Talk:St. Mark's School of Texas

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Missing the important stuff[edit]

The article is missing some important things. It's a college-preparatory school, so where did the recent students decide to go to college? How many made it into the Ivy league and Stanford/Caltech/MIT? What Advanced placement courses are offered, and how many students take them? What math courses are offered?

Presumably parents and prospective students look at the page, and they get immediately bogged down with useless information on history and athletic victories from 20 years ago.

108.45.80.41 (talk) 05:55, 30 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Alumni[edit]

Yorke, Baker, van dorn, and bryson all seem to be made up.

I seriously doubt the guy from radiohead in Britain went to this school: Thom Yorke. Can anyone confirm this?

I'm currently a student at St. Mark's, and I can assure you Thom Yorke did not go there. jodan2007

Owen Wilson got deleted from this list along the way, but he did attend until he was expelled. This ranks him as an alumnus, and he is one whose attendance at the school has had a clear impact on his career (his early work was clearly based on his experience at the school).

Does Robert Hoffman rate as "famous?" prior to becoming a successful businessman and civic leader in Dallas (he ran Coca Cola Bottling Southwest for something like 25 years, he co-founded the Harvard Lampoon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lampoon

Boz Scaggs definitely attended St. Marks. Here's a link (http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:kx5zUz0HS-IJ:musicmoz.org/Bands_and_Artists/S/Scaggs,_Boz/Biographies/+boz+scaggs+biography+%22st.+marks%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8)


As requested, quick google searches turn up sources for alumni:

--Laura Scudder | Talk 01:29, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)


I went back in the history of this article and found and readded a few more alumni who were deleted along the way. This should solve any problems in this respect. Monsieur Bartolomeo 19:37, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ello yall. my dad [Eric Miller Reeves] attended St. Marks [wrestler in high school with Doug Mankoff]. while he is not famous, he was a member of the North Carolina General Assembly from 1996 to 2004ish. he also won the Texas State Championship for his weight class while attending St. Marks.Twiggythealchemist 03:01, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some joker keeps adding the following "Walter 'Tres' Francis Evans III '03. Venture Capitalist, Maxim Magazine's Millionaire under 30 of the Year." Please provide a source (I can't find one). Until then, I am going to keep deleting it. Whr4th (talk) 03:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Paul Wylie is listed as an alumnus from 1987; I was in that class from 1979 through 1987 (fifth through twelfth grades) and I can attest that he wasn’t in my class. His separate entry states that he was born in 1964, which would have placed him in the class of 1982 had he graduated. His bio also states that he moved out of state at age eleven, so he would not have attended past sixth grade.

However, the 1987 entries for Charlie Olivier and Owen Wilson are correct—although Owen was expelled in 8th grade for cheating on a math test (geometry I believe? This is not libel as he has been public about this and it is indicated in his own Wiki bio). Charlie joined our class in 7th grade and graduated with us. Alanrobts (talk) 15:51, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Boosterism and POV[edit]

I made an attempt to fix the POV and boosterism that was rampant in this article. Make sure to read Wikipedia's Point of View Policy before writing.

maybe you should read it, there's nothing wrong with noting commonly attended colleges --68.95.227.250 02:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, it is a COLLEGE PREPARATORY SCHOOL. The MOST IMPORTANT FEATURE is therefore what colleges the kids go to. 108.45.80.41 (talk) 06:21, 30 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

However, the previous article stated that the "curriculum was one of the most diverse in the state." Is there a news source for this? If there is, then it's fine to put up. Next, the previous article did not list commonly attended colleges. The paragraph was:

"In recent years, the most frequently attended colleges have been Harvard, Duke, Dartmouth, Emory, Brown, Georgetown, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, University of Chicago, and the University of Texas at Austin."

I followed the link, and these were not listed as the "most frequently attended colleges," just as colleges that alumni attended. Again, if you have a source that says that these are the most frequently attended colleges, it's okay. But unsourced statements arent'.Bwabes

http://www.smtexas.org/campus/counseling/matriculation.asp On that page, another link appears that gives the breakdown for the colleges that alumni have attended for the past five years.

So from that, between 2000 and 2002 the top two destinations for grads were UT and U Penn. The next at 11 students were Yale, Vanderbilt, Stanford, NYU, and Harvard. Between 1992 and 2002 the top 20 in order were:
  1. UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
  2. STANFORD UNIVERSITY
  3. EMORY UNIVERSITY
  4. VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
  5. SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY
  6. DUKE UNIVERSITY
  7. UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
  8. HARVARD UNIVERSITY
  9. TEXAS A & M UNIVERSITY
  10. UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS-AUSTIN-PLANII
  11. PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
  12. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
  13. GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
  14. RICE UNIVERSITY
  15. TULANE UNIVERSITY
  16. YALE UNIVERSITY
  17. CORNELL UNIVERSITY
  18. NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
  19. TRINITY UNIVERSITY
  20. WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
So the sentence in question is a bit misrepresenting, but it seems to me that Bwabes is still being rather over-enthusiastic in interpreting NPOV. — Laura Scudder ☎ 21:12, 25 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're right. If someone wants to put back up a list of the first few, that seems okay. Bwabes 23:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

well 11 students is about 10% of the senior class....

Infobox[edit]

I added Template:Infobox School2 to the page. This is the first page to use that template.

Also I found a picture of the crest. madh 22:23, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Notable Alumni[edit]

--Mcdonaldlyle 20:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Alan Stern '75, NASA scientist and head of the New Horizons mission to Pluto

This should be added to the Notable Alumni section as soon as the page is unlocked for editing.

GA Review[edit]

Hey, saw this on WP:GAC. I'd like to give the article writers some suggestions on how to improve it, as althoguh it's not GA quality, the article can be improved to it (hopefully) relatively easily.

  1. The article must be expanded per WP:LEAD.
  2. There is no information on the academics or any description of the school buildign itself.
  3. The external links are good, but it you can turn them into references per {{cite web}}, that would be great.

This has potential, but it's not ready there yet.--Wizardman 00:36, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral Point of View[edit]

While I'm sure the school that this article discusses is a fine school, the article should not read like a recruiting brochure. Many of the sections need to be re-written to simply convey the verifiable facts about the school. 219.25.41.201 (talk) 11:14, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

the first paragraph seems to have been rewritten by someone in the school administration. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.251.214.120 (talk) 20:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Years later, the same issues persist. Will copyedit soon. 76.248.151.159 (talk) 16:22, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have replaced <POV> with the more specific <booster> tag. William Avery (talk) 09:29, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Sports[edit]

I feel the huge charts of the sports records makes the overall article too slanted towards varsity sports, which is not an even an academic activity. That's a lot of size devoted to something which isn't that important. Furthermore, more students take PE classes than play varsity (and this is 100% true in the first 8 years), but there is almost no information about the PE program.

People who care about high school sports are going to read about big public high schools, anyway. It is more interesting to see what colleges the students get into for academic reasons than what sports teams kids will play in for a few years before it's all forgotten in the real world.

108.45.80.41 (talk) 04:34, 30 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sections should be reordered by importance[edit]

Someone should go through and reorder the sections of the article. The extensive section on history (or trivia?) really should go at the end. Most users of the article are probably not trying to determine what SM was back in 1906, and most graduates of the school in the last 40 years probably don't want to remember the details. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.45.80.41 (talk) 05:21, 30 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Similarly, the section on traditions appears to early in the article.

The section on "the school today" is perhaps too loaded with figures of who gave how many millions and when. I'm not saying that information should be removed, but maybe stuff into a section on benefactors, endowment, and construction (or the like).

108.45.80.41 (talk) 05:25, 30 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Academics should be up front or as the second section.

108.45.80.41 (talk) 05:27, 30 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It is worth looking at school articles which are Featured-standard articles. There are very few, which is partly because they have been through a rigorous process of review and assessment. WP:WikiProject Schools#Featured articles is where they are. Most of these start with a detailed History section as their first section.
The History section of this article could still be further improved to make it read better and provide more relevance for the reader, however.
As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia should cover not just what is important about the school right now, but everything important about the school and its antecedents (if not covered elsewhere in Wikipedia) as a whole. Of course, this is not what current or prospective parents or students, or even alumni, would find most interesting, but their specific needs are better served by the school's own website or prospectus, or school comparison websites or official data (which Wikipedia can also mention or link to).
I agree that having "the school today" dominated by recent donors and constructions is not good. Some of this material -- where donations or constructions significantly changed the school -- could perhaps be moved up into the History section. Some might be better staying in The School Today, some might be removed.
Some of the Traditions section is about the school as it is today, and these sections might be merged, at least partly.
Academics is indeed important because it is the most significant activity of a school of this nature, however History should still come first. But by writing a proper WP:LEDE for this article, replacing the single sentence it has at the moment, would mention academics for the first time in the lede, thus giving it more appropriate prominence. MPS1992 (talk) 23:37, 30 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 14 November 2018[edit]

change the motto from "courage and honor" to "boys will be boys" 2600:1700:2C0:F5F0:95DC:30EB:2714:3AEE (talk) 01:36, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. DannyS712 (talk) 01:56, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

National spotlight[edit]

I have my doubts about the WP:PROPORTION suitability of this entire section, but first I'd like to discuss the justification for including the following material in the "National spotlight" section:

A former St. Mark's teacher had been allowed to resign from his teaching job at Phillips Exeter Academy in 1980 after having admitted to making sexual advances towards an underage student.[1] He was given excellent letters of reference from Exeter and then spent several years teaching at the Trinity School in New York City. In 1984, the teacher moved to Dallas, where he taught at St. Mark's until his retirement in 2012. No allegations of misconduct are known to have been uncovered since the episodes at Exeter in the late 1970s, and St. Mark's was unaware of the allegations until after the teacher retired.[2]

This material was added by user:Dallasdudette in 2018 [7] and has not been changed (aside from the removal of the leading mention of the Me Too movement by user:Botanicalgardens500 in 2021 [8]) since. I removed it as having a "pretty tenuous connection" [9] and it was restored as having "received significant attention" by user:Gtag10 [10].

The incident may have received attention, but how much of this supposed "National spotlight" was on St. Marks? They hired someone with excellent references, who worked for them without incident for 28 years until his retirement. They were not informed of any accusations until after his retirement. A Dallas reporter is unhappy with St. Marks' response to his requests for more information.

Furthermore, our wording appears to be a BLP violation. The person in question has not "admitted to making sexual advances towards an underage student." The sources we use say he acknowledged "an isolated incident" but "denied the abuse allegations". Meters (talk) 05:37, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't matter if St. Mark's is at fault, this still received significant media attention. The spotlight was on St. Mark's, as well as PEA and Trinity for hiring the man.
I do agree on the BLP part. Gtag10 (talk) 07:26, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Seems to me the spotlight was diffused among all three schools, and that the link to St. Mark's itself is tenuous. signed, Willondon (talk) 15:28, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed Kurt Eichenwald, Ned Price, and Emmanuel Acho since their entries have absolutely nothing to do with the school. We don't list events in a school's article simply because alumni were involved. For some reason Price had been removed form the list of alumni so I restored him. The sole remaining entry in the spotlight section is now Richard B. Spencer, which I have left because at least it discusses alumni reaction to him. I won't argue with anyone who thinks that one should go too. Meters (talk) 19:50, 8 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think Spencer’s inclusion is highly specious, as his actions also had nothing to do with St. Mark’s. He is already listed in the “notable people” section, and the paragraph about “national spotlight” for the school is arguably only known by those familiar with the school itself, for prurient interests. I’m deleting it. Alanrobts (talk) 15:56, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I attempted to delete it consistent with similar edits regarding Henry Ploegstra’s similarly deleted section, but an “occasional editor” who apparently doesn’t bother with group consciousness discussions on talk pages unceremoniously put it back, with the argument that Spencer’s attendance was “widely reported in the press”. Someone needs to find me a hundred people in New York City or Paducah, Kentucky who have ever heard of St. Mark’s, and then I’ll buy that this info is of sufficient interest to the general population. I suspect that the editor involved has personal motivations to revert my edit within an hour of my touching the page. Alanrobts (talk) 01:05, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Contrary to your talk page statement, zero people agreed with you about Richard Spencer. His actions did receive national attention, from newspapers such as the Washington Post and the Atlantic, with even more specific articles about the administration in local newspapers. It is clear Spencer's ties to St. Mark's have received national attention. This is different than the previous discussion. You then proceeded to make ad hominin attacks, calling me an "occasional editor". I did not initially see the talk page entry you made, but it does not create consensus or anything of the sort. The reason I quickly edited the article was because it was on my watchlist. I am glad you stated your COI on my talk page, but please do not misrepresent events. I will wait for input from other editors before another revert. Gtag10 (talk) 01:48, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've restored the material in question pending any talk page consensus to remove it. It has been in the article for years, and should remain as the status quo. As Gtag10 points out, there is no consensus as yet for its removal. Meters (talk) 06:07, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It has been on the page for years only through someone’s sole decision, at the moment that prurient interest in this topic peaked, that it was germane to the school—and that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate to keep it. I’m sure it’s provided a number of folks with delicious schadenfreude, but the story is long past relevant at this point, and the sources that reported on this spurious connection between Spencer and St. Mark’s are specious themselves.


Several before me on this talk page have debated the inclusion of similar tabloid interest entries, such as Henry Ploegstra’s section, and the final (appropriate) decision was that it should be excised, as St. Mark’s had nothing to do with Ploegstra’s actions—just as it had nothing to do with Spencer’s. And as I said, Spencer is already mentioned in the notable alumni section—which should be sufficient enough to reference his exposure as a St. Mark’s graduate in the media.


Although I attended St. Mark’s from 1979 until 1987, I have no bias towards preserving the integrity of the school—I’m not going to get into my personal feelings about my experience, but let’s just say that I haven’t been a contributor to solicitations for alumni donations. However I can speak from experience that nothing I was exposed to there had any fascist influences, and I know of no one affiliated with the school who isn’t horrified by Spencer’s actions.


If it was appropriate to invoke secondary education institutions in scandalous behaviors such as Spencer’s, then every criminal and reprobate in the country would have lengthy paragraphs on their own high school’s wiki pages tarnishing them with similar tabloid drama. Has Wikipedia become a news aggregator for TMZ and the New York Post now?


This article is supposed to educate people from an unbiased perspective about the school—there have likely been many reprehensible folks who have attended St. Mark’s, along with every other high school in the country, and no one is arguing that we should litter their wiki pages with their stories to properly characterize those school’s histories, right? Exactly why is St. Mark’s a special case in this instance? Think in encyclopedic terms—how is creating an entire section to emphasize this glancing and salacious connection NOT biased?


My purposes, which were preceded by another prominent editor’s argument for the speciousness of Spencer’s entry, were rigorously aligned with Wikipedia’s BLE guidelines— which @Gtag10 has already been called out for violating on this page previously. His edits were removed then, and there were no recriminations or edit wars over that issue. You can also scroll up to see his prior argument for keeping this section awhile ago, and his position was overruled by three subsequent editors, including myself.


Given that s(he) has also raised a similar righteously indignant (and ignored) hissy fit on the Lamplighter School Wikipedia talk page (a grade school attended by many St. Mark’s graduates), I’m left with the persuasive conclusion that there is some tragic preoccupation going on here with drawing mustaches on the pages of Dallas area private educational institutions en masse, which frankly I find extraordinarily puerile and tedious.


But honestly, since I actually have managed to move on emotionally from my high school experience, I don’t feel strongly enough to devote any more effort to this bizarre argument—if you prefer to enable efforts to utilize Wikipedia as a form of psychological projection for someone seeking some sort of pathological vendetta, instead of adhering to its thoughtfully established guidelines and referring this troll to a therapist, then by all means proceed. It’s just high school folks, might be time to get over it. Alanrobts (talk) 23:44, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'll probably respond to the pertinent information about Richard Spencer soon, but
If you think the article is accusing St. Mark's of being fascist, you should edit the article in a way that conforms to Wikipedia's standards, not simply delete all information.
It's not appropriate to blame secondary school's for their students actions, but in this case, Spencer's high school received lots of media attention, much of which is not from tabloids as you claim. The Washington Post is not a tabloid. The connection between St. Mark's and Spencer is widely noted.
One thing I've noticed, especially among private schools, is likely COI editing. Specifically for my Lamplighter edits, I noticed that an IP address added massive amounts of info in an advertising tone. This is pretty common among schools and especially private schools that have to compete for students. I left a note on the talk page, noting the advertising tone, but not the COI allegations. I think the St. Mark's article is probably similar.
I'm not a troll, I am attempting to make constructive edits. And although I do have ties to SM, I have never attended St. Mark's nor Lamplighter, and am currently a high school student in a different state entirely. You are continuously making ad hominin attacks that aren't true. Gtag10 (talk) 04:08, 11 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "St. Mark's Moves on from Ploegstra Accusations". September 10, 2018.
  2. ^ "Ex-St. Mark's teacher calls sex abuse at East Coast school 'an isolated incident'". September 4, 2018.

Fencing state champions?[edit]

Fencing is not a UIL sport in Texas. There are no high school state championships. St Marks does offer fencing, but it's in pursuit of USFA fencing goals like JOs and age group USFA events. I knew the fencing coach in the 90s. His name was Waldek Czaja. He was an excellent coach, but there was no such thing as a state championship then, I have no idea what the St Marks web site is on about. Two St Marks kids made the final eight of JMS in the mid-90s, that was what the team and coach were focused on.

I'm not going to edit it because it's linked to a cite on the St Marks page, but it's not correct. I don't know what the wikipedia protocol is here, but for those of you who know more about this than I do, if anyone cares, it's not true. 2600:1700:51C0:B370:3CB2:890D:BBF:DC65 (talk) 04:32, 8 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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