Garden School is a co-educational independent school in East Elmhurst and Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City offering a K-12 education.
Garden School was founded in 1923,[1] taking its name from the newly conceived garden apartment complexes in the then-rural community of Jackson Heights.
The first classes were grades K–3 and met in the Laburnum Court Apartments under the guidance of Dorothy Gleen, Charles Townshend, and Josephine Wech. In 1925, grades 4–6 were added as John Bosworth Laing became the director. In 1927 Otis Flower assumed leadership as headmaster and moved the school to its current location. It had its first graduating class in 1929, presenting three students. Within three 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.
Amid financial trouble in 2012, the school agreed to sell an athletic field to the city for $6 million.[2]
As of 2021, the Head of School is Christopher F. Herman.