St. George's School (Rhode Island)

Last updated

St. George's School
Stgeorgesshield.jpg
Address
St. George's School (Rhode Island)
372 Purgatory Road

Middletown
,
Rhode Island
02842

United States
Coordinates 41°29′28″N71°16′24″W / 41.49111°N 71.27333°W / 41.49111; -71.27333
Information
TypePrivate secondary, day and boarding
MottoSapientia Utriusque Vitae Lumen
("Wisdom, the light of every life.")
Denomination Episcopal
Established1896
Head of SchoolMichael Wirtz
Grades9–12
GenderCoeducational
Enrollment370
CampusSuburban
Color(s)Red, black, and white
Athletics conference Independent School League
Mascot Dragon
Rival Middlesex School
NewspaperThe Red & White
YearbookThe Lance
Website stgeorges.edu

St. George's School (nicknamed St. G's) is a private, Episcopal, co-educational day and boarding school in Middletown, Rhode Island, a suburb of Newport. The school is built on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Contents

History

Early years

Students at St. George's in 1933 St. George's School, Newport, Rhode Island. LOC gsc.5a02100.jpg
Students at St. George's in 1933

St. George's (originally Diman's School for Small Boys or Mr. Diman's School for Boys) was founded in 1896 by Episcopal minister John Diman. [1] At the time, Rhode Island did not have tax-funded high schools; the state would not require towns to maintain a public high school until 1909. [2] The school initially leased temporary grounds in Newport, but moved across the bay to a permanent campus in Middletown in 1901. [2] [3] The school was initially set up as a for-profit corporation, but became a non-profit corporation in 1903. [4]

Diman modeled his school after the English public schools. He implemented the prefect system and organized the school into six grades, called Forms I-VI in the British fashion. [3] The First and Second Forms were later discontinued in 1930 and 1966. [3]

In 1916, Diman resigned from St. George's; he formally converted to Catholicism the following year. [5] After a spell at Fort Augustus Abbey in Scotland, he returned to Rhode Island and established Portsmouth Abbey School, a Benedictine institution, in 1926. [6]

Modern times

The school began admitting black students in 1963, female day students in 1971, and female boarders in 1972. [3] [7] In 1987, girls outnumbered boys in the graduating class for the first time. [3]

In the current century, St. George's has focused on redeveloping and renovating its campus. The library was renovated in 2011. [8] A new STEM facility opened in 2015. [9] Memorial Schoolhouse was renovated in 2019–20. [10] The school is currently raising money to grow the endowment, expand student dormitories, and add new faculty housing. [11] [12]

In the 2023–24 school year, St. George's educated 377 students in grades 9–12. [13] 85% of students were boarders. [13] 33% identified as students of color, [13] and 32% received financial aid. [14] 15% of the students were international. [13]

Finances

Tuition and financial aid

In the 2023–24 school year, St. George's charged boarding students $73,850 and day students $51,275. 32% of St. George's students are on financial aid, which covers, on average, $58,000 for boarders. [14]

Endowment and expenses

In its Internal Revenue Service filings for the 2021–22 school year, St. George's reported total assets of $310.7 million, net assets of $247.4 million, investment holdings of $208.2 million, and cash holdings of $6.7 million. St. George's also reported $32.1 million in program service expenses and $5.6 million in grants (primarily student financial aid). [15]

Campus

St. George's School—Church of St. George, Little Chapel, and Memorial Schoolhouse
Memorial Schoolhouse, St George's School, Middletown.jpg
Memorial Schoolhouse (1923)
and the Church of St. George (1928)
Location372 Purgatory Road, Middletown, RI
Arealess than one acre
Built1909-28
Architect
Architectural styleTudor Revival, Late Gothic Revival
NRHP reference No. 04001235
Added to NRHPNovember 12, 2004
Old School, St. George's School, Newport Rhode Island.jpg
Old School
Diman Dormitory, St. George's School, Newport Rhode Island.jpg
Diman Dormitory

St. George's campus covers 125 acres in southern Rhode Island, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. [4] The campus was laid out by the Olmsted Brothers architectural firm. [16] In 2004, the school's core buildings were added to the National Register of Historic Places. [2] In 2018, Architectural Digest named St. George's the most beautiful private high school campus in Rhode Island. [17]

St. George's students refer to the campus as "The Hilltop," as it is located on a hill just east of Newport. [18] Outside Middletown, the school is occasionally nicknamed "St. Gorgeous" due to the school's picturesque location (and other factors). [18]

Academic facilities

Student and religious life

Athletic facilities

St. George's has ten athletic fields, two hockey rinks, three basketball courts, eight international squash courts, ten tennis courts (six outdoor, four indoor), an indoor track, and an eight-lane swimming pool.[ citation needed ]

During the summer the squash facility hosts Mark Talbott's Squash Academy, the official training center of the U.S. Squash Racquets Association. It served as the site for both the National Junior Squash Championships in 1996 and 1998, and the Men's Squash Softball Championships in February 1997.[ citation needed ]

Extracurricular activities

Athletics

St. George's is a member of the Independent School League (ISL) and the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council (NEPSAC). [24] [25] The school offers 16 sports. [26]

Although the closest ISL team to St. George's is Tabor Academy, St. George's athletics rival is Middlesex School. The schools have played football on a near-annual basis since 1902. [3]

School-at-sea program

Since 1974, St. George's has offered a school-at-sea program. [27] Currently, the program takes place in Geronimo, a 70-foot fiberglass sloop. Designed by Ted Hood and built in 1998, Geronimo has room for 8 students and 3 crewmen. [27] It hosts three six-week voyages a year, during which St. George's students are schooled in nautical science, oceanography, and marine biology. [28] [29]

2015–16 sexual abuse investigation

In April 2015, St. George's announced that it had retained a law firm to investigate reports of past sexual abuse by school faculty and staff. [30] The investigator—a partner at the law firm that was St. George's "then-regular outside counsel" [31] —released his 11-page report in December 2015. [30] [32] Several alumni criticized the report, claiming that the investigation was not truly independent. [33] Two weeks after releasing the initial report, the school agreed to commission a second investigation by law firm Foley Hoag. [34]

In September 2016, Foley Hoag released a 390-page investigation report. [31] [35] [36] It found that at least 51 students were victims of sexual misconduct by six St. George's employees; the bulk of the reports dated back to the 1970s and 1980s. [31] (The December 2015 report had mentioned 23 victims and 3 employees. [33] ) The investigators concluded that although St. George's "certainly took some concrete steps to protect students"—it fired three (and more likely four) of the six perpetrators—the school failed to timely act on reports of sexual misconduct and continued to recommend one of the perpetrators for other jobs even after firing him for sexual misconduct. [31] Finally, the report confirmed that St. George's currently has "state of the art" programs and policies to address sexual misconduct, bullying, and hazing. [31]

The investigators also highlighted an issue that was colloquially known as the "St. George's loophole": [37] according to Foley Hoag, it was legally ambiguous whether the version of Rhode Island's mandatory reporter law in place at the time required schools like St. George's to report allegations of sexual abuse to law enforcement, and the relevant government agencies had repeatedly claimed that abuse at schools were not within their jurisdiction. [31] In July 2016, the Rhode Island legislature amended the mandatory reporter statute to make it clear that the obligation to report abuse applies to "any public or private school, including boarding schools." [38] [37]

In June 2016, Rhode Island law enforcement declined to file criminal charges against the school. [37] The school reached a financial settlement with a group of former students in August 2016. [39]

Notable alumni

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Mason University</span> Public university in Fairfax, Virginia, US

George Mason University (GMU) is a public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia, in Northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C. The university is named in honor of George Mason, a Founding Father of the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint Vincent College</span> Private college in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, U.S.

Saint Vincent College is a private Benedictine college in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1846 by Boniface Wimmer, a monk from Bavaria, it is operated by the Benedictine Monks of Saint Vincent Archabbey, the first Benedictine monastery in the United States, which was also founded by Wimmer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Middletown, Rhode Island</span> Town in Rhode Island, United States

Middletown is a town in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 17,075 at the 2020 census. It lies to the south of Portsmouth and to the north of Newport on Aquidneck Island, hence the name "Middletown."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phillips Academy</span> Private boarding high school in Andover, Massachusetts, United States

Phillips Academy is a co-educational college-preparatory school for boarding and day students located in Andover, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. The academy enrolls approximately 1,150 students in grades 9 through 12, including postgraduate students. It is part of the Eight Schools Association and the Ten Schools Admissions Organization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gonzaga University</span> Private Jesuit university in Spokane, Washington, US

Gonzaga University (GU) is a private Jesuit university in Spokane, Washington. It is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. Founded in 1887 by Joseph Cataldo, an Italian-born priest and Jesuit missionary, the university is named after the young Jesuit saint Aloysius Gonzaga. The campus houses 105 buildings on 152 acres of grassland alongside the Spokane River, in a residential setting a half-mile (800 m) from downtown Spokane.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. John's University (New York City)</span> Catholic university in New York City, New York, U.S.

St. John's University is a private Catholic university in Queens, New York City. It was founded in 1870 by the Congregation of the Mission with a mission to provide the youth of New York with a Catholic university education. Originally located in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, the flagship campus was moved to its current location in the Queens borough during the 1950s. St. John's has an additional New York City campus in Manhattan. The university’s Staten Island campus closed in May of 2024. Additionally, the university has international campuses located in Rome, Italy, Paris, France, and Limerick, Ireland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. Paul's School (New Hampshire)</span> College-preparatory high school in New Hampshire, USA

St. Paul's School is a college-preparatory, coeducational boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire, affiliated with the Episcopal Church. The school's 2,000-acre (8.1 km2), or 3.125 square mile, campus serves 540 students, who come from 37 states and 28 countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhode Island School of Design</span> Art and design college in Rhode Island, US

The Rhode Island School of Design is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the accessibility of design education to women. Today, RISD offers bachelor's and master's degree programs across 19 majors and enrolls approximately 2,000 undergraduate and 500 graduate students. The Rhode Island School of Design Museum—which houses the school's art and design collections—is one of the largest college art museums in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kent School</span> Private boarding school in Kent, Connecticut

Kent School is a private, coeducational, college preparatory boarding school in Kent, Connecticut, established by Frederick Herbert Sill in 1906. It is affiliated with the Episcopal Church of the United States. It has a long history as an "elite school, not a school for elites," and innovated the sliding-scale tuition model in the early 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hopkins School</span> Private, day school in New Haven, Connecticut, United States

Hopkins School is a private, college-preparatory, coeducational, day school for grades 7–12 located in New Haven, Connecticut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salesian College Preparatory</span> School in Richmond, California, United States

Salesian College Preparatory is a private, Roman Catholic, co-educational, college-preparatory high school in Richmond, California, United States. Established in 1927, it is part of the Salesians of Don Bosco and is located in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University School</span> Private, day, college-prep school in Shaker Heights and Hunting Valley, Ohio, United States

University School, commonly referred to as US, is an all-boys, private, Junior Kindergarten–12 school with two campus locations in the Greater Cleveland area of Ohio. The campus located in Shaker Heights serves junior kindergarten through eighth grade students, while the campus in Hunting Valley serves ninth through twelfth grade students.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deerfield Academy</span> Independent, boarding and day school in Deerfield, Massachusetts, United States

Deerfield Academy is an independent college-preparatory boarding and day school in Deerfield, Massachusetts. Founded in 1797, it is one of the oldest secondary schools in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Choate Rosemary Hall</span> School in Wallingford, Connecticut, United States

Choate Rosemary Hall is a private, co-educational, college-preparatory boarding school in Wallingford, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1890, it took its present name and began a co-educational system with the 1978 merger of The Choate School for boys and Rosemary Hall for girls. It is part of the Eight Schools Association and the Ten Schools Admissions Organization.

William Philip Robinson III is an American lawyer, academic, and jurist serving as an associate justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Rhode Island</span> Public university in Kingston, Rhode Island, U.S.

The University of Rhode Island (URI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Kingston, Rhode Island, United States. It is the flagship public research as well as the land-grant university of Rhode Island. The university is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity". As of 2019, the URI enrolled 14,653 undergraduate students, 1,982 graduate students, and 1,339 non-degree students, making it the largest university in the state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis Edward Gelineau</span> North American Christian leader

Louis Edward Gélineau is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, serving as bishop of the Diocese of Providence from 1972 to 1997.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Middlesex School</span> School in Concord, Massachusetts, United States

Middlesex School is a coeducational, independent, and non-sectarian boarding secondary school located in Concord, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. Founded in 1901 to educate the children of wealthy Boston Brahmin families, Middlesex introduced a national scholarship program in 1935 and currently educates 420 students from 32 U.S. states and 20 countries.

Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School is a public vocational high school located in Fall River, Massachusetts. The high school serves a regional school district comprising the city of Fall River, and the surrounding towns of Somerset, Swansea and Westport. The school has an enrollment of over 1,400 students and offers vocational-technical education in 18 different programs.

Roderick "Eric" MacLeish is a lawyer known for representing hundreds of sexual abuse victims in the Boston area during the Catholic priest sexual abuse scandal while he was a Boston-based partner of Greenberg Traurig, a Miami-based law firm. His clients included those abused by Paul Shanley.

References

  1. ↑ "Education: Father Diman". Time. June 3, 1946. ISSN   0040-781X . Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form". National Park Service. November 12, 2004. Retrieved April 16, 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "125 Interesting Tidbits about SG". St. George's School. Retrieved April 17, 2024– via Issuu.
  4. 1 2 "Founding Vision". St. George's School. Retrieved April 17, 2024– via Issuu.
  5. ↑ MacGuire, James P. (2017). Real Lace Revisited: Inside the Hidden World of America's Irish Aristocracy. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press. p. 52.
  6. ↑ "Fr. Hugh Diman: 1863-1949". Portsmouth Abbey Monastery. Retrieved April 16, 2024.
  7. ↑ Wallace, Benjamin (July 8, 2016). "How St. George's Atonement for Its Sex-Abuse Scandals Turned Ugly". Vanity Fair . Retrieved May 20, 2020.
  8. 1 2 "Library & Archives". St. George's School. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  9. 1 2 "Academic Center". St. George's School. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  10. 1 2 "Memorial Schoolhouse". St. George's School. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 "St. George's School Campus Plan". St. George's School Campus Plan. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  12. ↑ "Our Horizon: The Campaign for St. George's". St. George's School. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  13. 1 2 3 4 "About". St. George's School. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  14. 1 2 "Tuition and Financial Aid". St. George's School. Archived from the original on January 25, 2024. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  15. ↑ "St Georges School, Full Filing - Nonprofit Explorer". ProPublica. May 9, 2013. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  16. ↑ "Olmsted Associates: A Register of Its Records in the Library of Congress" (PDF). Library of Congress. September 22, 2004. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  17. ↑ Huber, Hannah (March 29, 2018). "The Most Beautiful Private High School in Every State in America". Architectural Digest . Archived from the original on October 18, 2023. Retrieved February 25, 2024.
  18. 1 2 3 Wallace, Benjamin (August 2016). "St. George's Hidden Dragons". Vanity Fair. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  19. ↑ http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/nyhs/mckim/dscref12.html Folder FF21
  20. ↑ Belmore, Ryan (September 8, 2015). "New Academic Center Provides Green Learning Opportunities at St. George's School". What's Up Newp. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  21. ↑ "Richard Grosvenor". Arnold Art Store & Gallery. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  22. ↑ "Center for the Arts". St. George's School. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  23. ↑ "Old School". St. George's School. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  24. ↑ "Independent School League". Independent School League. Retrieved January 24, 2015.
  25. ↑ "Member Schools – NEPSAC". New England Preparatory School Athletic Council. Retrieved January 24, 2015.
  26. ↑ "Athletics". St. George's School. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  27. 1 2 "About the Vessel". St. George's School. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  28. ↑ "St. Georges School: Geronimo". St. George's School. Retrieved January 24, 2015.
  29. ↑ "Vessel Details – Geronimo". Sailing Ship Adventures. Retrieved January 24, 2015.
  30. 1 2 "Letter to Alumni" (PDF). St. George's School. December 23, 2015. Retrieved April 16, 2024.
  31. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Murphy, Martin F. (September 1, 2016). "Sexual Abuse at St. George's School and the School's Response: 1970 to 2015" (PDF). Foley Hoag LLP. Retrieved April 16, 2024.
  32. ↑ "Sex abuse scandal rocks exclusive prep school St. George's - CBS News". www.cbsnews.com. January 21, 2016. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  33. 1 2 Seelye, Katharine Q. (December 24, 2015). "Rhode Island Prep School Expresses 'Sorrow and Shame' Over Sexual Abuse". The New York Times. Retrieved April 16, 2024.
  34. ↑ Seelye, Katharine Q. (January 7, 2016). "St. George's School Agrees to Inquiry Into Sexual Abuse". The New York Times. Retrieved April 16, 2024.
  35. ↑ Perez-Pena, Richard (September 1, 2016). "'Private Hell': Prep School Sex Abuse Inquiry Paints Grim Picture". The New York Times. Retrieved April 16, 2024.
  36. ↑ Redden, Molly (September 1, 2016). "One in five girls at St George's school in 1970s sexually abused by trainer: report". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved May 20, 2020.
  37. 1 2 3 Harrison, Elisabeth (July 7, 2016). "Governor Signs Bill Closing 'St. George's Loophole'". TPR: The Public's Radio. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  38. ↑ "R.I. Gen. Laws § 40-11-2". webserver.rilin.state.ri.us. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  39. ↑ "Ex-Students of St. George's School Reach Pact on Sex Abuse Accusations". The New York Times. August 3, 2016. Retrieved April 16, 2024.
  40. ↑ "Brown to appear in Fred Durst's directorial debut". The Brown Daily Herald. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  41. ↑ Vaillancourt, William; Bolies, Corbin (March 30, 2024). "Tucker Broke the Rules in Zoom Appearance, Ex-School Claims". The Daily Beast. Retrieved April 17, 2024.
  42. ↑ Koch, Bill. "Cumberland native Tyler Kolek a perfect fit for Marquette University". The Providence Journal. Retrieved January 2, 2024.
  43. ↑ "Marquette Earns Player, Coach of the Year Honors". www.bigeast.com. March 8, 2023. Retrieved January 2, 2024.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.