The Park School of Buffalo was founded in 1912 by a group of parents dissatisfied with traditional teaching methods of the era. After consulting with educational reformer and philosopher John Dewey, they hired his student, Mary Hammett Lewis, who was at the time a teacher at the Horace Mann School at Columbia University.
The School opened its doors in the fall of 1912 with 27 students (kindergarten – Grade 4) and four teachers in a cottage on Bird Avenue. Within a year, growing enrollment required more space, and the School moved to the corner of Main Street and Jewett Parkway, expanding to Grade 6 (boys) and Grade 8 (girls). The School moved to its current location in 1920, when the Upper School was added.
Park celebrated its centennial in October 2012. Western New York's premier institution of progressive education remains an oasis for students from prekindergarten through Grade 12. The Park School, anchored by a mission barely altered since its opening, stands poised to commence a second century of active lifelong learning.