Olney Friends School

Olney Friends School challenges students to grow. We celebrate intellectual vigor, provoke questions of conscience, and nurture skills of living in community. At Olney, students from nearly every imaginable sociocultural and economic background call our campus home for nearly nine months each year. In additional to providing a challenging, college-preparatory curriculum, we also help shape the physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual well-being of young learners who come to us from across the United States and the world.

Established in 1837 by the Ohio Yearly Meeting of Friends, Olney continues to cultivate the Quaker values of consensus, integrity, and cooperative conflict resolution while honoring ethnic, racial, religious, LGBTQIAS, and socio-economic diversity. Students participate integrally in all aspects of community life, including decision making in the dormitories, deliberating on academic offerings, and working in the kitchen and on the farm. 100% of Olney graduates are admitted to 4-year accredited colleges and universities.

The school is located on 350 USDA certified organic acres near the town of Barnesville, Ohio, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The area is largely agricultural; nearby areas of ecological interest allow the school to offer hands-on environmental science education. The Olney farm provides not only food for the community, but also educational opportunities for students and revenue for the school. The Olney curriculum takes advantage of its small size, international student presence, and culture of inquiry to offer a unique academic environment for high school students. All courses teach core college preparatory material and skills while offering students opportunities to choose to engage with material at greater depth and at an individual pace.

Olney is accredited by the Independent School Association of the Central States (ISACS), and is a member of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), the Ohio Association of Independent Schools (OAIS), The Association of Boarding Schools (TABS), and the Friends Council on Education (FCE). The Olney Friends School student body averages 50 students in grades 9-12. The faculty to student ratio is 1:3, and the median class size is 8. Students come from across the U.S. and from many different countries in recent years, including Afghanistan, Rwanda, China, Egypt, Japan, Vietnam and Costa Rica and others, representing a wide variety of religious and secular traditions. The small size of the student body and inclusive values lead students of all backgrounds to socialize together, adding a multicultural global perspective inside and out of the classroom. Our faculty members generally possess significant teaching experience and over half hold advanced degrees (masters or doctorate).