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This topic interests me. Are these the only schools? Are they diffuicult to get into? Are these schools around to groom the students to get into the Ivys? Please share some more, broad thoughts. To me,if I could do it, I would send them if they're part of "the club" opening doors to Yale and Princeton.
Thank you for the insider's view. One of my friends has several children attending right now; they aren't religious by a long shot and I've never heard them talk about the religious studies as being as zealous as you have. (You almost made it sound like the classes are right out of the World Baptist School further west on 25A.)
The director of the athletic department was well liked around town and his death was very upsetting to many friends and neighbors alike.
As for the negativity: you did not enjoy your experience there; you were upfront and honest about it and it showed in your assessment. Your honesty makes me curious. Do you feel that your SBS experience helped you open any doors that might not have been opened to a student attending a public school? Do you feel that your parents should have saved the SBS money for college tuition? Did you feel out of your element?
Thanks for your further inquiries, and for the compliment on my screenname. My Husband's responsible for the creative wit.
Tell your friend to make sure that his/her children take advantage of the sailing team, the marine science department, and the Headmaster's Wife's English classes. All superb.
Like I said, I wasn't trying to outright slander the place, but felt the need to speak out a bit...if for nothing else than to provide some ideas for people to look into themselves. I did learn there, and develop as a person, but I know that if I had children of my own that I'd never send them there.
No, it's not the Upper Room (LOL) church, by a long shot, and I didn't intend to insinuate that, but it has been controversial at times. I recall distinctly a time when a small crowd of people walked out (!) of a particularly insulting chapel sermon. It was only once, but it was profound, and it's stuck with me over the years. I would have, too, but I was young, and feared disciplinary action.
I feel a bit...mixed on whether SBS opened any doors for me. On one hand, I do feel that a precious few of the teachers (one of the them absolutely encouraged the Hell out of me to pursue what I'm now doing - can't thank him enough for that) are phenomenal, but for the legions that aren't...I don't know whether it was worth it in the end. There were so many teachers who were there for no other reason than familial association, and they were utterly and thoroughly insipid people. I think I probably would've done swimmingly elsewhere.
In general, I have noticed over the years that students who are taught to love to learn and read and question our world will succeed wherever they are placed, as long as the environment is not harmful and as long as the program is structured properly. In my honest opinion, an environment filled with religious pressure at such an impressionable age, favoritism, nepotism, a lack of opportunities to truly pursue the arts (a great venue for teenagers, I feel...Stony Brook used to be wonderful in this regard, but it's gone downhill), and a syllabus that is structured to avoid anything even remotely secular can be really detrimental. One could argue that these pressures are all around us everyday in the world, but it is magnified a thousand times over within the microcosm. Nowhere else in New York State do you see a science textbook which includes Creationism, instead of teaching it in Bible class. Nowhere else would your class have a pizza party for a student who "found Christ". Students were thrown out for exploring their sexuality, and you can bet your money that they weren't being safe about it. That's outright -dangerous-. It's one thing to encourage morality and regard sex as sacred, but not every 17-year-old there is going to buy it. And students were thrown out for smoking and drinking, yet I could've bought everything from MDMA to Oxycontin if I knew the right people. Rather ridiculous, honestly. A gay friend of mine was ridiculed by teachers, forced to go to a private meeting with his parents in front of an honor board to discuss his "issues". He was mandated "counseling", if he were to stay. When you see a school break people like that (he's just one example)...you become a bit cynical about the place. He chose not to return the next year. Anyone who was a independent thinker seemed not to return after a year or two.
I think that there would be a greater disparity between the academics at a place like Stony Brook compared to a state-run school, if it were located in another school district, or even another state. Probably, when compared to Mississippi's public schools, or even a school such as Brentwood, a place like Stony Brook would be a welcome haven...a place to pursue more challenging studies. But with Ward Melville and Smithtown school districts in the area, and all of the brilliant people who graduate them, and win national contests, etc.,..I don't know that SBS is necessarily leaps and bounds beyond honors and accelerated classes. I can assure you not in Biology, nor History.
As I mentioned earlier, the English department was a strength at SBS; I learned more in my first two years there in English than I learned in the next four years of HS, and three years of college.
On the flip side, in history, we weren't even taught that Columbus wasn't the first to discover North America, the Native American genocide or the Holocaust or Pearl Harbor were never mentioned, and I don't think that anyone would've been able to tell FDR from Nixon, but don't worry, they could recite endless bits of scripture -- and we were graded on it, in history class. Never was the corruption of the Catholic Church mentioned, the contributions of persons like Galileo, and Kepler, or religions like Islam, or Buddhism studied, even in a cursory fashion. It was like they didn't even exist. But we all could draw Jesus' route through Galilee. I'm sorry, but I have absolutely no patience when it comes to things like that, because it puts children at a disadvantage when they are 'mainstreamed' for college (and they actually want to go somewhere other than Gordon, Wheaton, Bob Jones Crackpot University, or seminary school). I, for one, had to teach myself concepts that should've been included in a contemporary HS education. There are ways to handle some controversial issues sensitively, at least so that students aren't ignorant of them.
Out of my element? Well, yes and no. I love to learn, which benefited me in some areas, and not in others. I wasn't really cerebrally satiated there...it was just busy work, but that's all that most high schools are, anyhow, and I can't blame the institution itself for that.
I did feel outnumbered by the sheer amount of fanatical evangelicals and hypocrites. They should follow their biblical rules of acceptance and caring more. I've seen more hate at the hands of those people than I have at a tier one university. Religious tolerance is absolutely a great thing to have, but Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ, when does it end? Speaking of 'expletives', I was once given a lecture (and nearly a detention) for saying, "Oh my God" when I tripped down the old stairs and had to go to the ER. I had two broken bones, and this betch was trying to get me in trouble. Ridiculous.
Anyhow, enough vitriol on the school. I could make a laundry list (and pretty much already have) on why not to send your kids there, but it wouldn't be very influential.
"I" am my two brothers.??? This school did a banner job with grammar. How much did your parents pay for your particular brand of genius? And not to mention, you were miserable!!! Nice job by the 'rents". Perhaps public school would have been the move.
I don't see where I said that, nor where I declared anywhere that I was a special snowflake.
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Originally Posted by totallyfrazzled
This actually is why I suggested the OP look into Portledge. Our friends who sent their child there were looking specifically for a school where religious instruction was not included. They found it was a challenge because almost all the private schools on LI are operated under some kind of religious auspices whether Christian, Jewish or Quaker (Friends School in Locust Valley). At the time I think they found only 5: Portledge, Waldorf School, Harbor Country Day School, Stony Brook School and Knox.
I'm honestly ignorant of Portledge and Waldorf. I knew a few people who went to HCDS...that's only through grade 8, no? It used to be, I believe.
The Knox School is a joke, honestly. The curriculum is poor, and they watch the students like hawks, and run around after them with clipboards asking them what bus they're going on. Absurd. How will they ever cross the street by themselves?
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Originally Posted by totallyfrazzled
I meant to address this too. I remember our friends saying that when they moved their child from private to public school (I forget whether it was 2nd or 3rd grade) they were subsequently told that her reading skills were below grade level. This was a huge shock to the parents who had been receiving glowing reports constantly during the entire time she was at Portledge. And therein I think lies the big trap with private schools: They are in the business of "retention" .... not only getting, but keeping, student because tuition (and all the fundraising!) is what allows them to survive. They get NO money from NY State. So it's in these schools financial interest to keep the tuition-paying parents thinking their school is a great place in which their wonderful child is excelling. I'm not saying all school are deceptive but let's just say it's not entirely in their interest to be as brutally honest with a parent as a public school (who gets the same amount of income whether the Jones kid attends or not) might be.
I don't know that it's as elaborately deceptive as that, or it just comes down to the fact that many private schools get away with murder because they don't get Federal money. A lot of times the teachers just aren't qualified...and public schools are guilty of that, sometimes, too. Private schools can make the level of the course as difficult, or as easy as they like, because there are no regents or a static year-by-year syllabus that they have to stick to. It's utterly viscous, and subject to both wonderful improvements, or disastrous inadequacies.
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Originally Posted by totallyfrazzled
Let's face it, MANY (most?) parents' main concern is to get their child into the best college possible. The route there can be very different for a child coming out of a public versus a private school. Some people claim that certaina private school guidance/placement counselors have traditional connections with certain upscale colleges. I don't know if that's true but I'm cynical enough to believe it's definitely possible. But which private schools do or don't fudge things and/or pull strings, it's impossible to know except from firsthand experience or from someone who has had that. Just don't forget the "follow the money" adage when reading reports and examining curriculums; those schools don't want to lose their meal tickets, especially in this economy.
Well, I know one thing, at least 1/2 of the SBS student population graduates and goes to Wheaton, Gordon, BJU, and similar. Then when they graduate, they come back to teach, have a barrel of kids with free middle and high school tuition paid for, absolutely no living expenses, and a free house that is a borderline historical artifact. You think I'm kidding, too...
I rarely see Harvard, Yale, MIT, Princeton, etc. I've seen a UPenn, maybe two, two UVa, one Harvard, and a litany of students who've gone to hokey liberal arts colleges in someplace like Ohio. Or some of them barely pass and end up at Suffolk...
...many private schools get away with murder because they don't get Federal money. A lot of times the teachers just aren't qualified...and public schools are guilty of that, sometimes, too.
That reminds me of another private-school quirk: It's possible for nepotism to run rampant. When our friend's daughter was in 2nd (?) grade at Portledge there was clearly a 'personality conflict' between her and her teacher and when the mom went to discuss the matter, she found a definite 'attitude' coming from said teacher. When our friend spoke to some of the other mothers for feedback on this teacher, she was told 'No matter what you do or say to anyone, you'll get nowhere; don't you know who her husband is? He's the headmaster of the Middle School.' Her daughter couldn't be put into another teacher's class because there was only the one class in that grade. It was at that point they realized it was a no-win situation and pulled their daughter out of Portledge and into public school. Supposedly it was to be temporary until they found another suitable secular private school on LI but there simply wasn't any. So their daughter completed her education in the public system. She didn't go to an Ivy but did go to Bentley which suited her very well. She now works for Morgan Stanley in Chicago. Ironically by the time she got to highschool she had no particular motivation to go to an Ivy; that was entirely her parents' ambition for her, not her own. She felt that an Ivy would be more pressure than she could handle.
Then when they graduate, they come back to teach, have a barrel of kids with free middle and high school tuition paid for, absolutely no living expenses, and a free house that is a borderline historical artifact. You think I'm kidding, too...
I know you aren't kidding. The SBS owns many homes around the school. By virtue of being a 'Christian' school, they pay NOTHING in the way of school taxes to the Three Village School District. Now for the barrel of kids: they attend the Three Village elementary schools. Seeing as SBS pays nothing into the school district, these children of SBS teachers are attending public school -- subsidized by the taxpayers of the Three Village School District. For 7 years, they are a burden to us.
That reminds me of another private-school quirk: It's possible for nepotism to run rampant. When our friend's daughter was in 2nd (?) grade at Portledge there was clearly a 'personality conflict' between her and her teacher and when the mom went to discuss the matter, she found a definite 'attitude' coming from said teacher. When our friend spoke to some of the other mothers for feedback on this teacher, she was told 'No matter what you do or say to anyone, you'll get nowhere; don't you know who her husband is? He's the headmaster of the Middle School.' Her daughter couldn't be put into another teacher's class because there was only the one class in that grade. It was at that point they realized it was a no-win situation and pulled their daughter out of Portledge and into public school. Supposedly it was to be temporary until they found another suitable secular private school on LI but there simply wasn't any. So their daughter completed her education in the public system. She didn't go to an Ivy but did go to Bentley which suited her very well. She now works for Morgan Stanley in Chicago. Ironically by the time she got to highschool she had no particular motivation to go to an Ivy; that was entirely her parents' ambition for her, not her own. She felt that an Ivy would be more pressure than she could handle.
That's a shame, I'm sorry to hear that, for her sake. Hopefully, she was in a good school district. Morgon Stanley doesn't pick up just anyone, I'm sure.
Honestly, depending upon the Ivy (I have infinite respect for places like Yale and Princeton, etc.), I bet she could've gotten just as good of an education (if not better) from a state university, with leaps and bounds less debt. I don't blame her for not going that route. At least,I know I received a more well-rounded and thorough education than someone I know who went to Bowdoin (Ivy), and another friend who went to some little Ivy in CT. Obviously, it varies, but still. It seems like some of the more tiny liberal arts places have really lax course requirements (only a need for a few "electives" in areas of interest, meanwhile I had to take a course in almost every area of study including economics and non-western history and sociology, even if I were a math major, let's just say).
I know you aren't kidding. The SBS owns many homes around the school. By virtue of being a 'Christian' school, they pay NOTHING in the way of school taxes to the Three Village School District. Now for the barrel of kids: they attend the Three Village elementary schools. Seeing as SBS pays nothing into the school district, these children of SBS teachers are attending public school -- subsidized by the taxpayers of the Three Village School District. For 7 years, they are a burden to us.
Yep, and all of those homes would be ungodly expensive if one were to buy them on the market, but they get them for free. What person just out of college, with no work experience gets a job with that kind of a salary, free tuition for their kids, free historical houses to live in, no school taxes, free babysitting, and a break on everything? These same parents approach music teachers and dance teachers in the area and ask for "discounts". Hahahaha.
There's one family there where the Father is the equivalent of tenure, two of his four sons and his only daughter work there now (all five graduated SBS), most of them married (one to a former student), and have spouses and babies, and all received free housing. Also, his nephew is there, who married and has NINE CHILDREN. Four of them are now attending school for free, and the rest are littered about the grounds which are now their playground. These kids are dumped all around for "free babysitting". I love kids, but it really is borderline inappropriate to have them around during the schoolday.
Have you Buckley on the north shore of Long Island?
I currently have my son enrolled in Buckley Country Day School, on the north shore of Long Island. It truly is an amazing school. Being a K-8 school, it has huge benefits compared to a K-12 school. It is a nurturing environment, where the teachers are genuinely concerned for the welfare of each student. I have been so impressed that every administrator at the school knows my son's name and we have only been at the school this year.
classes are very good, small size, specialized teaching. wonderful facilities.
you should check it out http://www.buckleycountryday.com
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Have you Buckley on the north shore of Long Island?
