In 1923 a group of enlightened neighborhood parents who cared to improve the community and desired a superior educational environment for their children, banded together to organize the Garden Country Day School. The school took its name from the newly conceived garden apartment complexes built by Edward MacDougall, founder of the Queensboro Corporation, in the then-rural community of Jackson Heights.

The first classes, grades K–3, met in the Laburnum Court Apartments under the guidance of Mrs. Dorothy Gleen, Mrs. Charles Townshend, and Mrs. Josephine Wech. Two years later, in 1925, grades 4–6 were added and Mr. John Bosworth Laing became the director. In 1927 Mr. Otis Flower assumed leadership as headmaster.

It was during the administration of Otis Flower, and with the help of the Queensboro Corporation, that Garden Country Day School moved to its current location. Here Garden continued to grow, adding grades and then, in the spring of 1929, graduating its first high school class of three students! Within a few years Garden Country Day School became an independent school, with a board of trustees, under the New York State guidelines for not-for-profit schools.

At Garden School, we look back with pride in our history and we look ahead with confidence as we prepare our students for a future of ever-changing learning, technology and expectations.

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