The Ross School

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The Ross School in East Hampton, New York is the only private K-12 school in the Hamptons.

The school was founded in 1991 by Courtney and Steven J. Ross to follow the concepts of Naturalist Intelligence espoused by Howard Gardner.^[1] The school expanded as their daughter Nicole Ross advanced through the school until she graduated.^[2]

In the 2006-07, the school had 380 students enrolled in grades 5-12 on its leafy campus on Goodfriend Drive. ^[3]. Since it is in the Hamptons its alumni include children of prominent New Yorkers who have houses on the east end such as Billy Joel.

As part of the holistic approach to teaching the school offers two vegetarian meals in its cafeteria each day and bans vending machines. Students are graded unsatisfactory, satisfactory (which was added in the 2006-07 school year), proficient, or distinguished.

In September 2003 Education Update described the campus:^[4]

The school sits on 140 wooded acres in East Hampton founded by Courtney Ross Holst, whose first husband, Steve Ross, was head of Time Warner. Seeing Ross is to appreciate the truth of the cliché about the best that money can buy. The school is stunningly handsome, a new and renovated architectural wonder with interiors likely to stagger even a designer’s imagination. It also boasts—justifiably—superb high-end technology, including sophisticated projection systems, state-of-the-art pavilions, seminar rooms, smart boards, laptops for all, and knockout multimedia enhancements everywhere. Libraries abound, nothing is single or merely decorative. Classrooms recreate environments under study—the art and artifacts of a period, its textures, colors, materials, though the pervasive influence, warm and subtle earth tones, is Swedish and Asian. And would you believe a hall showing the history of art by way of vinyl reproductions done to scale?

Expansion attempts have dragged the school into the front pages of New York City area newspapers.

In 2000 the school proposed a 50-building, 600,000 square foot expansion to its 140-acre campus which would have made it one of the biggest complexes in the Hamptons. Enraged environmentalists charged the Courtney Ross was polluting the debate by paying to protest proposed expansion of the Pine Barrens protections into East Hampton.^[5]. The school eventually backed down on the expansion and in 2006 the same critics of this expansion were to applaud its "green" initiatives.

In 2006 the school was picketed by residents of New York City when city residents protested its plans to locate the Ross Global Academy, a Charter School on the Lower East Side (with residents particularly fearing that the new school would take away space for the New Explorations into Science, Technology and Math school). The protesters declined an invitation to debate the subject when asked by an Upper School ethics class. The debate was ultimately decided when the school moved to the Tweed Courthouse.

In the 2005-2006 school year, the Ross School proposed a merger deal with the competition. The Morriss Center School, formerly the Hampton Day School, was the only other K-12 school in the Hamptons. This deal came through, and now Ross's lower school resides on the former elementary-middle school campus of the Morriss Center.

In the summer of 2007 the Ross School hosted a series of five musical concerts entitled "Social @ Ross" with Prince (musician); Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds; Billy Joel; James Taylor and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The price of a ticket to the series is $15,000.^[6]

The only other non-religious associated private school in the Hamptons is the Hayground school in Bridgehampton, New York. This school teaches K-8.