Our Community

The upper school has a new student club this year with a goal to bring therapy dogs to campus once a month to reduce stress and depression. Mac Devereux ’23 decided to start the Paws for Patrick club because his dog Gigi, a Bouvier des Flandres, is a certified therapy dog involved with the local organization.

Congrats to former Raider Paige Forester '19 on her 100th collegiate point in field hockey at MIT. 
 

The NSCD Raiders nearly pulled off a miraculous day-2 comeback, trimming a six-stroke deficit to one, to finish in second place in IHSA Class 1A at Prairie Vista Golf Course in Bloomington, Illinois, on Saturday, October 9, 2021.

North Shore Country Day graduate Kali Pfannerstill, Class of 2020, was recently featured in the Lawrence University athletics news. Kali played volleyball at NSCD where her mother, Jen Pfannerstill, was a science teacher and volleyball coach. Jen was a Lawrence graduate and also played on the volleyball team.
 

North Shore Country Day upper school students take to the stage October 8 and 9 to present the fall play, “Drop Dead!” by Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore.

North Shore Country Day’s annual Homecoming festivities cautiously returned to campus October 1-2, 2021, after a pandemic hiatus last year. Students celebrated all week long with spirit days, decorating the campus and an outdoor pep rally for the entire school on Friday. Later that afternoon, the entire school community—from junior kindergartners to parents— participated in a series of one-mile fun runs that zigzagged through campus.

North Shore Country Day’s first community gathering of the school year—known as the opening Morning Exercise or Morning Ex—took place on Sept. 10 and began with a reading of two poems, “Our Own Path” by Nikki Giovanni and “Dawn Revisited” by Rita Dove. 

Students, faculty, staff and even a few parents spread out on the playing fields in front of the auditorium for the first in-person all-school gathering in more than 18 months. Head of School Tom Flemma welcomed and introduced new members of the school community—including 114 new students. Of those, 19 hail from outside the Chicago metropolitan area and seven are from outside the United States. 

North Shore Country Day has unveiled a new Raider mascot logo. The new design was created by alum Nico Gibson, class of 2006. Gibson is founder and design director of the creative collaborative CRCL, senior brand designer at IDEO and design director at Beyond Athlete Management.

The Chicago Sun-Times announced the Grammy-winning musician Richard Marx, North Shore Country Day Class of 1981, release of his debut memoir “Stories to Tell” (Simon & Schuster), which shares its name with a 2010 album.

The North Shore Country Day Camp is back for its 71st season! On June 21, campers arrived on the school's 16-acre campus, ready with sunblock, swim gear and a strong desire to make new friends, learn new skills and push themselves to grow.

At just 23 years old, Ava Suppelsa ’15 has a songwriting career not unlike those writers twice her age. Ava grew up on Chicago's North Shore in a home where she was exposed to music ranging from old-school country to jazz and modern pop.

For the first time in more than a year, NSCD students performed live on the auditorium stage March 11-13 for the spring musical production, “Hindsight 2020: Looking Back to Our Past Selves and Looking Forward to Who We Strive to Be.”

North Shore Country Day held its first-ever virtual benefit on February 25, bringing in more than $350,000 for student scholarships and supplemental support—an ever-increasing need for current and future NSCD students. 

Student Maeve Devereux '21 reflects on how grateful she is for NSCD teachers during the pandemic and their support in helping students adapt to remote and on-campus learning.

North Shore Country Day senior Isabella Cho of Wilmette, a 2020 National YoungArts Foundation (YoungArts) award winner in writing, was recently named a 2020 U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts.

The evening of Friday, June 5, seniors and their immediate families drove their cars onto the field and formed neat rows in pre-marked spaces.  While the ceremony was slightly pared down from a typical year, omitting a traditional processional, chorus performances and the ringing of the School bell to close out the evening, many of the important elements remained.

The spring 2020 annual benefit took on a different look and feel in honor of its 100th birthday and it was a rousing success, bringing in more than $440,000 for student experiences.

One by one, our individual poets went up on stage and wowed everyone in the room. Their words resonated and their performances were impassioned and thoughtful. Our group poets also impressed the audience with their honest portrayal of high school in their piece.”

Anita Rao ’21 and Niabelle Comeau ’23 joined more than 100 high school students from across the country in Iowa where they spent three days in January campaigning for presidential candidates in the lead-up to the Iowa Caucuses.

Twenty-five Lower School students competed in a regional Destination Imagination (DI) tournament in February and one of the teams qualified to move on to the state competition.