Would you pull your kids if you found out something offensive in your school's history?

[Anonymous]

Just like the question says. Not in the DMV anymore, but we learned something distasteful about the kids' school. They love it and are doing well, but apparently this information is well-known in town, and I'm worried about what it says about us.

[Anonymous]

Former segregation academy in the south?

[Anonymous]

How far back? Like Native boarding school or seg ac?

How does the school treat its history? Shameful secret or constant self-flagellation or in between?

If it was a seg ac but is now fairly diverse, I would stay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Former segregation academy in the south?

yes

[Anonymous]

Things change. None of those people are involved. I wouldn’t think twice but I also would have looked into the school my kids attend far more than you appear to have done. How did you NOT know? I typically research things before entrusting my kids to them and spending tens of thousands.

[Anonymous]

Since it’s a segregation academy and the last one of those closed in the last decade, I would be so sure it’s a completely different crop of people.

Are there Black students and staff at the school now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Since it’s a segregation academy and the last one of those closed in the last decade, I would NOT be so sure it’s a completely different crop of people.

Are there Black students and staff at the school now?

Pp to fix a critical typo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Things change. None of those people are involved. I wouldn’t think twice but I also would have looked into the school my kids attend far more than you appear to have done. How did you NOT know? I typically research things before entrusting my kids to them and spending tens of thousands.

It's the best-rated school in the area and was highly recommended by the transient crowd we hang around with (which explains why THEY didn't appear to know). Thought we couldn't go wrong.

[Anonymous]

This made me think of all the prestigious New England boarding schools with sexual abuse cases from decades ago coming out in recent years. Horrific stories uncovered by the Boston Globe. Doesn’t seem to deter families today.

[Anonymous]

Do not pull your kids out of a school they’re happy at for something that happened before they were born.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Things change. None of those people are involved. I wouldn’t think twice but I also would have looked into the school my kids attend far more than you appear to have done. How did you NOT know? I typically research things before entrusting my kids to them and spending tens of thousands.

Yeah, it’s hard to miss. Here’s the Wikipedia page for Hampton Roads Academy in Newport News: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Roads_Academy

“The school was founded in 1959, in the context of massive resistance, as a segregation academy.”[3]

“Hampton Roads Academy was founded in 1959 as a segregation academy with a student body of sixty all white students in grades seven through eleven.[3] The school's founder, Hampton physician Russell von Lehn Buxton, who became the first chairman of the Board of Trustees, explained that the school was established to avoid the "limitations and constraints imposed on the public school system."[4]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Things change. None of those people are involved. I wouldn’t think twice but I also would have looked into the school my kids attend far more than you appear to have done. How did you NOT know? I typically research things before entrusting my kids to them and spending tens of thousands.

It's the best-rated school in the area and was highly recommended by the transient crowd we hang around with (which explains why THEY didn't appear to know). Thought we couldn't go wrong.

“Best” by what metrics?

[Anonymous]

If the local public is majority black and the local private is majority white I would have a problem with that. It’s self segregation. There are towns in the US where this is the case.
Assuming your school is diverse OP and you otherwise like it, I wouldn’t pull your kids out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Things change. None of those people are involved. I wouldn’t think twice but I also would have looked into the school my kids attend far more than you appear to have done. How did you NOT know? I typically research things before entrusting my kids to them and spending tens of thousands.

It's the best-rated school in the area and was highly recommended by the transient crowd we hang around with (which explains why THEY didn't appear to know). Thought we couldn't go wrong.

“Best” by what metrics?

Graduation and college attendance rates, plus reading scores. They're abysmal in the local public schools (85% 4-year graduation rate and 30% of 3rd graders reading at grade level).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do not pull your kids out of a school they’re happy at for something that happened before they were born.

Yes.

And yes, boarding schools, by their very nature, were prone to abuses in the past (and you need to be careful about abuses in the present). This is nothing surprising either.

No reason to pull your kids out if they're happy and safe.