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Horace Mann School

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This article is about the Horace Mann School in New York City. For others of a similar name, see Horace Mann School (disambiguation)
Horace Mann School
File:LogoHMb.jpg

Magna est veritas et prævalet
(Great is the truth and it prevails)
Type Private
Established 1887
Head of School Dr. Thomas M. Kelly
Enrollment approx. 1,750
Campus Urban and Suburban
Location 231 West 246th St.
Riverdale, NY 10471
Website www.horacemann.org

The Horace Mann School (established 1887) is a highly-ranked private college preparatory school in Riverdale, a neighborhood in the Bronx borough of New York City, United States. The Wall Street Journal ranks Horace Mann as one of the top four high schools in the United States.[1] Worth Magazine ranked Horace Mann as one of the top ten feeder schools for Harvard, Princeton, and Yale in the nation.[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. Its first location was a building at 9 University Place in Manhattan, but it was moved in 1901 to 120th Street in Morningside Heights. Columbia University followed suit soon afterards, moving northwards to its present campus. The name of the school can still be seen on the western-most building at the Columbia campus, named Horace Mann Hall. However, Horace Mann was becoming a school in its own right instead of just a teaching laboratory, and it became more independent of the University and Teachers College. Thus, Teachers College created the Lincoln School to continue its experiments in teaching.

Shedding its co-educational roots, the school split into separate all-male and all-female schools. In 1912, the Boys' School moved to 246th Street in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, and during the 1940's it severed formal ties with Teachers College and became Horace Mann School. The Girls' School merged with the Lincoln School in 1940, and then finally closed in 1946.

The New York School for Nursery Years (founded in 1954 on 90th Street) became the Horace Mann School for Nursery Years in 1968. In 1972, Horace Mann merged with the nearby Barnard School to form the Horace Mann-Barnard Lower School for kindergarten through grade six, located on the former Barnard School campus. In 1975, the Horace Mann School returned to its roots as a co-educational learning environment and began admitting women to the Upper School. In 1999, the sixth grade moved from the Horace Mann-Barnard campus to the main 246th Street campus and formed a distinct Middle School along with the seventh and eighth grades.

Divisions

File:Horrace.jpg
Horace Mann's New Library & Theater Building, located in the Upper Division

Thus, there are now four divisions of the school, all co-educational: a Nursery Division located on 90th Street in Manhattan, a Lower Division on the Horace Mann campus on Tibbett Avenue in Riverdale (kindergarten through fifth grade), a Middle Division on the 246th Street campus in Riverdale (sixth through eighth grades), and an Upper Division also on the 246th Street campus (ninth through twelfth grades). There is also the John Dorr Nature Laboratory, located on 100 acres in Washington, Connecticut, used for extended field trips for classes of students starting in fourth grade and an orientation program for new students entering the High School.

Each division of the school has its own Division Head and the Middle and Upper Schools have separate student government organizations. The entire school is overseen by a Head of School. The current Head is Dr. Thomas M. Kelly, who was appointed ninth Head of School, effective July 1, 2005, succeeding Dr. Eileen Mullady, formerly of Princeton University and the Lawrenceville School, in whose honor the school named one of its new buildings. Prior to Dr. Mullady, the long-standing Head was the late R. Inslee Clark, Jr., previously Dean of Admissions at Yale University. Dr. Kelly previously served as Superintendent of Schools in Valhalla, NY. The current Horace Mann Nursery Division Head is Patricia Zuroski, the current Lower Division Head is Dr. Steven B. Tobolsky, the current Middle Division Head is Robin Ann Ingram, and the current Upper Division Interim Head is Dr. Barbara Tischler. Glenn Sherratt is the current Director of the John Dorr Nature Laboratory.

Admission

Admission to Horace Mann is highly selective. Decisions are based on an applicant's recent grades, an interview, and the candidate's score on either the ISEE or SSAT test.

Sixth grade is Horace Mann's largest entry point, with between 50 and 55 places available each year. In the ninth grade, Horace Mann traditionally enrolls between 35 and 45 new students. In the seventh grade, 20 students are usually taken. A smaller number of students are accepted in other grades, although there are no admissions to the twelfth grade. The admissions office maintains a substantial waiting list.

Academics

Horace Mann is known for its academic rigor. The school offers 20 Advanced Placement courses and 9 foreign languages. Its 220 faculty members hold 210 master's degrees and 25 doctoral degrees.

Students in the Upper Division are required to study English, Atlantic World History, United States History, Biology, Chemistry and/or Physics, Geometry, Algebra II and Trigonometry, and 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 French, German, Japanese, Latin, or Spanish. Additional classes in Greek, Italian, and Russian are offered. Starting in the 2006-07 academic year, Mandarin will be offered.

Starting in eleventh grade, students have more flexibility with their requirements and can choose from courses in Economics, Psychology, Classical History, Political Philosphy, United States Legal History, Calculus, Statistics, Astronomy, Science and Public Policy, and many 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

Horace Mann has an extensive arts program, offering a variety of courses in the fields of Performing and Visual arts. At least 1.5 arts credits are required for graduation, one course being in performance/studio arts and the other being in art history/appreciation.

Horace Mann has two major music ensembles: The Horace Mann Orchestra and the Horace Mann Jazz Band. Both ensembles perform at least two to three concerts a per year along with performing all over the United States and Europe. In 2005, the Horace Mann Orchestra travelled to Germany and is planning to travel to Europe this year.

Alumni

Each year, many graduates are accepted to Ivy League and other nationally-ranked universities.[3] In fact, Worth Magazine ranked Horace Mann as one of the top ten feeder schools for Harvard, Princeton, and Yale in the nation.[4]

Famous graduates of Horace Mann include:

Writer Jack Kerouac also attended Horace Mann for one year of high school as part of the class of 1940 and played on the football team.

Co-Curricular Activities

School newspaper

The Record, established in 1903, is the weekly, student-run newspaper of the Horace Mann School. Throughout its history, The Record has won national journalism awards and has been staffed by students who went on to become distinguished journalists and authors, including Anthony Lewis (class of 1944), Richard Kluger (class of 1952) and Robert Caro (class of 1953).

In 1954, Horace Mann 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 losing one of their games to demonstrate the operation of an independent free press.[6]

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). The Record is published every Friday during the academic year, and can be accessed online here.

Horace Mann also has a series of other, less highly-regarded newspapers, with the most famous being "The Review." Other publications include "The Model Citizen," "The Agora," "The Muckraker," and "Cinemann."

Student government

The main body of student government is the Governing Council (GC), made up of students and teachers. There are five full time 12th grade representatives, and one alternate, while in grades 9-11, there are five full time representatives and two alternates. Because there are significantly fewer faculty members, each voting faculty representative is granted two votes. Over the years the Council has removed the once-strict dress code, instituted an honor code, begun a debit card system to pay for items at the cafeteria and bookstore, made trays mandatory at the cafeteria, and revised the school's constitution.

Model UN

Horace Mann MUN Club
Horace Mann MUN Club

The school has an active and successful Model UN team. The team usually attends three or four away conferences a year. Its most recent victory was "Best Large Delegation" at the Ivy League Model United Nations Conference, hosted by the University of Pennsylvania, its fifth first place finish there in six years. The team also organizes and hosts its own conference - Horace Mann Model United Nations Conference - (HoMMUNC).

The Junior State of America

The Junior State of America is the nation's largest student-run organization, with more than 20,000 students participating nationwide. Horace Mann competes in the Northeastern state, which includes all of New England and Downstate New York. Horace Mann students are frequently elected to one of four possible offices - Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Mayor, Vice-Mayor - or appointed by an elected official to serve on the Junior State Cabinet.

Athletics

Athletic teams fielded by the Horace Mann Athletics Department include the following. JV stands for Junior Varsity; V for Varsity; MD for Middle Division.

  • Boys' Baseball (JV, V, MD)
  • Boys' Basketball (JV, V, MD)
  • Girls' Basketball (JV, V, MD)
  • Boys' Crew (JV, V)
  • Girls' Crew (JV, V)
  • Boys' Cross-Country (JV, V)
  • Girls' Cross-Country (JV, V) Coed Cross-Country (MD)
  • Girls' Field Hockey (JV, V, MD)
  • Boys' Fencing (JV, V)
  • Girls' Fencing (JV, V)
  • Boys' Football (JV, V, MD)
  • Coed Golf (V)
  • Girls' Gymnastics (JV, V)
  • Boys' Indoor Track (JV, V)
  • Girls' Indoor Track (JV, V)
  • Boys' Lacrosse (JV, V, MD)
  • Girls' Lacrosse (JV, V, MD)
  • Boys' Soccer (JV, V, MD)
  • Girls' Soccer (JV, V, MD)
  • Coed Skiing (V)
  • Girls' Softball (JV, V, MD)
  • Coed Squash (V)
  • Boys' Swimming (JV,V, MD)
  • Girls' Swimming (JV,V, MD)
  • Boys' Tennis (JV, V, MD)
  • Girls' Tennis (JV, V, MD)
  • Boys' Track (JV, V)
  • Girls' Track (JV, V), Coed Track (MD)
  • Coed Ultimate Frisbee (V)
  • Girls' Volleyball (JV, V, MD)
  • Coed Water Polo (JV, V, MD)
  • Coed Wrestling (JV, V, MD)
  • Boys' Skiing (V)
  • Girls' Skiing (V)

Horace Mann's Boys Varstiy Tennis team has won the New York City Mayor's Cup Team Competition four times since 1994; its most recent victory was in 2005.[7] [8]

Pedro Alvarez (class of 2005) was drafted as the 438th overall pick of the 2005 Major League Baseball draft by the Boston Red Sox. [9]

Charles Altchek (class of 2003), of the Harvard Varsity Mens' Soccer Team, was named Ivy League Player of the Year in 2005.

In 2005-2006, the Boys' Varsity Swimming Team completed their first undefeated season in the history of the Ivy League with a 6-0 league record (6-1 overall, including a loss to St Benedict's). They have now won the league championship three consecutive years (04-06), also for the first time in the history of the league.

The "Ivy League"

Horace Mann School is a part of the Ivy Preparatory School League. Fieldston, Riverdale, and Horace Mann together are known as the "hilltop schools," as all three are located within two miles of each other in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, on a hilly area above Van Cortlandt Park. The three also share perhaps the greatest amount of inter-school sports rivalry; Horace Mann's annual charity basketball game, the Buzzell Game, is almost always against either Fieldston or Riverdale.

Miscellaneous

The school's motto is "Magna est veritas et prævalet", meaning "Great is the truth, and it prevails". It comes from the King James version of the Old Testament, which is usually translated today as "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 Varsity Swim Team has adopted the Sealion as their unofficial mascot. The school colors are maroon and white.

All students are required to take American Red Cross CPR certification in order to graduate. Horace Mann students are also required to complete at least 80 hours of community service; 40 hours in ninth and tenth grades and 40 hours in eleventh and twelfth. 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 School, there is no requirement, but there is a "Caring-in-Action Day" in December, which all Lower School families may attend, and visit local shelters to help out for a few hours.

Several films have been shot on the Horace Mann campus over the years, including Splendor in the Grass and The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love.

See also

References

  1. ^ College Bound News. "Admissions Watch." Vol. 18 No. 9, citing the April 2, 2004 Wall Street Journal. May, 2004. http://www.collegeboundnews.com/03-04issues/may04.html#anchor514965
  2. ^ Prep School USA. "2003 High School Rankings," citing the Sept. 2002 Worth Magazine article entitled "Getting Inside the Ivy Gates," by Reshma Memon Yaqub. http://www.auap.com/prepschoolclass.html
  3. ^ New York Times. "A Student Paper Savors Its Past, and Its Stars." by Seth Kugel. October 13, 2002. http://www.highschooljournalism.org/Content.cfm?mode=1&newsid=107&id=65
  4. ^ Queens Ledger. "St. Francis Prep Captures Girls Mayor's Cup Tennis Crown." June 9, 2005. http://www.queensledger.com/StoryDisplay.asp?NewsStoryID=1398&PID=10
  5. ^ "New York City Mayor’s Cup All Scholastic Tennis Championships, Presented by Pfizer." June 4, 2004 http://www.usta.com/membership/fullstory.sps?iNewsID=69879&itype=&iCategoryID=167
  6. ^ Draft information on Pedro Alvarez http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/2005draft/draftdayblog.html
  7. ^ Article by Felicia R. Lee 'Chatty Host Who Makes Archaeology Glamorous' February 6, 2006</ref>
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