In 1689, William Penn founded this school on a radical idea: that education should be open to everyone. One of the first schools to welcome students of all religions, races and genders—and to offer financial aid—Penn Charter has championed access and equality from the very beginning. Those values still guide everything we do today. 

Penn Charter's commitment to access has deep roots. As early as 1697, the Overseers William Penn appointed to govern the school established a fund so that the children of the poor could attend. Penn Charter was among the first schools to welcome students of all religions (1689) and races (1770), and to educate girls (1754).

In 1875, Penn Charter consolidated as a private all-boys prep school under Gurneyite Friends guidance. With reformer Richard Mott Jones as headmaster, and a new location at 12th and Market streets, the school quickly earned a national reputation for excellence in both academics and student life.

Penn Charter began as a downtown urban school, and as it expanded, finding a new home took more than 50 years. Today, our School House Lane campus offers a green, wide-open space that's still unmistakably part of the city. It's a place that draws families from across Philadelphia, New Jersey and beyond, and feels like home to all of them.

Richard Mott Jones' daughters were Penn Charter students and, throughout the 20th century, girls enrolled in kindergarten and first grade. Penn Charter became fully coed again in 1991, and graduated the first modern coed class in 1992. 

The Middle School building, completed in 2002, houses grades 6-8. It is a light-filled space with large classrooms and science labs, an atrium and an IdeaLab. Middle school students enjoy this space all their own. 

The Kurtz Center, opened in 2010, is a LEED Gold building with a vegetative roof. Home to plays, musicals, band and choral concerts throughout the year, The Kurtz Center has a choral room and performance studio, an instrumental room with four individual practice rooms, a scene shop, and a costume room and dressing rooms. 

In the William A. Graham IV OPC '58 Athletics & Wellness Center, which opened in September 2021, we fortify the PC athletic legacy, cheer the Quakers, and gather to celebrate all-school traditions.

The complete vision for PC athletics began with the first project in the campus transformation: construction of a new baseball field on the newly purchased property on Strawbridge Campus. Ralph F. Palaia Field was completed in spring 2019. The new complex provides synergy between the athletics facilities on both sides of School House Lane.

The new 88,000-square-foot Graham Athletics & Wellness Center includes:

• Fitness center and cardio center, training room, hydrotherapy, nutrition center
• Wrestling room, basketball courts for team practice and PE program (the courts convert to competition courts)
• Climbing wall
• Multipurpose room, classroom space, student and coach lockers, meeting spaces
• OPC Rail of Recognition and storytelling display of PC traditions
• Safe, direct access to track / Maguire Stadium Field / Strawbridge Campus / Palaia Field
• Storm water management features, nature landscape

The campus master planning project determined that the very best place to build the new lower school now, as well as for the future development of our 47-acre campus, is on the site of the current field house. Moving the functions of the field house to the new Athletics & Wellness Center adjacent to Maguire Stadium Field creates the opportunity to build the lower school in the best location — and create a vibrant, collective Academic Village.

A new view of campus from School House Lane, with Graham Athletics & Wellness on the left, the main academic building in the center, and the David L. Kurtz Center for the Performing Arts on the right presents a unified front line representing the ongoing vision and new expression of academics, arts and athletics.

The William A. Graham IV OPC ’58 Athletics & Wellness Center is a vibrant 88,000-square-foot facility that amplifies athletics and wellness. With two competition courts, a wrestling room, fitness center, rock wall, athletic training suite, classroom space and nutrition center, the Graham is a community gathering space as well.

Penn Charter students, teachers and staff kicked off the 2024-25 school year with an opening assembly that welcomed the community to the 100th year on PC’s present-day campus, known as Pinehurst. Head of School Karen Warren Coleman shared with students the theme of the school year, Community: Together We Thrive.

"One of the many things our faculty do so well at Penn Charter," she said, “is to educate and prepare students for the world that ought to be—as it could be. 

"Robert Lawrence Smith, a Quaker educator and author of The Quaker Book of Wisdom, posed the question ‘What makes a good school?’

“Smith’s response to this question always makes me beam with pride,” she said, “as it describes everything I know about and have experienced here at PC. He says, ‘A good school is one that is constantly engaged in self-examination, in improving itself, in becoming wiser in its ability to teach and inspire. It’s a school that is intent on turning out good people who make a better world.’” 

Louella Whitaker, senior class clerk, shared her own perspective. “To create a strong community, we must find things we share in common – points of connection that will bring us together rather than pull us apart. Yes, we each bring something unique to this community, and that is what makes this place so beautiful, but finding similarities, even with our differences, is what will allow us to grow as individuals and as a community.”

Other highlights of the assembly included Coleman presenting the Class of 2025 with its official class banner; the Quakers Dozen performing “Meeting for Worship (After a While)” – based on a poem by Helen Morgan Brooks, with music written and arranged by choral director Tony Yoo; and Paul Hough OPC ’77, in his first address to the PC community as clerk of the Board of Trustees, articulating his wish for students: “May those red doors inspire you every day to do great things.” 

See photos of the Opening Assembly and the first day of school in all divisions, including pre-K and kindergarten.