headmistresses.
Hathaway Brown offers a coeducation early childhood program, and an all-girls K-12 program with an enrollment of 842 students. Hathaway Brown currently draws families from 93 communities across Northeast Ohio to its 16-acre Shaker Heights campus which houses an aquatics center, an invention lab, a dance studio, visual arts and performance spaces, and a working television studio.
Hathaway Brown's current Head of School is Dr. Mary Frances Bisselle.

Timeline

The Institute for 21st Century Education consists of 11 different "centers" encompassing leadership, science, technology, history, world languages, and various other programs. The institute was created to help foster a stronger connection to a particular subject and a more hands-on aspect of learning. Students have the option of choosing one or more centers to join in addition to their core classes, while completing projects and assessments. Each center focuses on specific issues, but can also be combined with another center for a cross-learning experience.
The Centers include:
Many of the centers contain stipulations to receiving the graduating designation. The Global Scholar program, for example, requires that each student who graduates taking the Global Scholar classes must have completed Global Scholars Seminars 1 and 2, a 20-40 page senior thesis, as well as an 80% passing grade on a map of the entire world. Each center varies, but many require certain aspects to prove the designation. Nearly 90% of the students in every grade are global scholars, so many of the girls end up writing a thesis and defending.

Traditions

First Day of School

The first day of school at HB begins with students meeting in the courtyard while a bagpiper begins to play. At some point, the students begin to exit the courtyard, two by two, beginning with the freshman and ending with the seniors. All Upper School students then file into the hallways and are cheered on by all faculty that line the sides of the hallways. The respective class presidents for each grade carry a flag with their class's graduating year as well as the class color. At the end, the Class Presidents place the flags on the auditorium stage, and this begins the school year.

Thanksgiving Assembly

The Thanksgiving Assembly occurs the day before Thanksgiving weekend. To commemorate the break, the whole school dresses up for the occasion and celebrates together. Late afternoon, students file two by two into the auditorium, starting with the preschoolers and ending with the seniors. During this time, the Middle School Orchestra plays music. After everyone is seated, there are multiple performances from the HB Singers, Bravuras, and Upper School Orchestra. Afterwards, girls from many grades give speeches for their thankfulness, as well as the headmaster delivering the final speech until dismissal.

Winterfest

Known as "Ideo Day" to the girls, this day is the celebration right before the girls are dismissed for winter festivities. The tradition arises from a previous headmaster that loved the religious carol "Ideo". She loved the song so much that she asked the girls if they would sing it. As a gift to her, the day before winter break, the girls would walk down the halls, two by two, and sing the song throughout the school. Her gift to the girls was winter break, and so the tradition continued.
Ideo remains fairly the same today. As one of the HB's largest traditions, it is the most popular for alumni to return and remember their own Ideo day memories. Faculty, friends, and family line the hallways starting from the auditorium and ending in the gym. Fifth graders begin the procession, and twelfth graders end it. Students walk two by two and listen to an instrumental version of Ideo. When the seniors reach the gym, they sing a song to the school called, "Bless This House". After the song has been sung, the headmaster will say a speech to the grade, as well as the school, and then dismisses the girls for Winter Break.

Ohio High School Athletic Association team state championships

Other non-sanctioned state championships:
Hathaway Brown's Science Research and Engineering Program is an elective that was initiated in early 1998 by HB Director of Research Patricia K. Hunt. It now enrolls approximately one third of the grade 9-12 student population. Students in the Program are linked with supervising professionals from institutions such as Case Western Reserve University, University Hospitals of Cleveland, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, NASA Glenn Research Center, and the Cleveland Museums of Art and Natural History for the purpose of conducting a research project. Once a placement is made, the SREP Director assists as necessary, also helping students prepare for optional competitions.
While most projects are scientific in nature, a number of students prefer to develop internship or shadowing experiences in non-scientific areas such as sports and entertainment management, architecture, radio broadcast, and fashion retail and marketing.
Current research projects in the Science Research & Engineering Program represent a cross section of the cutting edge research that is occurring in the Cleveland area, such as work on gene therapy, MEMS nanotechnology, BioMEMS, and microelectrochemical sensor development, as well as research into cures for many life-threatening diseases. One project, called PEACE, addresses a real erosion problem in low earth orbit, and will fly in space twice, once as a short term exposure experiment aboard the space shuttle, and another time as a long term exposure experiment aboard the International Space Station. That version is in space now.
The work of HB's Science Research & Engineering Program students has garnered hundreds of awards at the regional, state, national, and international levels since 1999, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in college scholarships, cash, and other prizes such as computers and all-expense-paid trips to places including London, Germany, and Israel. Four SREP students have US Patents pending for their original inventions, and there are over 70 student authorships or co-authorships on technical publications or presentations.

Robotics program

In the 2007–08 school year, Hathaway Brown debuted a FIRST Robotics team. FIRST team 2399 began as a collaborative project between Hathaway Brown and Case Western Reserve University, which provided facilities and mentors. In 2009, the team took home awards in robot design, the Delphi Driving Tomorrow's Technology Award and the General Motors Industrial Design Award, from the Buckeye and Pittsburgh regional competitions respectively and progressed to the semifinals at the 2009 Pittsburgh Regional. The team moved all operations from Case to Hathaway Brown in the 2011 season and continues to compete annually in the FIRST Robotics Competition.

Accreditation and membership