Looking at Westminster School and Ethel Walker for the 2022/23 school year. My child leans more conservative on the political spectrum (as political as a teen can be anyway). Most of the english classes in her current school focus more on social issues then on language arts, she doesn’t love this aspect of her classes because her teachers tend to spend most of the class time talking about how they feel about things politically going on. My child feels as though she cannot participate as much as she’d like for fear of being “bullied” by teachers or other students based on comments they’ve made in class.
Does anyone know if Westy and/or Walkers would have campuses with teachers who do not all seem bias to certain issues? Perhaps an English course that focuses more on English than social issues.
This is all completely anecdotal, but I would guess she would find that at both schools. My daughter is an applicant for this year and while she didn’t end up applying to either Westminster or EWS, I followed them closely until she made her decision. Both have been truly apolitical in all their communications, including social media, which is a big difference from other local schools such as MPS. That being said, we know a lot of families at both schools and finding conservative peers might be more difficult for her if that’s a priority. Have you looked at Suffield? It might be a better fit?
Thanks for the input! Yes, we avoided MPS because they seemed very liberal and it turned her off. We have not considered Suffield but will look into it. Thank You!
You should also look at Canterbury School in New Milford. Our son goes there and loves it plus they just built a beautiful new multi purpose student center. The teachers are dedicated and the students are accepted to some of the very best universities. The headmaster is very well regarded as she came from Blair. Their Covid protocols were outstanding and they were able to maintain in class teaching with no outbreaks unlike many other schools right up until Thanksgiving. The last two weeks were online before the Christmas break. Our son also leans conservative but has no issues navigating the courses and any left leaning teachers. The overall culture is balanced and there are plenty of students that lean conservative and plenty that don’t. Everyone gets along.
Good choice. I sent my dd to MPS in 2020-21 and deeply regretted it. Academics were sub par and focus was mostly on an extreme progressive agenda intolerant of any other view point. We pulled our kid out and she is now thriving at our local public school, which is academically far more challenging the MPS was.