• The Exclusive Texas Location

At FWCD, students in grades 11 and 12 may apply to take Malone Schools Online Network (MSON) courses, which serve as a high school enrichment elective course and meet twice a week during the regular school day. Each course takes a blended approach, combining synchronous instruction, real-time video conferencing seminars, with asynchronous instruction, recorded lectures and exercises that students complete outside of class. The result lies somewhere between a “flipped  classroom” and a “virtual Harkness table.” Each course has a minimum of six students and a maximum of 16, allowing for a virtual discussion seminar that is delivered in high-definition classroom set ups.

A steering committee of six heads of Malone Schools, including FWCD, established MSON with John Malone’s endorsement. MSON provides upper-level students at registered Malone Schools with a variety of superior online courses offered in online classrooms that enhance each member school’s existing curriculum. These courses promote the values of the Malone Family Foundation and are taught by teachers from other Malone Schools in the network. The teaching professionals are experts in their fields; they have experience with independent school education and share a commitment to excellence, small class sizes and personal relationships. Students enrolled in these courses demonstrate sufficient independence and commitment to succeed in a virtual discussion seminar setting.

Fast Fact

In the 2021-22 academic year, 12 FWCD students are enrolled in 7 of the 48 MSON courses offered. There are 27 schools currently participating in the MSON program.

2021-22 Course Offerings

World Language
  • Advanced Latin Literature
  • Advanced Spanish through Film and Literature
  • Ancient Greek I
  • Arabic I and II
  • Chinese V
  • French Seminar: National Identities
  • French Seminar: The Question of Evil from Voltaire to Camus
  • History of the Spanish Language: An Introduction to Linguistics and Advanced Grammar

Humanities & Social Sciences
  • Advanced Economics
  • Advanced Macroeconomics
  • Advanced Microeconomics
  • The American Food System: Past, Present, Future
  • Are We Rome?
  • Bob Dylan’s America
  • Building Empathy, Bridging the Divide: Using Dialogue to Help Heal American Democracy
  • Creative Writing in the Digital Age
  • Diversity in Global Comparative Perspective
  • Dynamics of Political Leadership
  • Ensuring Equity: Women in 21st Century American Culture
  • Environmental Bioethics
  • Establishing Equality: The History of Feminisms and Gender, 1792-1992
  • Etymology of Scientific Terms
  • The Fiction of James Joyce
  • Freedom and Identity in LGBTQ Literature
  • Global Voices of Oppression: Literature for Social Justice
  • The History of Modern Germany: World War I to the Present
  • "It Is Better to Speak:" One Hundred Years of Women Writing for Change
  • Making Ethical Medical Choices in a Diverse World
  • A Nation Divided: the Literature of Civil Rights in the Modern U.S.
  • Native American Literature
  • Orwell's Exigence: Writing for an Urgent Moment
  • Philosophy in Pop Culture
  • Political Identity, American Democracy and Civic Engagement
  • Positive Psychology
  • Sugar, tobacco, Iron and Silicon: An Economic History of the United States
  • Think Global, Debate Local
  • Turbulent Times: History of the First Amendment and Dissent During American Wars
  • Watching the Watchmen: The Role of Detective Narratives in a Carceral Culture

STEM
  • Advanced Applied Math through Finance
  • Advanced Topics in Chemistry
  • Computer Science: Solving Problems with Computational Methods
  • CSI: MSON – Forensic Science
  • Data Structures and Design Patterns
  • Einstein's Relativity and the Evolution of the Quantum Model
  • Genetics and Genomics
  • Introduction to Organic Chemistry
  • Linear Algebra
  • A Mathematical Modeling Approach to Social Justice
  • Math Seminar
  • Multivariable Calculus
  • Vector Calculus

MSON Course Offerings

Students must make an application and be accepted into an MSON course. MSON courses serve as a high school enrichment elective course (fifth academic) in the FWCD program, and the course counts in a student’s GPA. Following completion of the course, Stanford University will supply a transcript for the class to College Counseling so students can submit it with their college application materials. Those students who take an MSON course will work with the Upper School to create a more individualized schedule in order to accommodate the designated MSON class. Each course has a minimum of six students and a maximum of 16. The result is a virtual discussion seminar that is delivered in high-definition classroom setups.

Classes take place twice a week during the normal school day for live, synchronous instruction that utilizes multiple-line, high-definition distance learning. Courses are taught by Stanford University professors and faculty from the participating independent schools.

MSON Technology

State of the art technology links students with their peers and faculty: High-definition LCD displays and two high-definition cameras, in conjunction with touch-screen speaker phones, facilitate distance learning activities among the participating schools—all at once. Stanford University maintains the connective technology, and all MSON schools have access to both live and recorded content, as well as software that allows for student participation when away from the dedicated distance-learning lab

Malone Family Foundation

Founded by John Malone of Colorado, the Malone Family Foundation has established scholarships for students in grades 7 through 9 who are in the top of their class and have the desire and drive to educate themselves to the very best of their ability, but whose families cannot afford the tuition and expenses required by leading independent schools. The foundation sought out excellent partners:  independent secondary schools with an intense interest in educating the gifted and talented.  The foundation now supports 50 schools: 49 independent day schools and the Stanford University Online High School (OHS). The 49 independent schools each have received a $2 million grant to establish an endowment in support of a Malone Scholars Program at their school. FWCD is the only school in Texas with this distinction.

Quicklinks

2021-22 MSON Consortium of Schools

Fort Wayne, Indiana
Casady School
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Chadwick School 
Palo Verde Peninsula, California
Charlotte, North Carolina
Columbus Academy
Gahanna, Ohio
 
The Derryfield School 
Manchester, New Hampshire
Fort Worth Country Day 
Fort Worth, Texas
Hopkins School
New Haven, Connecticut
Indian Springs School 
Indian Springs, Alabama
Manlius Pebble Hill School 
Syracuse, New York
Maret School 
Washington, D.C.
Mounds Park Academy 
Saint Paul, Minnesota
 

 
Newark Academy
Livingston, New Jersey
Porter-Gaud School
Charleston, South Carolina
The Prairie School
Racine, Wisconsin
The Roeper School
Birmingham, Michigan
St. Andrew's Episcopal School
Ridgeland, Mississippi
Severn School
Severna Park, Maryland
Stanford Online High School 
Stanford, California
Trinity Preparatory School 
Winter Park, Florida
University School of Nashville 
Nashville, Tennessee
Waynflete School 
Portland, Maine
Wichita Collegiate School
Wichita, Kansas
Wilmington Friends School 
Wilmington, Delaware
Winchester Thurston School 
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
4200 Country Day Lane, Fort Worth, TX 76109
Phone: 817.732.7718
Fort Worth Country Day (FWCD) is a JK-12 private, independent, coeducational, nondenominational college-preparatory school located on approximately 100 acres in Fort Worth, Texas. The mission of Fort Worth Country Day School is to foster the intellectual, physical, emotional, and ethical development of capable students through an academically rigorous college preparatory program that integrates the arts and athletics.