School type Private Boarding, Day Head of Lower School Jeanette Tyndall | Opened 1992 Founded 1992 | |
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Motto Know Thyself in Order to Serve Established Upper School, 1991Lower School, 2006 Faculty Upper School:55 full-time, 10 part-timeLower School:20 full-time, 9 part-time Founders Courtney Sale Ross, Steven J. Ross, Stephen Jay Ross | ||
Ross School is a private school located in the Town of East Hampton, on Long Island, New York, United States. It is the only private Pre-nursery–12 school located in East Hampton. The school was founded in 1992 by Courtney Sale Ross as a day school for a small class of her daughter and several friends and named after her late husband Steven J. Ross. Its curriculum is integrated around chronological periods of cultural history. The school soon grew into a middle and high school. It began a transition into a boarding school in 2010 after Ms. Ross withdrew continual funding. A majority of the student body is predominantly international, with the highest-represented nations including Brazil, China and Russia.
Contents
Curriculum
Ross School’s curriculum is based on world cultural history and the evolution of consciousness and reflects the collaborative work of its Founding Mentors the mathematician Ralph Abraham and the cultural historian William Irwin Thompson. Academic Programs include Arts, After School, Service Learning, Advisory, Buddies, College Counseling, Midwinter Term, Tennis Academy, Boarding, Innovation Lab@ Ross Academy, Summer Term, Field Academy, World Travel Academy. The school also offers Lifelong Learning courses for the community.
Campus
Seven buildings make up the upper school campus. The High School building houses several classrooms, a library, two science labs, a large art studio and a film viewing area. The Media and Humanities Pavilion contains classrooms, performance practice rooms and sound recording studios, video production and editing studio and the sculpture and ceramics studio. A reference library, art studio, darkroom and digital photography editing studio, two science labs, and a lecture hall equipped for multimedia presentations comprise the Senior Thesis building. The Middle School houses a library, an art studio, and a science lab. The Center for Well-Being is home to the Ross Café, two gyms convertible into gathering spaces, and a meditation room. The Upper School Art Gallery has rotating exhibitions of work by students and local artists.
Ross School’s athletic facilities on the Upper School campus include the Center for Well-Being, home to indoor volleyball and basketball courts, changing rooms, a weight room and spaces for movement and meditation. There are also three athletic fields, a baseball diamond, a full size outdoor basketball court and a new Upper School field house, with locker rooms, a lounge and snack bar and a large recreation room with ping-pong tables and large screen projection. Opened in 2008, the field house sits adjacent to six year-round har-tru courts. From October to May, the courts are converted to indoor courts with a bubble.
In 2000 the school proposed a 50-building, 600,000-square-foot (56,000 m2) expansion to its 140-acre (0.57 km2) campus which would have made it one of the biggest complexes in the Hamptons. Enraged environmentalists charged that Courtney Ross was polluting the debate by paying to protest proposed expansion of the Long Island Central Pine Barrens protections into East Hampton. The school eventually backed down on the expansion and in 2006 the same critics of this expansion were to applaud its "green" initiatives.
The Lower School campus in Bridgehampton includes gardens, play areas, trails and a farm with animals. Separate building spaces for grade levels are customized with age-appropriate furnishings. The Barn Building houses an art studio called the Atelier as well as some early childhood classes. The Farm Building, built as the original house for the potato farm that was on the property, is used for specials classes. The Leonard Building is shared by kindergarten, early childhood, and grades one and two. Grades three and four are situated in the Green Building. All the buildings on the campus are connected by walkways and surrounded by grass and trees.
Summer events and programs
Each summer the school hosts an annual benefit, the Starlight Ball, which has featured Aretha Franklin, the Jonas Brothers, Martha Stewart, Cyndi Lauper and “Saturday Night Live’s” Seth Meyers. In the summer of 2007 it held its largest event: a series of five musical concerts entitled "Social @ Ross" with Prince; Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds; Billy Joel; James Taylor and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The price of a ticket to the series was $15,000.
Ross School runs a summer day camp from June through August for kids up to the age of 14. Programs for the summer of 2014 include Game Quest and Jr. Crime Investigators majors, Horseback Riding, Ceramics, Stop-Motion Animation, and Sailing. Kids can choose from more than 20 different minors to explore new topics and learn new skills. Campers enjoy all the fun of a traditional summer camp while also pursuing their passions in sports, science, the outdoors, and the arts.
Ross School offers summer programs including College Prep, english as a second language, marine science, design, mandarin immersion, mathematics, and tennis lessons.