Issue link: https://trevordayschool.uberflip.com/i/1529130
1 "Progressive" was seen so negatively that The Day School was careful never to use that term when describing itself, even though it arguably embodied most of the ideals of that movement. 1 "extend what we do at The Day School and implement our program at the high school level." To provide some context, NWL was a merger of two of the best- known progressive Manhattan schools: Walden and New Lincoln. These schools had roots back to the educational ideas of John Dewey. In the Reagan era, however, the idea of "progressive" schools had fallen upon hard times. 1 Faced with declining enrollments, in 1988, the two schools had merged, hoping that by monetizing their real estate assets, they could raise enough capital to reestablish their brand over the next three to five years. The stock market collapse of 1988 shattered that plan. In October of 1990, the school was in deep trouble, to the point where without some kind of outside financial support, their roughly 100,000-square-foot facility at 1 West 88th street would most likely cease to house a school in the spring of 1991. Cynthia described her vision of this opportunity not as a merger, but rather that TDS would provide NWL with the resources to continue through the current school year, and in return we could Acquiring the West Side campus meant TDS could house grades 6–12; the elementary grades could then use the former Upper School spaces to increase their student populations. It was an exciting idea, but even in that first meeting many obstacles were raised and discussed. To begin with, TDS was already in the midst of a complex real estate deal: the acquisition and renovation of 11 East 89th Street, which was slated to house the Early Childhood program. This was partly funded by TDS' selling its building on 91st Street to the Jewish Museum, but it was going to cost around $1.75 million to turn that building into an early childhood school. Acquiring NWL's assets and building a new high school would have to happen alongside the 89th Street process, and it was clear from the outset that it was a daunting challenge. First was the question of finding enough students. We could not expect more than a few of our existing 8th graders to stay on for a new and untested program, and keeping existing NWL students would be difficult. Not surprisingly, morale at NWL was poor and the sense was that many families had already decided to leave. There were also potential legal problems regarding NWL faculty and staff. We couldn't simply assume that we would want to employ all their existing employees, but mass layoffs would also be problematic. TDS could be seen negatively in the NYC independent school marketplace if the NWL community felt it was being mistreated. Looming over all of this was the question of how we could afford this. TDS was producing a small operating surplus in the 1990–91 school year, but it didn't have a large endowment available. The NWL building had great potential value, but it wasn't configured to meet our needs, and would need significant renovation before we could open. Given these uncertainties, a more conservative fiduciary body might well have decided that the risk outweighed the benefits. But that wasn't what happened. TREVOR DAY SCHOOL / 81