Due to Hurricane Florence, Ashley Hall will be closed from Tuesday, September 11 until further notice. This decision follows Governor McMaster’s executive order that calls for the closure of all government and school facilities in Charleston County. All extra-curricular activities, including the Panther Picnic, Extended Day, and sporting events are cancelled during this time. Ashley Hall will closely monitor the situation on the Charleston peninsula and will communicate updates as soon as they become available. For the latest news, please follow our Facebook and Instagram pages, or visit the Learning Commons. Our Ashley Hall family is in our thoughts, and we look forward to having our students back soon. Stay safe everyone!
Coming soon to Davies Auditorium! The Ashley Hall Theater Department presents Beehive: The 60’s Musical, chronicling the changing role of women as defined by a decade of remarkable transition. From bubble-gum sweet girl groups to gritty female solo artists, this musical retrospective features the sounds of the 1960s from women’s perspectives. Buy your tickets and support our rising stars!
Tickets: $10 for Adults $8 for Students
Friday, October 19 at 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, October 21 at 3:00 p.m.
On the last day of Horizons at Ashley Hall, a little rain could not dampen the spirits of 30 exuberant first and second graders from Memminger and Mitchell Elementary Schools as they celebrated six weeks of achievements and well-earned confidence boosts. Having experienced a transformative summer of reading, STEAM classes, music, and swimming, each girl will begin her school year better prepared academically and will return to Ashley Hall’s campus this fall and spring for special Saturday Horizons sessions. For the many faculty, staff, and volunteers who made Horizons at Ashley Hall possible, those special sessions cannot come soon enough. “I had to hug each girl and personally tell her goodbye,” said Shannon Laribo, Class of 2011, who is an Assistant Director of Admission at Ashley Hall and who served as a reading specialist during Horizons. “I can’t wait to see them again and hear how things are going with their school year. ”
As the first South Carolina school and second all-girls’ school in the nation to offer the award-winning, tuition-free Horizons program, Ashley Hall prioritizes academic innovations and meaningful community connections such as Horizons. In addition to faculty and staff working as teachers, the School’s student and alumnae volunteers served as Horizons Assistant Teachers (HATS), a crucial element to establishing a welcoming campus environment for the girls and building meaningful friendships. With a 5:1 student-to-faculty ratio, the resulting program was a playful curriculum augmented by field trips, healthy lunches, and an overall emphasis on family involvement, with parents and students agreeing to return each summer through eighth grade. “Multi-year mentoring and an ongoing commitment by the parents and students are hallmarks of the Horizons program and provide a foundation for its proven success,” said fifth grade science and math teacher Kiki Sweigart, who serves as Horizons at Ashley Hall’s program director and lead teacher.
With the summer nearly over and the start of the school year just a few weeks away, Ashley Hall’s inaugural Horizons students took a few moments to savor everything they had accomplished and to look forward to more happy times on campus with their new friends. “I liked music class and singing best,” said Khloe Conyers, age 6. “I liked my teachers and friends and working together even better.”
Thank you to The Post and Courier for the heartfelt story on Horizons at Ashley Hall. In its inaugural summer at Ashley Hall, Horizons National is an award-winning program designed to combat the “summer slide.” This amazing group of 1st and 2nd grade girls from Charleston’s Memminger Elementary School and Mitchell Elementary are developing a deep love of learning all under the guise of summer fun! Click on the button below to read the full article.
Senior Project at Ashley Hall is one of the school’s most distinguished programs. This student-directed, year-long class is a synthesis of intense research, critical thinking, and targeted community outreach allowing students to delve deeper into a specific topic of interest. Selected through a competitive application process the prior spring, Senior Project girls begin researching their proposed topic over the summer months. This research then fuels their work over the course of the school year as the projects evolve. During April of the following year, the girls present their Senior Project research findings to the Upper School student body along with other distinguished guests. Click on the button below to view a full list of this year’s presentations.
On Friday, Ashley Hall recognized its 2018 graduates during “The Spiral Walk,” a campus procession through each division that celebrates not only the wonderful young women the graduates have become but also the bright future that awaits them. A new tradition established last year, “The Spiral Walk” began at the Shell House, where each senior received a small conch shell with her graduation year written inside as a symbol of both the spiral curriculum and the conch shells on the Shell House. “I was walking across senior lawn last spring and looked to my right and saw first and second grade girls walking to the Ingram Arts Center,” said Upper School faculty member Chris Hughes, who created “The Spiral Walk.” “I then looked to my left and saw seniors hanging out on senior lawn—where else can you see who you were and who you will become in one glance? I started thinking about how the girls move through the buildings on campus by starting with the Early Education Center (EEC) and ending in the Upper School.”
After Head of School Jill Muti read aloud the poem “The Chambered Nautilus” by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., those seniors who started in the EEC initiated the walk and stopped at each division to pick up their classmates where they had commenced their Ashley Hall journey. Girls in each division sang a special song to honor the seniors, and as the entire senior class entered Davies Auditorium, the rest of the Upper School stood and greeted them with the song “Oh Ashley Hall.” “I think this is a meaningful walk because it gives all the younger girls the opportunity to not only pay homage to the seniors but also to get a glimpse into who they will become as Ashley Hall girls,” said Chris. “For the seniors, it is a trip down memory lane and a visual reminder to reflect on their time spent here and the wonderful teachers they had along the way. It is a circle of endings and beginnings.”
Ashley Hall is a K-12 independent school for girls, with a co-ed preschool, committed to a talented and diverse student population. We consider for admission students of any race, color, religion, and national or ethnic origin.