Manhattan Country School

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Manhattan Country School is a private coeducational PreK-8 school with its main location in Manhattan and a farm in Roxbury, New York. Founded in 1966, it is distinctive because of its multicultural and progressive educational philosophy, the diversity of its student body, its sliding scale tuition system, its incorporation of farm experiences and the activism of its students.

Manhattan Country School

Established	1966
School type	Coed, Private
Affiliation	NYSAIS, ISAAGNY
Grades	PreK-8
Head of School	Michèle Solá
Faculty
Students	190
Athletics	Soccer, basketball, track, softball, tennis
Athletic Conference	American International Private School League
Colors	Blue, White
Educational Philosophy	Progressive, Multicultural
Location	New York, NY and Roxbury, NY
Website	manhattancountryschool.org

1 History
2 Curriculum
3 Farm program
4 Tuition System
5 Student Body
6 Notable Alumni
7 Etxernal links

[edit] History

Manhattan Country School's origins are rooted in the social, ideological, and educational principles of the 1960's. Founders Gus and Marty Trowbridge were encouraged by judicial decisions in favor of equal opportunity and inspired by the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

[edit] Curriculum

[edit] Farm program

The Manhattan Country School Farm is a small working farm in the northern Catskill Mountains, located 150 miles from New York City in Roxbury, New York.

Students tend the gardens, care for the animals (chickens, cows, pigs and sheep), learn to weave, explore fields, mountains and streams, and study traditional and contemporary life in the Catskills. Farm trips emphasize human dependence on natural processes and community membersí reliance on each other. Working together to make the farm relatively self-sufficient, students learn to use farm products for food, fuel, and clothing. At the same time they examine the economies of nature, in the wild and on the farm, and determine the best measures for environmental conservation. Sharing these activities, attending daily classes, and performing household and barn chores, the students come to function as a mutually reliant community.

The daily schedule begins at 7:00 a.m. Morning and evening barn chores include egg collecting, milking, pasteurizing the milk, feeding animals and cleaning their pens. Household chores involve setting tables and cleaning up after meals, and cleaning the entire house. These jobs are rotated and every child has one or two tasks to do each day.

Morning and afternoon classes include meal planning and cooking, churning butter, baking bread, and preserving garden produce; seasonal farm work such as planting and harvesting, assisting with sheep shearing, and collecting sap to boil into maple syrup; outdoor maintenance work such as fence repair, caring for nature trails, splitting fire wood, and keeping the wood bins stocked; textiles processes such as carding, spinning, dyeing and weaving the wool from our sheep; nature field trips in the woods and fields and along the streams on the farm; hikes to scenic promontories in the Catskills and visits to other farms or places of historical interest.

A daily quiet hour is used for independent study, reading or journal writing. After-dinner activities might be an evening nature walk, a dramatic game or performance, story-reading, or an outdoor group game. Bedtime is 8:30 for younger children, later for older groups. Disregarding Farm rules such as safety, fire, bedtime and behavior guidelines can lead to suspension from a farm trip.

[edit] Tuition System

Manhattan Country School has a distinctive sliding scale tuition system that was originally known as "Tuition Reform" and is now called the "Family Financial Commitment Plan." The system was designed to eliminate the distinction between "scholarship" and "full tuition" students by encouraging all families to pay for school using a sliding scale tuition based on family income. Families of sufficient means are asked to voluntarily contribute a comparable percentage of their incomes to the percentage asked of other families. The concepts behind the plan were originally developed by Frank Roosevelt and Hugh Southern in the context of intense debates during early years of MCS. That process is described in Frank Roosevelt and Thomas Vitullo-Martin, Tuition Reform for Private Schools: The Manhattan Country School Plan .

That scale is, in part, based on the "cost per child" which is the total budget divided by the number of students (with some adjustment for grade level). "Full tuition" is equal to the cost per child. The principle behind this is that families of means should not be subsidized by annual giving or the endowment; this is in contrast to many other schools which have a "gap" that represents the difference between tuition and the actual cost of educating a child.

Each year, families receive a Family Financial Worksheet which is used to calculate their contracted fee based on household income with an adjustment for assets. Currently the highest rate for tuition is 12 percent of this adjusted figure. Families whose calculated rate yield an among higher than the cost per child are asked to pledge an amount equal to the difference between the two amounts.

[edit] Student Body

Manhattan Country School was founded with the goal of being a model racially integrated school. Today it remains well known for the diversity of its student body. There is no racial majority. According to the MCS website [1] 45% of the student body is white, 28% is African American, 19% is Hispanic/Latino and 8% is Asian American. About 22% of students define themselves as multiracial or biracial. MCS is considered the most racially and ethnically diverse independent school in New York and perhaps nationally.

Approximately 70 percent of MCS students pay less than the full "cost per child." This is among the highest percentages of students receiving financial aid at any independent school.

Enrollment typically consists of 190 students evenly divided between girls and boys.