Cincinnati Country Day School will mark 100 years on Monday, Sept. 28. The Indian Hill campus opened in 1926 with 50 students in a single temporary building on a rural hilltop.

A century later, the school on Given Road has grown into a 60-acre campus serving 850 students from age 18 months through 12th grade. What began as an all-boys experiment tied to the founding of the Camargo Club is now a pre-K-through-12 school whose centennial celebrations stretch across the 2026–27 academic year.

Head of School Rob Zimmerman, a 1998 Country Day graduate, wrote about the milestone in his September "Kindling a Fire" column for Indian Hill Living magazine.

"Not everything old is good simply because it is old; not everything new is good simply because it is new," Zimmerman wrote. "The task is to know the difference … to separate the time-tested from the merely nostalgic, and the true innovation from the mere trend."

Roots in the Camargo Club

The school's origin story runs through five Indian Hill names still familiar to residents: Chatfield, Fleischmann, Rowe, Emery and Black. All five were founders of the Camargo Club, established in the fall of 1925 by members of the Cincinnati Country Club in Hyde Park. They turned next to building a school, according to a separate Zimmerman column on the school's founding history.

William H. Chatfield, the first board chair, spent early 1926 visiting schools around the country to compare practices. The original campus sat on about 20 acres directly north of the Camargo Club's golf course, which remains across the street. The Cincinnati Enquirer at the time described the site as offering "about 20 acres in a most salubrious and delightful location."

From boys' school to 850 students

Country Day started with fewer than 10 faculty members. Girls were first admitted in the 1950s. The campus has expanded three times over, and the curriculum now includes a makerspace, laptops and artificial intelligence programs.

According to the school, class sizes average 15 students, with a 9-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio. Zimmerman has also pushed a cautious approach to classroom technology, including what he has described as the region's first bell-to-bell smartphone ban.

Still, Zimmerman wrote, some things have not changed. The school's early leaders declared that "the purpose of the school is to develop character." A century later, a Lower School House system teaches five character virtues daily, and leadership programs run through the middle and upper schools.

Centennial events ahead

The school is planning time capsules, a commemorative book, expanded Homecoming festivities and gala events throughout the centennial year. It has also launched a Founders Centennial Scholarship and a centennial arts program called "CCDShowcase: A Centennial Celebration."

The school says full event details are available on its centennial website.

Upcoming: Centennial Homecoming alumni reception, Saturday, Sept. 19, on campus.