We are a diverse school with children from all parts of the world, Eastern Europe, Russia, Jamaica, Argentina, India, Great Britain, Austria, several Latin American countries, and of course, good old Atlanta.  Some of us are Jewish, some Christian, and we’ve had several Muslim families over the years.  More than 80% of our children live in Grant Park, East Atlanta, Kirkwood, East Lake or Ormewood Park.  The other 20% come from all over—Midtown, Ellenwood, Lithonia, and Stockbridge.

Our Expectations

Our children are expected to achieve scholastically—the bar is set high for middle school classes and the majority of our graduates can choose their own high school after leaving Kingfisher Academy.  No one leaves Kingfisher without knowledge of Shakespeare, geometry, chemistry, and the U.S. Government.  Few children leave without a list of birds they can identify!

We encourage our children to be well-rounded and support talent of all kinds.  On a weekly basis we offer chess, gardening, sewing, dancing, pottery, rocketry, woodworking, drumming, public speaking, theatre work, cooking, etc.  In the past we have also offered swimming and tennis lessons outside of the school.  This year we have lots of new ideas that we can’t wait to introduce to the children.

We have spent a great deal of time teaching the children to live “lightly” on the earth—encouraging recycling and asking that lunches are packed with reusable containers, watching our energy usage, participating in Earth Day tree planting, and contributing to stream clean-ups.  We won two awards for this: A $600 Captain Planet grant for environmental service and our school was honored with an adoption by the National Wildlife Federation.

Community Involvement

We are members of the PEACE school movement and our middle school students attend the Peace Day Student Summit at the Friend’s School of Atlanta each March.  We are members of the Human Scale Educational Association (formerly known as the Small School Association) and the Environmental Educator’s Alliance.

The Kingfisher Kids are well-known around Eastside Neighborhoods for wearing our hand-dyed, silk screened t-shirts that we make every fall.

Our Celebrations

We have evolved many traditions – a crazy Tex-Mex restaurant Halloween, a heart-warming Thanksgiving potluck complete with plays and poetry, a Holiday luncheon at local restaurants with all the families, holiday choral performances, middles grades monthly movie night, quarterly bowling with the older kids, eighth grade fancy luncheon (near graduation), a St. Patrick’s Day feast—including green food, walking in the East Atlanta Strut parade, Bike Day and Field Day in the Spring, Pinwheels for Peace around the East Atlanta Village, and, at the end of the year our graduation is always something to witness!

You Should Know

We begin open houses for enrolling new families in December.  In January, February, and March we hold two open houses per month.  Please check our website www.kingfisheracademy.org for details or call Debbie Gathmann at 404-624-0807.