Mount de Sales Academy (Georgia)

Mount De Sales Academy (Georgia)

Mount de Sales Academy is an independent Catholic, college preparatory school in Macon, Georgia. It was founded in 1876 by five Sisters of Mercy as a boarding school for girls across the South, it became coeducational in 1959 and closed boarding school operations in 1963. The Sisters served in an administrative capacity until 2002 when the first lay head of school in the school's history was selected by the Mount de Sales Academy Board of Trustees. The school is operated by its trustees and continues to be sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy. It is part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Savannah.

Over 130 years after its founding, the school remains at its original location atop Beall's Hill, the former home of Georgia Governor George W. Towns (1801–1854), in downtown Macon and overlooking the antebellum city. Opened in 1998, Cavalier Fields athletic complex is located apart from the academic campus. Mount de Sales—often referred to as MDS—is the oldest school in Macon and was the first school in Middle Georgia to desegregate in 1963.

While it has a Catholic heritage, the school has enrolled students of all faiths. It has nearly 700 students in grades 6-12. Its athletic teams as well as academic, literary, debate and thespian clubs, nicknamed the Cavaliers, compete in the Georgia Independent School Association.