About

WELCOME

Full disclosure: Poly is a noisy school. Discourse, debate, and constructive dissent resound in our classrooms. Laughter and conversations echo in our hallways. Students and teachers share ideas and stories in our common spaces. Enthusiasm and energy abound on our fields and courts. Creative expression flows from our studios and stages.

We believe that school should be fun. Learning, personal growth, and the pursuit of understanding should be part of a joyful exploration of life and its possibilities. At Poly, that exploration is built on three principles that define our identity as a school: diversity, the pursuit of excellence, and community.

We are among our nation’s most diverse independent day schools. We want our students to be more comfortable with difference than similarity. The challenges and opportunities they encounter in their future will likely transcend borders and walls, and will require them to collaborate with peers from around the world. We seek to empower them to meet that future with our commitment to diversity in all we do: the range of courses and opportunities for independent or advanced study; exhilarating, topical guest speakers that extend classroom discussions; student-led forums, workshops, and open mic nights; thought provoking art; debating and engaging in the world around us.

We think about pursuing excellence at Poly as fulfilling one’s potential in mind, body, and spirit. Master teachers and coaches inspire and empower their students to be “the best you that you can be.” In the classroom, students and adults seek the truth, expand their minds by embracing challenging ideas, and build empathy by seeking to understand the ideas of others. In play, physical education classes, dance studios, and on athletic fields, our students celebrate activity and the gift of movement; running faster, jumping higher, and working as a team are ways of learning, and ends in and of themselves. Students in our wide-ranging arts program create and find beauty and truth in all aspects of human expression. 

Shared values define community at Poly: being curious about life and the world, celebrating difference while being part of something bigger, empathy, service and seeking to understand. We want to open out to the world and be open to the world, the very opposite of insular. At Poly, community is an ongoing conversation about who we are and how that identity can help make better our world. 

We leave Poly in the evenings with the best of feelings: simultaneously exhausted and energized. We are tired from having given our all to the day, but energized by a sense of accomplishment and a day well-lived. Being at Poly is the best. Period. We invite you to join us.