The Packer Collegiate Institute is an independent college preparatory school for students from pre-kindergarten through grade 12. Formerly the Brooklyn Female Academy, Packer has been located at 170 Joralemon Street in the historic district of Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City since its founding in 1845. History In Brooklyn Heights in 1845, a committee of landowners and merchants interested in improving the education of girls raised funds for a new school, which they called the Brooklyn Female Academy, and which they located on Joralemon Street. Although the school was successful, both financially and educationally, with steadily increasing enrollment, on January 1, 1853, the building caught fire and burned to the ground. The Academy received an offer from Harriet L. Packer, the widow of William S. Packer, to give $65,000 towards rebuilding the school if it were named after her late husband; this would be the largest gift ever made for the education of girls. The new building was designed by the Minard Lafever, a noted designer of Brooklyn churches, and opened in November 1854. The chapel is notable for having stained-glass Tiffany windows. After the Episcopal parish of St. Ann's, whose James Renwick-designed church at Livingston and Clinton street was around the corner from the school, moved into the abandoned Holy Trinity Church on Montague Street – also designed by Minard Lafever – in 1969, the church was sold to the school. A modernist connecting building, including a glass atrium which can be seen from Livingston Street, was added in 2003, designed by Hugh Hardy of H3 Collaborative Architecture. Until 1972 Packer was primarily a girls school, with boys attending only kindergarten through fourth grade while girls and young women were enrolled through high school as well as a two-year junior college. The junior college program is no longer operational. A 5-year-plan completed in 2017 changed many facets of student life at Packer. A traditional 5-weekday schedule was replaced with a 7-day rotating schedule, the maximum number of classes a day changed from 6 to 5, the last class of every day was extended from 50 minutes to 90 minutes (with each of a students' maximum 7 total classes – down from 8 – having a 90-minute period once during each cycle), the addition of a time of day called "community" dedicated to clubs and other activities so that each student had a lunchtime, and the revamping of