Stratford Academy


Stratford Academy is an independent school in unincorporated Bibb County, Georgia, United States, near Macon. In 2015, there were 841 students enrolled in preschool through grade 12.
The school has a controversial history as part of the segregation academy movement. As of 2017-18, approximately 21% of students were non-white.

History

Stratford was founded in 1960 by a group of white parents who wished to avoid the prospect of sending their children to racially integrated public schools. The founders viewed the desegregation of Bibb County public schools as an "impending crisis". In September 1960, the school opened with 117 students and 17 faculty members in the antebellum Cowles-Woodruff Mansion on Coleman Hill in Macon's historic district. Thirteen students became Stratford's first alumni in 1962, and since that time more than 2,700 have graduated from the school. The graduation march in 1962 was Dixie, not the traditional Pomp and Circumstance.
In 1970, the school's enrollment increased by 45 percent after the Supreme Court ordered the immediate desegregation of all public schools.
In 1972, Stratford Academy was expelled from Georgia Association of Independent Schools because the school refused to cut ties with segregationists. The school has since regained its affiliation with the association, now known as the Georgia Independent School Association.
A news article published in May 2017 quoted political scientist Thomas Ellington, stating that schools in Macon founded between 1960 and 1972 "are remarkably different than both the public and private schools formed at other times, either before or after" insofar as "those schools are generally 5 percent or fewer African-American, in a community that's roughly 67 percent black, according to the last census". In 2002, the school's headmaster, Edward England, announced financial grants to attract minority students. At the time, the student body was 93 percent white.

Facilities

The current facilities were built in 1974 on more than of wooded land in northwest Bibb County. The school completed its move when the Lower School and Kindergarten came to the campus in 1978. The new buildings represent a contemporary contrast to Overlook Mansion and house the four school divisions: Preschool, Lower School, Middle School, and Upper School. The Olson Library was completed in August 2000.
The Daws Student Activities Center was dedicated in September, 2017.

Athletics

The Stratford Academy Eagles athletics teams compete in the Georgia High School Association. Prior to the 2014-15 school year, Stratford was a member of the Georgia Independent School Association.

Academics

Stratford earned accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in 1982.

Notable alumni