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Tag Archives: Lower Hudson Valley

Death of a School – But Not Its Spirit – Part 2

09 Monday Sep 2019

Posted by ts4jc in About Me

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actuarial, administration, alumni, awards, bequests, Bill Irwin, boarding school, bonding, campus, capital asset, celebrities, Cherry Lawn School, Chinese, Community, Cornell, counterculture, Department of Education, development officer, donation, drugs, endowment, entrepreneurs, faculty, family, free education, Halsted School, irreverence, Jim Fyfe, land, life expectancy, Lower Hudson Valley, New York Military Academy, Niche, NYMA, Oakland Military Academy, operating expenses, planning, prep school, private school, professionals, progressive education, public school, RCDS, real estate sale, Rockland Country Day School, Rockland County, Scarborough, St. Mary's High School, St. Peter's School, suburbs, teacher, tuition, Tyne Daly, unprofessional, US News & World Report, vanity, wealth

While RCDS succeeded academically and in building connections between students, faculty and administrative staff, I look at some of the elements of the school that hindered its financial success. Even so, it outlasted a number of private schools (some day and some boarding) in the area. It may have also been hindered by diminishing advantages compared to the public school alternatives.

Public school improvement: It is difficult to compare, because either there were no ratings of public schools and school districts when RCDS was founded or those ratings were not archived.  What we know is that in recent years, public schools in Rockland have won awards and been well-ranked by independent groups or publications.  Since 2000, five elementary schools (two of them twice), one middle school and two high schools have received the Blue Ribbon School of Excellence Award from the U.S. Department of Education.  And since 2015, every public school district in Rockland except East Ramapo (the school district with a majority of students going to private schools, mostly yeshivas) has been ranked with an award or among the best by either U.S. News & World Report or Niche (formerly College Prowler).  RCDS was founded to provide a quality alternative to the public schools at that time.  If the quality of public education has risen to higher levels, it will be harder for parents to justify spending low five-figure tuition costs when their children can get good quality public school education for free.

RCDS culture: While there have been times when the mission of the school has been cloudy and there were different educational philosophies between the founders or board of trustees and the head of school, in general RCDS followed the country day school model of progressive education.  What varied over the years was whether the collegiate prep school element would be emphasized or the encouragement of student freedom to explore and develop model would be emphasized.  Both elements were present simultaneously regardless of the philosophy from the top down as faculty members varied in their approach.  I had teachers in each camp as well as those who tried to balance the two.  As a result at least based on the alumni I have known over the years and have recently reconnected with, there is a large dose of irreverence and counterculture among the alumni.  While there are a number of professionals (especially the medical profession) and entrepreneurs among the alumni, those who own their own businesses tend to have small businesses.  At least in my generation, there was a spirit of anti-materialism at RCDS.  And of course there was the drug culture.  Some who turned on, tuned in and dropped out didn’t drop very far back in.  The bottom line is that while there has been a profound outpouring of devotion to RCDS over the years, especially now that the school has announced its closing, for all these reasons it didn’t translate into a large amount of giving, certainly not enough to keep the school afloat.

Jim Fyfe

Borrowing a line from “A Tale of Two Cities”, RCDS was the best of schools and it was the worst of schools.  Or as Jim Fyfe (wearer of many hats, including former Trustee) put it at the school’s good bye event on 8/31, the best part of RCDS was also the worst part of RCDS.  It was a family.  The students, faculty and administration bonded like family.  But too often it was also run like a family, from the heart, not like a business.

Lack of endowment: When RCDS acquired the Pitkin farm, they had more land than they could use.  When I attended the spring musical/pajama party in 2017, I was sitting with a number of parents who didn’t realize that at one time, the school’s property extended all the way from Kings Highway to Lake DeForest.  Over time, some was sold off, whether for housing developments or Town athletic fields.  No doubt that was part of the original plan until the school could develop an endowment fund.  But the school ran out of land.  Perhaps the school could have sold off some more parcels rather than the entire campus, but the only one left of significant size would have meant losing its only remaining athletic field large enough to host a sport (and the baseball field, barely visible on Google Satellite, hadn’t been used in years).

The cash cow was used up and apparently all of it was used for operating expenses.  Using one’s capital assets for operating expenses is poor planning and partially based on wishful thinking that a rabbit can be pulled out of the hat in the future.  Like Bullwinkle, RCDS always had the wrong hat.  Whether past administrations got complacent because of the land sales or they tried and tried to build up an endowment but couldn’t because of current deficits, the end result is the same.  Without investment earnings on an endowment fund to supplement the income from tuition and fees, a school either needs to cut down on spending, increase enrollment or increase tuition (which usually is self-defeating unless the school was underpriced).

Part of the problem is actuarial.  Strange as it may seem, with increased longevity in the U.S., a school 60 years old is only now starting to see its earliest graduates reach the end of their life expectancy.  I’m not expecting to have a large estate unless something wonderful happens in the next few years, but I did include RCDS in my will for a significant percentage.  I’m sure others did, too.  That would be one source for an endowment fund if the school had the foresight and enough means to use it that way.  But until bequests from alumni start to come in, other sources have to be tapped.

Adrian Durant

Encouraging the more loyal and wealthy parents of students to include the school in their will would have been one way.  Appealing to vanity or a sense of community (plus advertising) is another.  Donate enough money and a building or the chairmanship of a department will be named after you or your company.  For example, Adrian Durant is not just a head coach at Cornell.  He is “The George Heekin ’29 Head Coach of Men’s Track and Field and Cross Country”.  While he was still alive, George donated enough money to Cornell that he was able to have them name the head coaching position of those teams after himself.  Presumably the income from that donation pays the salary of Adrian Durant, his predecessors and his successors.  If it would have put the school on a firm financial foundation, it would not have bothered me one bit to have the John Doe Chairman of the English Department, Mary Roe Children’s School Building or XYZ Corporation STEAM Lab.

I had a recent phone conversation with someone who attended RCDS when I was student but did not graduate.  She did not attend the 8/31 gathering.  She knew details about many of the school’s founders as well as parents of the students in the early years of the school.  She named 10-12 wealthy families associated with RCDS who could have easily established an endowment fund in the early years of the school.  There may have been more.  Some may have intended to but changed their mind as the students and school became more countercultural.  Some might have thought that their donations to buy the farm with excess land to sell off had been sufficient on their part.  No doubt some had different priorities for the bulk of their estates, or their fortunes changed or taxes ate up a significant portion of their holdings.  And perhaps some would have given much more if asked.  The facts of this matter have been lost to time.

NYMA Academic Building (c.1916 postcard)

RCDS is not alone in terms of private schools that closed in the Lower Hudson Valley and northern NYC suburbs.  A few years ago, I did an online search of the private schools that RCDS played in sports when I attended.  Roughly half of them have closed although one reopened.  I pitched against St. Peter’s School in Peekskill (NY) the year they closed in 1970.  Oakland Military Academy in New Windsor (NY) closed in 1972.  I remember throwing out a runner at home plate on the fly from right field in a game at their field in 1969.  A series of fires at Cherry Lawn School in Darien (CT) forced that school to close in 1972 due to declining enrollment (concerns about safety) and difficulty getting affordable insurance coverage.  I remember playing at their field and making a long running catch from second base into short right field, and then Peter Yang ’69 catching me to make sure I didn’t fall down.  Others that are no longer in business include Scarborough (Briarcliff Manor, NY; closed 1978), Halsted School (Yonkers, NY; closed 1983), St. Mary’s High School (Greenwich, CT; closed 1991).  New York Military Academy (aka NYMA, Cornwall, NY) was scheduled to close in June 2010 but alumni and local business leaders kept the school alive by raising $6 million in a matter of weeks and by planning to sell off underutilized portions of their campus.  It turned out to be a band aid.  Enrollment continued to decline, they failed to open in September 2015 and the school headed for the auction block.  The school was acquired by a non-profit corporation led by a Chinese national real estate mogul, reopened with a handful of students (both returning and recruited) that November, had 29 students the following academic year and has about 100 students now.  Only time will tell if the 130 year old school will continue to survive and even grow.

Tyne Daly

There was a time when celebrities connected to the school like Tyne Daly (first graduating class of ’63) and Bill Irwin (RCDS parent) would come to the school and headline a fundraiser.  At some point for whatever reason, I hadn’t seen anything like that in quite a while.

Other alums ask me “Didn’t the school do any planning?”  “Did RCDS have a development officer or hire a consultant on how to create an endowment?”  I was not on the inside and cannot answer those questions.  And even if the answer to some or all of those questions is yes, then the next question would be “Why was it ineffective?” Hopefully others more knowledgeable will be willing to supply answers.

For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. – Luke 14:28-30

God bless,

Lois

Dear Ms. Caitlyn Jenner

17 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by ts4jc in About Me, General Transsexual issues, Living Female

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1976 Olympics, advice, Bill of Rights, Bob Kane, Bruce Jenner, Caitlyn Jenner, celebrity, Christian, coming out, confidence, conservative, Cornell, counsel, decathlon, Declaration of Independence, Democrats, Dennis Daugaard, Diane Sawyer, female, full-time, gold medal, headlines, HERO legislation, Houston, Hudson River, Human Rights, I Am Cait, Kardashians, Kate Bornstein, Log Cabin Republicans, Lower Hudson Valley, Montreal, MTF, naive, North Tarrytown, Olympics, overconfident, Pastor Ed Young, politics, prayer, Reality television, Renee Richards, Republican, Robert Kane, Rockland, silent, Sleepy Hollow, South Dakota, sports, suggestions, supportive, Tappan Zee Bridge, team manager, Ted Cruz, track and field, trans-hostile, Transgender, transgender community, transgender issues, transgender rights, Transition, Westchester, Wheaties

English: The Tappan Zee Bridge as seen in Tarr...

English: The Tappan Zee Bridge as seen in Tarrytown, NY (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve never met Caitlyn.  But we have a lot in common.  We both identify as female, transgender, Christian and politically conservative on a number of issues.  We both spent a significant portion of our respective childhoods within a few miles of the Tappan Zee Bridge (I was on the opposite shore from her).  And since I am only three years younger than Caitlyn, some of that time was concurrent (from November 1960 to the summer of 1963, according to my calculations, based on when my family moved there and Caitlyn’s family moving to Connecticut after her freshman year of high school).

We share a love of sports.  I lettered in four sports in high school.  However, it was a very small prep school and the only way my career in sports would continue was because I became the manager for the track & field and cross country teams at a Division One university (Cornell) with an excellent program for over a century in those sports.  While I had some evidence of athletic ability, it came in a body that was considerably more compact.

In fact, there was most likely only one degree of separation between us before she came out in public.  That is because as team manager, I met one of Jenner’s teammates on the 1972 Olympic track team and also had a nodding acquaintance with a former U.S. Olympian (Bob Kane) who would become the president of the U.S. Olympic Committee shortly after Jenner’s gold medal in 1976 Olympics.  And there are likely others in track & field circles that both of us know.

It seems that a lot of people are telling Caitlyn Jenner what she should and shouldn’t do.  I should think I have as much right to do so, if not more.  However, I have reached an age where I try not to tell anyone what to do; I only make suggestions.  And I admit that the suggestions I make to my tax clients are quite authoritative.

But I have no intention of sending a letter to her home to get intermingled with hundreds of other letters from fans and foes.  So I am posting it publicly.  If one of my blog readers or LinkedIn connections knows her personally and finds it worthy of passing along, so be it.

Dear Caitlyn,

After some downtime, you are finding your way back into the news again.  Criticism of you by people who are hostile to transgender people is to be expected.  But much criticism also comes from others within the transgender community.  Is it warranted?

Let’s start with something that was unquestionably positive for the transgender community: your contact of South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard regarding recent legislation that would have discriminated against trans youth.  Did your voice play a part in paving the way for the Governor, who admitted never having knowingly met a transgender person, to remedy that omission?  Did that in turn help lead to his eventual veto?  I’m sure it did.

What about your meeting with Pastor Ed Young, a prime mover in the defeat of the HERO bill in Houston last November?  You prayed with him and while that is always a blessing in general, hopefully the pastor could see the Holy Spirit in you as you prayed together and in your conversation as well.  But it also gave you the opportunity to share how hateful the pastor’s trans hostile videos have been.  Someone well battle-tested on the front lines of our struggle, Kate Bornstein, gave you kudos for that.

Yes, it is important to meet with others in the transgender community (and our allies) to continue to get educated on who we are as individuals and as a group.  But what progress do we make if we only meet with each other.  Only Nixon could go to China.  Only Kirk could negotiate a peace treaty with the Klingons.  I’ve made a positive impact with many (not all) Christians in my little corner of the globe.  But so far, there are only so many I can reach.

1976 Summer Olympics

1976 Summer Olympics (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Caitlyn, please keep some things in mind.  First of all, there is only so much any one person can do.  I know that you were remarkably consistent in your decathlon scores, but you were able to train for those both physically and with technique.  Training to live as a woman in real life, undoing a lifetime of habits, is many times more difficult.  Plus the available coaching is far more rudimentary than anything you would have received in preparation for Montreal 1976.

Second, you are not alone in the work.  There are many others out here as well.  You don’t have to become exactly like them, but you also want to be careful about acting at cross purposes with them.

But most of all, Caitlyn, you don’t even have a year living full-time as you.  And with your lifestyle and opportunities, in some ways you have experienced less than most of us.  (Make note of Renee Richards’ hindsight about how unrealistic it was for her to spend her one year life experience by taking a cruise to Italy, living for a while in a real life Fellini movie and then tooling around western Europe in a sports car, before losing her nerve in Morocco on the steps of the hospital – twice.) Ten months ago, immediately after watching Diane Sawyer interview you, my biggest concern was that you still wouldn’t be you.  You know how to be a feted celebrity.  You’ve been there and done that forty years ago. But do you know how to be Caitlyn Jenner?  Make sure you treat yourself to the time you need to find out, away from the cameras, the banquets and even your entourage sometimes.

And this brings me to your remarks about Ted Cruz.  I am acknowledging up front that there are people who read the headlines and went nuclear without reading anything else that you said on the subject.  (Headline writers provoke more than inform.)  Indeed you acknowledge that Sen. Cruz has one of the worst records on trans issues when viewed by the transgender community.  What you don’t acknowledge is how unlikely it would be for Cruz or most Republicans today to be willing to even consider having a liaison with the transgender community.   When he met you prior to coming out, Cruz treated you as an Olympic gold medalist and sports hero.  As a little boy, he may have even idolized you on the front of the Wheaties box.  There is no reason to expect he will treat you so kindly now.

I truly understand the dilemma you face politically.  What do you do when the politicians and party whose values you tend to agree with on a broad range of issues: a) see people like us as moral deviants at best and part of the vanguard of end times wickedness at worst; b) refuse to believe our testimonies that this is who we are and have always known ourselves to be with respect to gender, and who continue to insist that we have made an immoral choice; c) don’t believe we have the right to enjoy the same rights and freedoms as the rest of society enjoys: protection from job discrimination; proper medical care consistent with the findings of the American Medical Association and American Psychiatric Association; the ability to make life choices consistent with our innate gender identity; the right to safety; d) actively campaign to take away our recently-won rights (not special rights, just the “unalienable” right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness)?

Some have quoted you (or perhaps assumed) that you believe that Republicans are better on transgender issues than Democrats are.  Later articles appear to have corrected that misquote, and you admit that Democrats are more favorable on trans issues.  So I am going to take it that the latter is true for you.  But I will share that when I first read the former, my impulse was that you needed to name names.  Just who are these supportive Republicans?

Then I remembered that the Log Cabin Republicans claim to advocate on behalf of transgender individuals, not just lesbians, gays and bisexuals.  So I went to their website.  I looked at their recent initiatives.  I looked through their press releases.  They congratulated you for coming out during the Diane Sawyer interview.  Since then, keeping in mind all the transgender oriented legislation and votes that have been in play since then in places like Houston and South Dakota, they have been totally silent on transgender issues.  It has been disappointing to say the least.

On the one hand, it is good to have a positive attitude and a belief that you can make a difference in Christian and politically conservative circles.  But while there is no crime in being naïve, it is not helpful to overestimate the speed with which you will be able to change hearts.  You have strengths: a warm, likable personality, a record of achievement that few people can match and access to channels that most of us will never come close to having.  But on the negative side, your association with Kardashian reality television and continuing with that format to some extent on your own show makes it easy for some people to dismiss you as a publicity hound.

Caitlyn, I know you have heard much of this before from many sources.  But you may not have heard it from a source who is similar to you in as many ways as I am: transgender, MTF, Christian, conservative, background in track and field (and athletics in general), and raised in the Lower Hudson Valley.  You and I understand how much work there needs to be done on transgender in the Christian and politically conservative communities.  At the same time, we are not willing to write them off as hopeless.

I have more that I could say to you, but I’d prefer to convey it privately, if indeed you should grace me with a personal contact.  Contact can be initiated through my blog or contact information on my LinkedIn page.

Caitlyn, I am in the habit of closing out my blog posts with scripture.  This verse is on a monthly prayer calendar for a Christian ministry I am associated with.  It is a perfect admonition from the Lord to leave you with.

Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. – Psalm 37:5

God bless,

Lois

Pages

  • Being Christian and Transsexual: Life on Planet Mercury
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Recent Posts

  • The Next U.S. Civil War? – Part 2 January 5, 2021
  • The Next U.S. Civil War? – Part 1 January 5, 2021
  • Potential for an Individual Voter to Influence the Presidential Election November 3, 2020
  • Transgender and Pro-Life January 9, 2020
  • A Tale of Two Churches January 9, 2020
  • My Sermon on 10/20/2019 October 27, 2019
  • Salute to Misfile (and all my favorite comic strips) October 5, 2019
  • Death of a School – But Not Its Spirit – Part 3 September 13, 2019
  • Death of a School – But Not Its Spirit – Part 2 September 9, 2019
  • Death of a School – But Not Its Spirit (Part 1) September 7, 2019
  • Non-Christians, Baby Christians, Discipleship and Moderation July 27, 2019
  • Scapegoats May 28, 2018
  • And Now For Something Completely Different … – Part VIII February 17, 2018
  • And Now For Something Completely Different … – Part VII February 11, 2018
  • And Now For Something Completely Different … – Part VI January 3, 2018

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