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Tag Archives: Tappan Zee Bridge

Death of a School – But Not Its Spirit (Part 1)

07 Saturday Sep 2019

Posted by ts4jc in About Me, General Transsexual issues

≈ 1 Comment

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academia, actor, Alan Jay Lerner, alma mater, alumni, baby boom, Broadway, celebrities, Clarkstown, Congers, Cornell, East Ramapo, firefighters, gentrification, Haitian, high school, Hispanic, Hollywood, junior high school, Kendall Pennypacker, maturing, New York City, Orthodox Jewish, police officers, power broker, prep school, prestigious, private school, professionals, professors, public school, RCDS, reverse migration, Rockland, Rockland Country Day School, Rockland County, South Nyack, suburban, Tappan Zee Bridge, Transgender, Transsexual, Ultra-Orthodox, yeshiva

On August 19, a little over two weeks before a new school year was supposed to start, my alma mater announced that their finances made it impossible to continue. They have closed their doors and declared bankruptcy.

No, I’m not talking about my college, Cornell.  That school is so large, well-endowed and supported by state government that it would take a collapse of civilization to threaten it with closure.

RCDS Pitkin Hall (Main Building)

I’m talking about the Rockland Country Day School in Congers, NY.  I went there from grades 6 through 12, the only grades it served at the time.  It was a bit of a culture shock for me at first when I went there.  I was from a family somewhere in the middle to lower-middle income range, one wage-earner, with typical values of that group.  I was entering a school populated by children of members of the entertainment and creative industries (actors, playwrights, musicians, producers, photographers, cartoonists), academics (Ivy League professors), and professionals (doctors, dentists, architects, stockbrokers, attorneys).  They had been exposed to so much more than I had when I started school there in September 1963.

At the same time as I was making that adjustment, entering a school that covered grades 6 through 12 brought my gender issues front and center for the first time.  Sure I knew that little kids got older and matured.  With a brother five years older, I saw his friends in small groups and even played sports with them on occasion (and held my own, thank you).  Going from a school that was K-6 to a school that was 6-12, suddenly I had panoramic view of the maturing process of the preteen through late teen years.  I didn’t like what I saw.  And I didn’t hear about anyone saying that they were going to change gender once they became adults.  Homosexuality was rarely talked about.  Transsexuals weren’t even on the radar.

But once I became acclimated, I caught up and thrived there.  I didn’t get into Cornell because I was cute.  I got good grades and good scores on standardized tests.  Out of boredom with a teacher who taught only to the middle of the class, my performance in public school started to suffer in 5th grade (same year when it did for my brother) and my parents seized the opportunity to enroll me when one of my public school classmates announced that he would be going there next year.

Based on the remarks I have heard from alumni who graduated from there both before and after me, there are many of us who have fond memories of RCDS.  As sad as it is that the school is closing, it is equally sad that it took something like this to bring the alumni closer together.

The first Tappan Zee Bridge under construction

In a strange way, the school is closing pretty much the way it started.  It was supposed to open its doors in September 1958.  They hired a headmaster and were preparing to begin this brand new experiment in education in Rockland County.  There was only one problem.  They kept waiting for the new headmaster to show up to lead the way.  He never did.  Parents had to tell their children, many of them disappointed, that they would be going back to public school that September.

But the group that started the school was undaunted.  They had a vision to provide a better quality of education for their children without having to send them away to boarding school.  The found a new candidate to serve as the first headmaster, Kendall Pennypacker.  This man arrived with his wife, Ruth, who was the school librarian for many years.  The school began in September 1959 with just a few grades in a house in South Nyack, not far from the same Tappan Zee Bridge that had brought a population boom to Rockland County and made it a little easier for people to commute to New York City, turning the county from rural to suburban.

Alan Jay Lerner

Within a few years, the school received enough donations, Alan Jay Lerner being principal donor, to purchase a plot of land in Congers that was known as the Pitkin farm.  It had been home to one of the first women medical doctors in the United States.  I won’t go into detail about some of the strange things that were found when the school took position of the property.  Suffice it to say that the cleanup and transformation of the farm house and other buildings on the premises into classrooms, a library, an art studio and science labs took longer than expected.  Before the school could be ready for classes that year, everyone (faculty, teachers and students) pitched in to put the finishing touches on the place.  (A member of the class of ’67, someone whose father won five Tony awards, told me that it was her job to paint some of the baseboards.  As one of the younger students at the time, they gave her a job she wouldn’t have a problem reaching!)

Similar to the 1958-59 misfire for the start of RCDS, the school has ended in a similar way.  The latest information given to the press was that the parents were told in May that there was a possibility that the school might not continue in September.  But then they were assured in June that the school was committed to moving forward another year.  This time it wasn’t the head of school leaving that scuttled things.  Current Head of School, Jocelyn Feuerstein, was working every angle she could to find a way to keep the school in operation until the cavalry arrived.  But it didn’t arrive.  The Board of Trustees deemed in mid-August that the school’s finances did not warrant keeping the school open.  The chances were too great in their view that they might start the year and have to close down in mid-year, unable to pay the bills.  That would have made it even more difficult for teachers to find new jobs and students to move to new schools.  Two and a half weeks gave very little time, but at least there is some.

There are short-term reasons and long-term reasons that led to the school’s demise.  First the short-term:

  • Declining enrollment which meant declining income.
  • The sale of the campus to the Town of Clarkstown in early 2018 didn’t save as much money and help finances as expected.
  • Negotiations with the Town for more favorable lease terms failed.
  • A number of students who were supposed to attend in 2019-20, pulled out at the last minute, lowering enrollment revenue even further. Some sources indicated that many were international students who presumably (based on country of origin) were making significant tuition payments, but some local parents concerned because of the May announcement also found alternatives.
  • Efforts to raise funds in the 11th hour from alumni, local businesses, by attracting new students, or to get Clarkstown to reconsider the lease amount were all unsuccessful. Although that May letter had gone out, the reassurance made in June made the board reluctant to send out appeals for donations in any kind of a panic “save RCDS from dying” mode.  And so it has come to an end.

The long-term reasons require a longer explanation.  They are far more complex.  They are also just one person’s analysis.  But this one person has talked to a number of people, has a mind good enough to get into RCDS, Cornell and Mensa, and brings some professional skills to the table.

Hollywood, or more precisely Hollywood becoming more and more the center of the entertainment industry compared to New York City:  Yes, there is still Broadway theater and there are a few studios in NYC, but in general the stars of Broadway don’t have the same celebrity status they had 50-60 years ago.  The exceptions tend to be those who are on hiatus from filmmaking.  Lesser box office appeal would tend to translate to less relative income, meaning less ability to live in the suburbs and send their children to an expensive private school.

Gentrification of New York City: After years of flight from the city, it started to become the in place to be again.  Converted industrial building lofts in Soho and Tribeca became trendy.  As one indicator of how demand changed, a brownstone in a depressed neighborhood like Fort Greene that sold for $20,000 in the mid-1970’s couldn’t be touched for under a million dollars 20-25 years later.  As bus and rail service and transportation terminals became more crowded and dilapidated, the commute became more dreaded than urban life, especially as New York City started to get cleaned up and revitalized.  Stockbrokers, ad executives, publishing executives, college professors and others who had been part of the professional group that supported RCDS were leaving the county in reverse migration.  The supportive community was shrinking and becoming less close-knit.

Demographics: Who moved in to replace the people who moved out?  The population of Rockland County has increased in every census, except for the 1920 census.  While growth was heaviest in the 1950’s and 60’s, there are about 100,000 more people living in Rockland now that the nearly 230,000 counted in the 1970 census (the year I graduated high school).  While much of Rockland was still rural before the completion of the Tappan Zee Bridge and the Palisades Parkway to link the county by limited access road to the George Washington Bridge, it is now the third most densely populated county in New York State outside of New York City (behind Nassau and Westchester).

Ramapo HS (NY)

One group that has moved in heavily is the Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish population.  6.3% of Rockland households speak either Yiddish or Hebrew at home.  31.4% (~90,000 households) of the county’s population is Jewish, many of them school age children, making them the largest per capita Jewish county in the United States.  At one time, the Jewish population was well represented at RCDS.  At least 12 of my graduating class of 30 identified as Jewish.  But the large Jewish population now has given rise to a large number of Yeshivas.  This is where many Jewish students now go to school.  East Ramapo Central School District is one of only three school districts in the United States where more students go to private school than public schools.  While some go to Catholic schools or nonsectarian schools, this is true throughout Rockland.  The difference in East Ramapo is the large number of Yeshivas.  This is a large group of students who are not candidates to go to RCDS.

Another group that is heavily represented in Rockland is those who are in the public service sector, mainly police officers and firefighters.  There are always exceptions, but generally their children are more likely to go to public schools.  The Hispanic and Haitian residents of the county also generally go to public schools.  13.2% of the county’s households speak Spanish, French Creole or French at home.

There is still a large group of students who would have been possible candidates for RCDS.  But on a percentage basis, it is probably smaller than when the school was founded.  There is also a trend towards more prestigious colleges (while small liberal arts colleges are declining) and in turn more prestigious prep schools.  Many parents and students are looking for the route to becoming Wall Street wizards, real estate tycoons and other power brokers.  A well-rounded education starting in high school doesn’t cut it.  This may be another reason so many local students in the lower grades didn’t continue on to high school and graduation.  And there is another trend that is affecting the candidate pool for the school. It will be discussed in the next post.

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; – Ecclesiastes 3:2

God bless,

Lois

Dear Ms. Caitlyn Jenner

17 Thursday Mar 2016

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

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

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
    • Key Bible Verses
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Recent Posts

  • 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
  • And Now For Something Completely Different … – Part V December 26, 2017
  • Lois Simmons: Evangelical Transgender Woman December 8, 2017
  • Tribute to Vin Scully – Part V November 30, 2017
  • And Now For Something Completely Different … – Part IV November 28, 2017
  • Tribute to Vin Scully – Part IV November 23, 2017

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