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Horace Mann School

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This article is about the private school in New York City. For other schools named for Horace Mann, see Horace Mann School (disambiguation).
The Horace Mann School
File:Horace Mann School seal.jpg
Address
Map
231 West 246th St.

Bronx, New York City
,

New York
,
10471

United States
Information
TypeIndependent school
College preparatory school
MottoMagna est veritas et prævalet
(Great is the truth and it prevails)[1]
Established1887 (1887)
Head of SchoolDr. Thomas M. Kelly
GradesNursery 3's-12th
Enrollmentapprox. 1,800[1]
CampusUrban and Suburban
Color(s)Maroon and white
MascotLions
NewspaperThe Record
YearbookThe Mannikin
WebsiteHoraceMann.org

The Horace Mann School is an independent college preparatory school in New York City, founded in 1887. Horace Mann is a member of the Ivy Preparatory School League, educating students from all across the New York tri-state area from nursery school to the twelfth grade. The Upper, Middle, and Lower Divisions are located in Riverdale, a neighborhood of the Bronx, while the Nursery School is located in Manhattan. The John Dorr Nature Laboratory, a 275 acres (1.11 km2) campus in Washington Depot, Connecticut, serves as the school's outdoor and community education center. Tuition for the 2012-13 school year is $39,100, making it the second most expensive private school in New York City. Forbes Magazine ranked Horace Mann as the second best preparatory school in the country in 2010.[2]

History

The school was founded in 1887 by Nicholas Murray Butler as a co-educational experimental and developmental unit of Teachers College at Columbia University.[3] Its first location was a building at 9 University Place in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. The school moved in 1901 to 120th Street in Morningside Heights.[3] Columbia University followed suit soon afterwards, moving northwards to its present campus. The name of the school can still be seen on the northern-most building at the Columbia campus, named Horace Mann Hall, after education reformer Horace Mann. However, Horace Mann was becoming a school in its own right instead of a teaching laboratory, and it became more independent of the Columbia University and Teachers College. The Teachers College therefore created the Lincoln School, located on 110th Street, across the street from Central Park, to continue its experiments in teaching.

Main entrance

The school split into separate all-male and all-female schools and in 1914, the Boys' School moved to 246th Street in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, and during the 1940s it severed formal ties with Columbia University and became Horace Mann School.[3] The Horace Mann School for Girls remained at Teachers College, and then merged with the Lincoln School in 1940, and finally closed in 1946.[3]

The New York School for Nursery Years (founded in 1954 on 90th Street in Manhattan) became the Horace Mann School for Nursery Years in 1968, and was co-ed.[3] In 1972, Horace Mann merged with the Barnard School for Boys, next door in Riverdale, to form the Horace Mann-Barnard Lower School for kindergarten through grade six, located on the former Barnard School campus. At that point, only the lower school was mixed.[3] In 1975, the Horace Mann School returned to its roots as a co-educational learning environment and began admitting girls to the Upper School.[3] The Class of 1976 is Horace Mann School's last all-male class. In 1999, the sixth grade moved from the Horace Mann-Barnard campus to the main 246th Street campus and formed a distinct Middle Division along with the seventh and eighth grades.

Allegations of abuse

On June 6, 2012, The New York Times Magazine published an extensive article by former student Amos Kamil, class of 1982, alleging multiple instances of sexual abuse of students by teachers at the school. The incidents occurred during the 1970s to the 1990s. The article also addressed how school administrators over time dealt with the incidents, both within the school community and, in the case of one teacher - Stanley Kops - in a post-employment reference. The affected students were identified by partial name or letter and many administrators and board members had limited or no comment. New York State statute of limitations in most or all of the incidents addressed ran out when the former students turned 23. Several of the central figures were deceased, at least two by suicide—one of the accused, Stan Kops, and one of the students.[4] Another of the accused teachers, Johannes Somary, a music teacher, died in 2011.[5]

The Times article elicited a large response. The paper's website took over 780 comments and the writer received over 1000 e-mails and other communications, "about half of them from former Horace Mann students, teachers and administrators. [He] said he heard in [the first few] days from about a dozen victims who had never spoken publicly about their experiences. Some claimed they had been abused by the teachers named in his article; others accused teachers who had not been publicly named. A writer [Kate Aurthur] for The Daily Beast posted an account of her own experiences of abuse at the school."[6] Two private Facebook groups were started, more notably Processing Horace Mann, limited to Horace Mann alums, which grew quickly to over 2000 members. "Many commented on how the Facebook group was the most meaningful experience they had ever had in social media. ... 'It is cathartic in that it helps you understand a little bit what happened'", one of the group's administrators told the paper. Head of School Kelly promised to address "alumni most in need" and to pursue "a well thought out process" with board involvement.[7][8]

On June 23, 2012, the New York Times reported that Tek Young Lin, Horace Mann’s former chaplain, who also served as an English teacher and track coach, admitted that he had had sexual relations with students at the school.[9]

In March 2013, the school was reportedly in negotiation with more than thirty students for compensation relative to the abuse claims.[10] Eighteen different faculty members had been accused, and events spanning four decades identified, going into the compensation mediation.[5] In March 2013, The New Yorker published an article by Marc Fisher discussing sexual abuse allegations a former Horace Mann English teacher.[5]

Motto and mascot

The school's motto is "Magna est veritas et prævalet," a Latin phrase meaning "Great is the truth, and it prevails." The phrase comes from the King James version of the Old Testament, whose contemporary translation is "Magna est veritas et prævalebit," or will prevail. The school mascot is a lion, possibly a holdover from the days when the school was associated with Columbia University, whose mascot is also a lion. The Swim and Water Polo Teams have adopted the Sea Lion as their unofficial mascots, as the Varsity Ski Team has the Mountain Lion.

Institution

Nursery school
Middle and Upper School

The school is a private "nonprofit organization under the Education Law of New York State and holds a charter from the New York State Board of Regents [and is] a 501(c) 3 [tax-exempt] organization authorized by the Internal Revenue Service".[1] Its public-relations firm is Kekst and Company. The chair of the board of trustees is Steven M. Friedman.[5]

Divisions

There are four divisions of Horace Mann, all co-educational: a Nursery Division (three year olds through kindergarten) located on 90th Street in Manhattan, a Lower Division (kindergarten through fifth grades) on the Horace Mann campus on Tibbett Avenue in Riverdale, a Middle Division (sixth through eighth grades) on the 246th Street campus in Riverdale, and an Upper Division (ninth through twelfth grades) also on the 246th Street campus. There is also the John Dorr Nature Laboratory, located on 275 acres (1.11288 km2) of land in Washington Depot, Connecticut, used for extended field trips for classes of students starting in second grade and an orientation program for new students entering the Middle or Upper Divisions. The Dorr facility was recently renovated and is currently LEED-certified by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Current tuition for students in the Lower Division through the Upper Division is approximately $40,000 a year.[11] Financial aid at the school is based on need; no merit scholarships are awarded. For the 2012-2013 academic year, 16.4% of the students received more than $8,300,000 in aid.[11]

Each division of the school has its own Division Head. The Middle and Upper Divisions have separate student government bodies. The entire school is overseen by a Head of School. The ninth and current Head is Dr. Thomas M. Kelly, who previously served as Superintendent of Schools in Valhalla, New York. Kelly succeeded Dr. Eileen Mullady (who is currently the head of the Pacific Ridge School in Carlsbad, CA), on July 1, 2005. Formerly of Princeton University and the Lawrenceville School,[12] Dr. Mullady was the namesake of one of the new buildings erected under her term. Prior to Dr. Mullady, the long-standing Head was the late R. Inslee Clark, Jr., previously Dean of Undergraduate Admissions at Yale University.

The current Horace Mann Nursery Division Head is Marcia Levy, who replaced Patricia Zuroski when she was appointed to the position of Director of Diversity Initiatives. The current Lower Division Head is Wendy Steinthal, replacing Dr. Steven B. Tobolsky, who departed in June 2007 to run the Chestnut Hill School outside Boston. The current Middle Division Head is Robin Ann Ingram, and the current Upper Division head is Dr. David Schiller. Glenn Sherratt is the current Director of the John Dorr Nature Laboratory.[3]

Academics

The school offers 20 Advanced Placement courses and 10 foreign languages. Its 240 faculty members hold 186 master's degrees and 22 doctoral degrees.[1]

Students in the Upper Division are required to study English, World History, United States History, Biology, Chemistry and/or Physics, Geometry, Algebra II and Trigonometry, and also meet various requirements in the Arts, Computer Science, Health & Counseling, and Physical Education. Students must go beyond these basic requirements in at least some, if not all, subjects. They are also required to take at least three years of either Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Latin, or Spanish. Additional classes in Greek, Italian, and Russian are offered.

Starting in eleventh grade, students have more flexibility with their requirements and can choose from courses in Economics, Psychology, Classical History, Government, Religion, Political Philosophy, United States Legal History, Calculus, Statistics, Science and Public Policy, among other elective classes.

Independent Study and Senior Projects, where students create their own coursework and present their findings in weekly meetings, are also common. Additionally, many students develop original research projects with faculty at Columbia University, Cornell University Medical Center, NYU, and Rockefeller University.

Arts

The school's arts program includes courses in the performing and visual arts. At least 1.5 arts credits are required for graduation, with at least one half-credit course in performance/studio arts and one half-credit course in art history/appreciation.

Horace Mann has two major instrumental ensembles: The Horace Mann Orchestra and the Horace Mann Jazz Band. The Jazz Band program is also split into two ensembles: the Contemporary Directions Ensemble and the Creative Arts Philharmonic. Each ensemble performs at least three to four concerts per year, culminating in a trip abroad. Recent trips have taken the Glee Club and Orchestra to Prague, Germany, France and Spain. Horace Mann also has an established Glee Club, which performs several concerts each year, including past performances at Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, and Alice Tully Hall of Lincoln Center. The Jazz Band has performed at many famous jazz clubs including Birdland and B.B. King's.

Non-academic requirements

All students are required to take American Red Cross CPR certification, as well as a swim test, in order to graduate. Horace Mann students are also required to complete at least 80 hours of community service, with at least 40 hours in ninth and tenth grades and 40 hours in eleventh and twelfth.[1] In eighth grade, one out-of-school project or three in-school projects are necessary for graduation to the ninth grade; in sixth and seventh grades a homeroom project is done cooperatively. In the Lower and Nursery Divisions, there is an annual "Caring-in-Action" day dedicated to community service that students and their families can attend.

Admission

Admission is selective with decisions based on recent grades, an interview, and the candidate's score on either the ISEE or SSAT test. The largest point of entry is the Sixth grade, with between 50 and 55 places available each year. In the ninth grade, 40 to 45 new students are traditionally enrolled.[13] A smaller number of students are accepted in other grades, although there are no admissions to the twelfth grade.

Rankings

Forbes Magazine ranks Horace Mann as the second best preparatory school in the country.[2] The Wall Street Journal ranks it as the fourth best high school in the United States, as measured by student admission rates to exclusive colleges, and Worth magazine ranked it seventh out of all the nation's high schools based on the proportion of graduates attending Harvard, Yale and Princeton Universities.[14]

Student life

Co-curricular include clubs that provide the students with an opportunity to produce publications, hone their debating skills, participate in activism and much more. Among the many clubs are:

School government

The main branch of the school government is called the Community Council, an open forum that includes members of the Faculty, four elected officials from each grade, and leaders of certain clubs. In addition, there is an elected Student Body President (SBP) and Student Body Vice-President (SBVP). In the Middle Division, a system is in place called HM Lead where the school government is broken up into sub sections. These include Student Activities, Peer Mentoring, Student Concerns and Service Learning.

Student publications

Horace Mann also has a significant number of student publications. Many of them have won national awards. Prominent publications include:

The Record, established in 1903, is the weekly, student-run newspaper. Throughout its history, it has won national journalism awards and has been staffed by students who went on to become distinguished journalists and authors, including Pulitzer Prize winners Anthony Lewis (class of 1944), Richard Kluger (class of 1952), Robert Caro (class of 1953) and David Leonhardt (class of 1990). In 1954, the school made national headlines for translating a copy of The Record into Russian and distributing it in the USSR. The purpose of the exercise was to show Russian schoolchildren what life in America was like. The staff purposely kept in an article about the Horace Mann soccer team's losing one of its games to demonstrate the operation of an independent free press.[15][16] The American Scholastic Press Association twice honored The Record as the "Best High School Weekly Newspaper" for 2001-2002 (Volume 99) and 2003-2004 (Volume 101). It was also named a National Pacemaker in 2004 (Volume 101) and in 2006 was a Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Medalist (Volume 103). The Record is published every Friday during the academic year and can be found online here.

The Horace Mann Review, now in its twenty-second volume, is a journal of opinion on current events, politics, public policy, and culture. The Review covers issues from unique and otherwise unexamined perspectives. The publication has paying subscribers throughout the nation and abroad and has been the recipient of numerous awards for excellence in journalism. In April 2001, the American Scholastic Press Association (ASPA) honored the Review with its award for Best Magazine. The Review's 2005-2006 volume was honored with a first place finish in the American Scholastic Press Awards critique. In 2007, The Review was a finalist for the National Scholastic Press Association's Magazine Pacemaker of the Year award, the highest honor in high school journalism.[17] The Review was again awarded the ASPA's Best Magazine Award in 2009 for its eighteenth volume and in 2012 for its twenty-first volume.

The Mannikin is the yearbook of the Horace Mann School. Traditional sections include Student Life, Underclassmen, Seniors (each graduate receives a half-page to design as they wish), Athletics, Faculty, and Advertisements. At 560 pages, the Mannikin is one of the largest high school yearbooks in New York State. In addition, the Mannikin has won numerous awards from the American Scholastic Press Association.[citation needed]

Other school publications include: Folio 51, the magazine dedicated to gender issues, Voyager, the travel and culture publication, Manuscript and Word, the creative poetry and prose publications respectively, Insight, the photography publication, Edible, the culinary publication, Images, an art magazine, the Thespian, a theatre publication, Cinemann, a magazine related to current movies, Lola's Kitchen, a one-page periodical published by the Gay Straight Alliance, and InsideOut, a health publication. In addition, a literary-arts magazine called Muse, featuring the work of Middle School students, is published each year.

Athletics

Interscholastic leagues

Horace Mann School is a part of the Ivy Preparatory School League, a division of the greater New York State Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS), which comprises all the private schools in the New York State. Fieldston, Riverdale, and Horace Mann together are known as the "Hill Schools," as all three are located within two miles (3 km) of each other in the Riverdale-Fieldston section of the Bronx, on a hill above Van Cortlandt Park. The three also share a great interscholastic sports rivalry; Horace Mann's annual charity basketball game, the Buzzell Game, is almost always versus Riverdale, and sometimes Fieldston. Also, Horace Mann's swim team, Sea Lions, won their fourth consecutive Ivy-Preparatory League Championship title; a feat that has never been achieved in any of the schools in the league.

Sports teams

Interscholastic Athletic Teams
Sport Level Season Gender
Baseball V, JV, MD Spring Boys'
Basketball V, JV, MD Winter Boys', Girls'
Crew V, JV Spring Boys', Girls', Coed
Cross-Country V, JV, MD Fall Girls', Boys', Coed (MD Only)
Field Hockey V, JV, MD Fall Girls'
Fencing V, JV Winter Boys', Girls'
Football V, JV, MD Fall Boys'
Golf V Spring Coed
Gymnastics V, JV Winter Girls'
Lacrosse V, MD Spring Boys', Girls'
Soccer V, JV, MD Fall Boys', Girls'
Skiing V Winter Boys', Girls'
Softball V, JV, MD Spring Girls'
Squash V Winter Coed
Swimming V, JV, MD Winter Boys', Girls'
Tennis V, JV, MD Fall (Girls'), Spring (Boys') Boys', Girls'
Track (indoor) V, JV Winter Boys', Girls'
Track (outdoor) V, JV, MD Spring Boys', Girls', Coed (MD Only)
Ultimate (Frisbee) V, JV Spring Coed
Volleyball V, JV, MD Fall, Spring Girls', Boys'^
Water Polo V, JV, MD Fall Coed
Wrestling V, JV, MD Winter Coed

^- boys' volleyball takes place during the spring, while girls' takes place in the fall

Notable alumni

Writer Jack Kerouac attended Horace Mann for one year of high school as part of the class of 1940 and played on the football team.[19] Hollywood agent and Broadway producer Leland Hayward also attended.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Facts & Figures". Retrieved 2012-10-24.
  2. ^ a b Laneri, Raquel (2010-04-29). "No. 2: Horace Mann". Forbes.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h "A Long Tradition". Horace Mann School. Retrieved 2010-12-20.
  4. ^ Kamil, Amos (June 6, 2012). "Prep-School Predators: The Horace Mann School's Secret History of Sexual Abuse". The New York Times.
  5. ^ a b c d Fisher, Marc, "The Master: A charismatic teacher enthralled his students. Was he abusing them?", The New Yorker, April 1, 2013. Retrieved 2013-03-27.
  6. ^ Aurthur, Kate, "My Own Horace Mann Story and The New York Times Abuse Report", The Daily Beast, June 7, 2012. Retrieved 2012-06-20.
  7. ^ Semple, Kirk (June 10, 2012). "Gathering Online, Alumni of an Elite School Share Their Accounts of Abuse". The New York Times.
  8. ^ "Dear Alumni/ae, ...", the cited letter from T. M. Kelly; on HMS website, June 10, 2012. Kelly signed "P ’18", meaning he is a parent of a current student to be graduated in 2018. Retrieved 2012-06-20.
  9. ^ NY Times, June 24, 2012. Retrieved 2013-04-05
  10. ^ Anderson, Jenny, "Compensation Talks in Horace Mann Abuse Cases", New York Times, March 21, 2013. Retrieved 2013-03-21.
  11. ^ a b Horace Mann School - About hm / Costs
  12. ^ Pacific Ridge School – Academic Team Retrieved 2012-10-24.
  13. ^ Fast Facts about HM Admissions Retrieved 2012-10-24.
  14. ^ Prep School USA. "2003 High School Rankings," citing the Sept. 2002 Worth magazine article "Getting Inside the Ivy Gates" by Reshma Memon Yaqub.
  15. ^ "About Us", The Record
  16. ^ Kugel, Seth, "A Student Paper Savors Its Past, and Its Stars", New York Times, October 13, 2002.
  17. ^ "American Scholastic Press Association". American Scholastic Press Association. Retrieved 2012-10-24.
  18. ^ Alvarez following in some famous footsteps - MLB - ESPN
  19. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Alumni Council
  20. ^ After a Facebook Scandal, Horace Mann Is Forced to Ask What Values It Should Teach - New York Magazine
  21. ^ Lee, Felicia R (2006-02-06). "Chatty Host Who Makes Archaeology Glamorous". The New York Times. Retrieved 2006-06-24.
  22. ^ EDUCAUSE Publications: Educom Review March/April, 1999
  23. ^ Art of the States: Changes
  24. ^ Peter Cincotti tickets, concerts and tour dates. Official Ticketmaster site
  25. ^ "Elise Lang on Roy Cohn", Kelly Writers House Fellows Seminar at upenn.edu, Spring 2000.
  26. ^ "Peter Deutsch". The Washington Post.
  27. ^ Oser, Alan S. (1995-05-20). "Seymour B. Durst, Real-Estate Developer Who Led Growth on West Side, Dies at 81". The New York Times.
  28. ^ Lambert, Bruce (1992-08-09). "Alison L. Gertz, Whose Infection Alerted Many to AIDS, Dies at 26". The New York Times.
  29. ^ Board & Staff - Donald Jonas
  30. ^ "Robert S. Ledley, DDS '43", Horace Mann School: 2000 Award for Distinguished Achievement Recipients, accessed Apr. 14, 2012.
  31. ^ http://www.brunel.ac.uk/about/hongrads/2006/legg.bspx Archived 2009-10-16 at the Wayback Machine
  32. ^ http://www.horacemannalumni.org/HoraceMannMusic.pdf
  33. ^ Lloyd Schwartz, "Michael Mazur, 1935 - 2009: Painter, printmaker, teacher, art historian, curator, political/social/arts activist, Red Sox and Celtics fan", The Phoenix, August 27, 2009.
  34. ^ Smith, Neal Griffith (1998). "In Memoriam: Martin Humphrey Moynihan, 1926-1996" (PDF online facsimile). The Auk. 115 (3). Washington DC: American Ornithologists' Union: 755–758. ISSN 0004-8038. OCLC 89673496. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  35. ^ Arango, Tim (19 February 2011). "The Murdoch in Waiting". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
  36. ^ "A Hawk Who Earned His Feathers Under Clinton," The Forward, November 1, 2002.
  37. ^ Hakim, Danny. "A Gilded Path to Political Stardom, With Detours", The New York Times, October 12, 2006. Accessed May 20, 2008.
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