Mission, Values & History

Seventh grade students with arms around each other posing for group photo

Mission Statement
The Rumson Country Day School, founded in 1926 as an independent educational institution, seeks:

  • to provide students from all communities with a dynamic, challenging academic experience in a safe and supportive environment;
  • to nourish academic excellence, individual and social responsibility, civic awareness, and leadership skills;
  • to inspire our graduates to become life-long learners able to thrive, contribute, and excel in a demanding secondary school environment and in today’s global society.
Students holding up large signs that read %22Be Kind, Be Honest, Be Responsible, Be Respectful.%22

Core Values
RCDS's core values of character serve as the four pillars on which the school is built. Balanced with excellent academic standards, the four pillars of RCDS are nurtured and developed to ensure the education of the whole child and success in life beyond RCDS.

"The four pillars of RCDS
– Kind, Honest, Responsible, Respectful –
are still a prominent part of my life. Every night at dinner
my family recites them during grace."

- Hannah Reynolds, RCDS Class of 2015

KIND

HONEST

RESPONSIBLE

RESPECTFUL

Class photo of students and teachers taken in 1926 in front of the school doors.

History
The Rumson Country Day School was founded in 1926 by a group of families in the Rumson area. This new school, called the Rumson School, was located on the site of the former St. Georges-on-the-Hill church; the building and 2 ½ acres of land were donated by Edward Dean Adams, a neighbor and grandfather of one of the charter students.

The school doors opened on November 1, 1926, with twenty-three pupils, a Headmaster, five teachers, and three staff members. An educator named B. Lord Buckley, founder of several independent schools in the New York metropolitan area, served as organizer and advisor.

Although our program has been updated and refined through the years, Buckley’s basic philosophy of a traditional, academically-rigorous liberal arts program continues today. Our school, which was incorporated as The Rumson Country Day School in 1942, teaches English grammar and literature, mathematics, science, social studies, world languages, visual arts, music, physical education, and interscholastic sports. Students in grades nursery through five are divided among heterogeneous homerooms. In grades six through eight, classes are departmentalized and honors sections are offered in English, math, and modern language.