THE DALTON SCHOOL

'The Dalton School', originally called the 'Children's University School',^[1] is a private university-preparatory school in New York City and a member of the Ivy Preparatory School League. The school is located in three buildings, all in Manhattan: the Middle and High Schools for grades 4-12 are located at 108 East 89th Street; this building is referred to as simply "The Dalton School" or "Big Dalton." Grades K-3 are taught at a different building on 53 East 91st Street; this area is known as "The First Program" or "Little Dalton." The primary center for physical education and sports facilities is the Physical Education Center at 200 East 87th Street.

Contents

The Dalton Plan

History

Recognition

College placement

Admission

Dalton School buildings

Co-curricular activities and athletics

Notable alumni of the Dalton School

Notable parents of Daltonians

Depictions in pop culture

Notes and references

External links

The Dalton Plan

Inspired by the intellectual ferment at the turn of the century, educational thinkers, such as John Dewey, began to envision a new, progressive, American approach to education. Helen Parkhurst caught the spirit of change and created the Dalton Plan. Aiming to achieve a balance between each child's talents and the needs of the growing American community, Helen Parkhurst created an educational model that captured the progressive spirit of the age. Specifically, she had these objectives: to tailor each student's program to his or her needs, interests, and abilities; to promote both independence and dependability; and to enhance the student's social skills and sense of responsibility toward others. Parkhurst developed a three-part plan that continues to be the structural foundation of a Dalton education: House, Assignment, and Lab.

History

The Dalton School, originally called the Children's University School, was founded by Helen Parkhurst in 1919. It was a time marked by educational reform. Philosophers, teachers, and child psychologists identified as "progressives" began to question the conventional wisdom of the day which held that education was a process of drill and memorization and that the only way to teach was to regiment children in classrooms. Their natural instincts to play, to move, to talk, and to inquire freely were suppressed.
Progressive educators believed that the development of the whole child is of primary importance; that children are social beings and that schools should be communities where they can learn to live with others; that these communities should devote themselves to the total enrichment of mind, body, and spirit.
After experimentation in her own one-room school with Maria Montessori, Helen Parkhurst visited other progressive schools in Europe including Bedales School and its founder and headmaster John Haden Badley in England. She developed what she termed, the ''Dalton Plan'' which called for teachers and students to work together toward individualized goals. The ''Laboratory Plan'' was first put into effect as an experiment in the High School of Dalton, Massachusetts, in 1916. The estate of her benefactor Mrs. W. Murray Crane was also near Dalton and from this beginning, the ''Laboratory Plan'' and school eventually took their names.
In 1919, Helen Parkhurst relocated to New York City, where she opened her first school on West 74th Street. Larger facilities soon became necessary; the Lower School was moved to West 72nd Street, and the High School opened in the autumn of 1929 in the current building at 108 East 89th Street. Eleanor Roosevelt admired the work of Helen Parkhurst and played an important role in expanding the population and resources of the school by promoting a merger between the Todhunter School for girls (founded by Winifred Todhunter) and Dalton in 1939.
Enlarged and modified through the years, Dalton still celebrates many of the school-wide traditions begun by Helen Parkhurst, including the Candle Lighting Ceremony, Greek Festival,
and Arch Day.

Recognition

Over the years, Dalton has gained international recognition for its academic excellence. Schools in The Netherlands, Australia, England, Korea, The Czech Republic, Taiwan, and Chile have adopted the Dalton Plan. Today, there are three schools founded on the Dalton Plan in Japan. Leading educators from public and private schools and universities, from the United States and abroad, visit Dalton to observe its system of education and to learn more about the school's recognized achievements in the area of technology.
The Dalton School has always been known for its promotion of and strength in the arts, particularly the visual arts, dance and theater. The arts are highly regarded and students are encouraged to pursue their interests in addition to the demanding academic curriculum.

College placement

Dalton ranks fifth on
the ''Worth'' magazine ranking of graduates matriculating to attend Harvard, Princeton, or Yale.
The school ranks as the eighth most successful secondary school in the nation of graduates going on to attend
ten very selective colleges.

★ 1. University of Pennsylvania (32)

★ 2. Harvard University (23)

★ 3. Yale University (22)

★ 4. Brown University (18)

★ 5. Cornell University (18)

★ 6. Northwestern University (18)

★ 7. Wesleyan University (18)

★ 8. Amherst College (17)

★ 9. Columbia University (17)

★ 10. Princeton University (16)

Admission

Admission to the Dalton School for Kindergarten to third grade is based on school records, ERB testing, and interview. For grades 4–12 admission is based on school records, writing samples, an interview, and standardized testing (Dalton accepts the ISEE test as well as the SSAT test). Candidates receive notification of acceptance, rejection, or wait list in February.
In recent years, the parental anxiety created by the highly competitive admission process has been the subject of repeated press coverage.^[2][3][4]

Dalton School buildings

The school offers education from kindergarten through the 12th grade. The building at 108 East 89th Street, nicknamed "Big Dalton", contains grades 4-12, as well as a theater, music and art studios, and administrative space. A separate building, nicknamed "Little Dalton", on 91st Street between Park Avenue and Madison Avenue, has classroom space for the kindergarten and first three grades. Another building, at 87th Street and Third Avenue, contains two gyms and other areas for physical education, including a weight training room and an aerobics room.

Co-curricular activities and athletics

The Dalton School is a part of the Ivy Preparatory School League in athletics. Some teams, such as varsity football, participate in different athletic conferences.
Dalton offers 23 varsity teams and nine junior varsity teams in the high school athletics program. The school colors are white and blue, with Carolina blue highlights and the team name is the Tigers.
Dalton's cross-country team came in third place in the Ivy Preparatory League in 2006, and finished in fourth place in the NYSAIS[1] Championships. Recently, students have founded the "Cool Runnings Track Club" to help motivate runners of all abilities and to welcome athletes displaced from the recent cancellation of the school's winter track team.
The Dalton School is home to one of the top Model United Nations (MUN) teams in the country. The team attends college conferences every year, including those at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, Princeton University, and Johns Hopkins University. In 2006-2007 Dalton completed an undefeated MUN season, including best delegation awards at all of the above conferences which it attended. The team's undefeated streak dates from the 2005-2006 school year. Dalton also hosts its own conference, DMUNC.
Dalton is also home to a Model Congress team. Though the size of the club is still fairly limited, it recently won eight awards at the Harvard Model Congress conference. In the past, Dalton has also attended conferences at Yale and Columbia.
The school fields a nationally ranked computer science team which frequently places in top five in the ACSL All-Star contest. In 2005, the team won first place in the Senior-3 division.
Dalton has established itself as a force to be reckoned with in the Science Olympiad competition. Although the club is only three years old, it has qualified for the State competition twice already. At the Regional competition, the team has always placed in the top 15 teams, with Dalton students sweeping awards from almost every category they competed in.
During the years that Josh Waitzkin was a student at Dalton, he led the school to win six national chess championsips. The chess team is coached by David MacEnulty whose story as a chess teacher in a Bronx public school was made into a TV movie called ''Knights of the South Bronx''. David MacEnulty also spent part of August 2007 offering free workshops for South African chess teachers at the MTN Sciencentre in Cape Town. [[2]]
The Dalton Ujima Club has now raised over fifty thousand dollars to send children in Kenya to high school on scholarship, and they have enrolled more than thirty children in school there.
Dalton students also publish a political magazine, ''Realpolitik''.
Dalton has many other clubs, including affinity groups, language clubs, sports clubs, and various special interest clubs. A full list can be found here.

Notable alumni of the Dalton School

★ Brooke Adams (actress)

★ Miles Chapin

★ Chevy Chase

★ Anderson Cooper

★ Claire Danes

★ Samuel R. Delany

★ Maxim Dlugy

★ Jane Elliot

★ Noah Emmerich

★ Edgar de Evia

★ Mark Feuerstein

★ Frances FitzGerald

★ Barrett Foa

★ Helen Frankenthaler

★ Jordan Galland

★ Alexis Glick

★ Jennifer Grey

★ Jefferson Y. Han

★ Nicholas Kazan

★ Steve Lemme

★ Sean Lennon

★ Peter Lieberson

★ Mary Stuart Masterson

★ Jennifer O'Neill

★ Perri Peltz

★ Tracy Pollan

★ Simon Rich

★ J. Michael Riva

★ Tracee Ellis Ross

★ Melissa Russo

★ Eric Schlosser

★ Allen Shawn

★ Wallace Shawn

★ Pete Seeger

★ Marian Seldes

★ Christian Slater

★ Kristoffer Tabori

★ Penelope Tree

★ Josh Waitzkin

★ Matt Yglesias

Notable parents of Daltonians

★ Floyd Abrams

★ Samuel W. Alderson

★ Eric Asimov

★ Richard Avedon

★ George Axelrod

★ David Barrett

★ Saul Bellow

★ Henri Bendel

★ Carl Bernstein

★ Alan Brinkley

★ Tom Brokaw

★ Heywood Hale Broun

★ Schuyler Chapin

★ Chuck Close

★ Misha Dichter

★ Nora Ephron

★ Mia Farrow

★ Michael J. Fox

★ Al Franken

★ Klaus Fuchs

★ Mark Goodson

★ Adam Gopnik

★ Judd Hirsch

★ Dustin Hoffman

★ A.E. Hotchner

★ Jacob Javits

★ Jamal Joseph

★ William Kapell

★ Elia Kazan

★ Jane Kean

★ Barbara Kopple

★ Ralph Lauren

★ Al Leiter

★ John Lennon

★ Goddard Lieberson

★ Viveca Lindfors

★ Robert Lowell

★ Sidney Lumet

★ Richard Maltby, Jr.

★ Brice Marden

★ Richard Meier

★ Louis Menand

★ Mitch Miller

★ Robert Motherwell

★ Rupert Murdoch

★ Yoko Ono

★ Michael Oppenheimer

★ Alfred Portale

★ Nelson Peltz

★ Richard Ravitch

★ Robert Redford

★ Richard Revesz

★ Frank Rich

★ Maria Riva

★ Al Roker

★ Diana Ross

★ Mark Rothko

★ Neil Sedaka

★ Charles Seeger

★ William Shawn

★ Neil Simon

★ Wesley Snipes

★ Leslie Stahl

★ Frank Stella

★ Isaac Stern

★ John Stossel

★ George Tabori

★ Marietta Peabody Tree

★ Gloria Vanderbilt

★ Barbara Walters

★ Bruce Wasserstein

★ Anna Wintour

★ Teresa Wright

★ Peter Yarrow

★ Rafael Yglesias

Depictions in pop culture

★ In ''Manhattan'', the character played by Woody Allen is dating a 17-year old (Mariel Hemingway) who attends Dalton.

★ The Dalton School sued Woody Allen for the implied pedophilia in this film. Wallace Shawn who was in the same class at Dalton as Chevy Chase plays a clothing salesman in the film. Both of those classmates graduated from Dalton Elementary in 1957.

★ In ''Coming Soon'', the main character attends a school called "Halton" that is obviously based on Dalton.

★ Short-lived MTV reality show ''Rich Girls'' originally depicted Dalton's facade in its opening credits.

★ In the television show ''Will & Grace'', in an episode in which the two titular characters attempt to conceive a child, Will tells Grace that their child is "already on the waiting list for Dalton."

★ Both ''D.E.B.S.'' and the film version of ''American Psycho'' contain the line, "Did you go to Dalton?"

★ In the movie ''Baby Boom'', Diane Keaton overhears a few young mothers worrying about whether or not their children will be admitted to Dalton.

★ In the movie ''Searching for Bobby Fischer'', the main character attends Dalton as he did in real life.

★ On the show ''Sex and the City'', while at a wedding, the main character, Carrie, points out the bride's classmates from Dalton.

★ In the film version of ''The Devil Wears Prada'', editor Miranda Priestly's twin daughters attend Dalton.

Notes and references

1. http://www.nndb.com/edu/696/000080456/
2. Failing at Four
3. Survivor:The Manhattan Kindergarten
4. It's Preschool Daze For Parents

External links

★ The Dalton School website

★ The Daltonian's website

★ The Dalton Schools of Japan

★ Prep School USA. "2003 High School Rankings," citing the Sept. 2002 ''Worth'' magazine article entitled "Getting Inside the Ivy Gates," by Reshma Memon Yaqub.