Maclay School

Maclay School is an independent, non-sectarian college-preparatory school in Tallahassee, Florida. History In the late 1960s, a group of white parents raised funds to create a segregation academy in response to the federally mandated racial integration of Leon County Schools. Its working name was Capital City Day School, but this was changed before opening to Maclay School, after Alfred B. Maclay Jr., a World War II veteran whose mother was a major benefactor and whose father's estate became Alfred B. Maclay Gardens State Park. The school's campus is bounded on two sides by the park. Construction on the first campus buildings was completed in a year and a half for $150,000 ($ today), allowing the school to open on September 9, 1968, with eight teachers and 138 students. Headmaster William A.P. "Bill" Thompson Jr. said admission was open to anyone, based on I.Q., school transcripts, and ability to do college-prep work. In 1970, the school had 170 students, all white. Thompson told the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper that the school had a non-discriminatory admissions policy but that just one Black person had ever applied and that the prospective student was not accepted. He also said that although other local private schools had been rapidly expanding to accommodate white parents looking to move their children out of integrated schools, Maclay would stick to its plan for "orderly growth." In 1973, when per capita personal income in Leon County was $4,815, annual tuition at Maclay was $775 for the lower school and $875 for the upper school. The school confirmed to the Tallahassee Democrat that no black yonungsters were enrolled there.