The Avery Coonley School (ACS), commonly called Avery Coonley, is an independent, coeducational day school serving academically gifted students in preschool through eighth grade (approximately ages 3 to 14), and is located in Downers Grove, DuPage County, Illinois.

[7] Queene Coonley was trained as a social worker and kindergarten teacher at the Detroit Normal School (now Wayne State University) and was impressed by the theories of Friedrich Fröbel, who believed children's early education should be an extension of their lives at home.

[8] Coonley persuaded the director of the Riverside program, Lucia Burton Morse, and her assistant, Charlotte Krum, to help launch a new school.

The estate's main building, the Avery Coonley House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, is now a National Historic Landmark.

[12] It featured colored art glass windows, flags, balloons, and confetti in what Wright referred to as a "kinder-symphony".

[13][b] The Cottage School was free to all students, and was supported both by Coonley's own resources and funds raised by the Kindergarten Education Association.

[14] The Deweys considered the Cottage School to be an example of training in good citizenship and approved of its mock elections, self-government, and public service.

[15] At the same time the Playhouse was built, Coonley agreed to build a kindergarten in the nearby town of Downers Grove, which did not have a public school.

[c] Coonley purchased land on Grove Street and commissioned the architectural firm of Perkins, Fellows & Hamilton to design the building.

[26] Progressive education, a pedagogy promoting learning through real-life experiences, was at its zenith in the United States in the 1920s and 30s, and the Avery Coonley School was a widely known model of these theories in action.

[27] Avery Coonley was featured regularly in Progressive Education and other professional journals,[28] and in 1938, the editor of Progressive Education, Gertrude Hartman,[28] published a profile of the Avery Coonley School in her book Finding Wisdom: Chronicles of a School of Today.

[31] The two institutions had close ties dating back to Morse's Kindergarten College days, and the arrangement took advantage of the NCE's financial and teaching resources while Avery Coonley provided a living laboratory for teacher training and educational research.

The Institute, headquartered at ACS,[36] was a joint venture with more than thirty public school districts, which collaborated on research projects and shared in the findings.

[37] The kindergarten reading program was the first step in the Avery Coonley School's transition to a new focus on the education of the gifted.

[38] ACS headmaster Malach believed that the educational philosophy of his school was well aligned with the most important objectives of a gifted program.

[44] The 82-acre (33 ha) preserve protects "the largest remaining remnant of the vast maple forest that became Downers Grove",[44] and has been categorized a globally endangered ecosystem.

"[47] His work became famous for his exclusive use of plants and materials native to the local region,[47] and was characterized by his use of open spaces, flowing water, gently curving lines, and low circular benches, where people can gather.

[56] The PAC "is known for its excellent acoustics",[57] and hosts student productions and outside artistic groups, including the Beck Institute for the Arts, which stages musical recitals there.

[57] Avery Coonley added a full-day kindergarten program in 2005, again requiring more space and a 15,000-square-foot (1,400 m2)[58] middle school wing.

[56] The founding educational philosophy is still evident in the modern day curriculum in the focus on learning by doing, teaching based on broad themes that cross subjects, an emphasis on collaborative projects, and a de-emphasis of textbooks.

[59] ACS refers to grade levels as groups, a practice rooted in progressive education that dates back at least to the Junior Elementary School.

[68] Students begin learning basic keyboard and mouse skills in kindergarten and progress to multimedia presentations, data management, and software coding in the eighth group.

One of the school's most cherished traditions, tapping maple trees to make syrup, began with the move to the new building in 1929.

[72] In the annual Thanksgiving Program, the students, in identical brown capes, silently construct a large cornucopia of fruits and vegetables in a ceremony choreographed to music prepared by each class.

It is the most treasured of the school traditions, and has been performed every year, virtually unchanged, since 1929, until 2023 where speeches about each part of the ceremony were given by 8th group students.

[63] Admission is competitive and decisions are based on evaluations of applicants' intellectual ability, social and emotional maturity, and readiness for the accelerated program of study.

[64] Applicants for kindergarten through eighth group must submit IQ test results at or above the 95th percentile (at or above 124 on the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI) or Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)), with consistent subtest scores, to qualify for consideration.

[63] ACS seeks to achieve ethnic diversity in every group,[74] and offers limited need-based aid to families of children who would otherwise be unable to attend.

[78] Students have a record of top honors at the state[79] and national[80] level in science, math, geography and other subjects stretching back as far as 1989.

[84] In 2008, a seventh group student placed in the top 0.2 percent of competitors from around the world with a perfect score in the 24th annual American Mathematics Contest.