Dalton plans to use virtual teachers on Zoom even when students are in the classroom. At Collegiate, older students will have custom-made plexiglass desk barriers they can carry around from class to class. And Horace Mann is looking to buy specially made masks for its choir.
New York City’s elite private schools can seem like a world apart in normal times, but in the age of Covid, those differences are all the more glaring. The public school system, the largest in the nation, is struggling to find a way to teach its 1.1 million students safely as it faces steep budget cuts and possible shortages of everything from teachers and nurses to protective equipment.
Its smaller and richer private schools have no such problems with money or resources. Instead, at $50,000 a year or more, these schools must contend with the demands and expectations that come with parents whose pockets are deep enough to pay the tuition.
“The reality is, there is no universal approach to reopening schools at this moment, just the best model for each school community,” Bodie Brizendine, who leads Spence, a private all-girls school on the Upper East Side, wrote to parents.
Here’s a look at how eight private schools in New York City are planning to reopen in the fall.
BREARLEY
- First day of school: Sept. 10
- Size: 760 girls in grades K-12 and 140 teachers
- Location: two buildings on East 83rd, field house on East 87th
- Tuition: $53,990
Brearley plans to bring all students back in the fall at the same time. Its new building, opened last year and partly funded through a $100 million capital campaign, has an outdoor play space that may be converted into classrooms. Some long-serving associate teachers were made head teachers to handle the increased number of cohorts.
Students will have a designated drop-off time, though working parents can bring their kids in at 7:15 a.m. Students who can’t wear a face mask for medical reasons will be placed in distance learning. The school also hired Bank Street College to train its teachers in “trauma-responsive school routines and restorative practices” for its students.
BROWNING
- First day of school: Sept. 9
- Size: 400 boys in grades K-12 and 65 teachers
- Location: East 62nd
- Tuition: $54,150
The “Browning Flex” plan will have students from K-5 return to school full-time. Grades 6-8 and 9-12 will alternate weeks between in-person and remote learning. Families who’ve chosen to start with online can switch to in-person learning after Thanksgiving. Every classroom will have a Meeting Owl camera, which provides a 360-degree view, reacts to sound and focuses on whoever is speaking, so remote learners can follow along. (The school bought 45 of them; they start at $799 on the Owl Labs website.)