And you thought baseball parents were tough to deal with

YankeeFan · May 5, 2013

The Onion couldn't come up with something as ridiculous as this:

One night last winter, more than 120 parents filed into the black-box theater at Avenues: The World School in Chelsea, to learn about what their kids were eating. Ever since the $85 million for-profit start-up opened its doors in September, food had been a divisive issue. After the first week of classes, a group of parents sent a seven-page e-mail detailing concerns: there were not enough snacks, not enough “worldly” snacks like seaweed, zucchini bread with quinoa flour and bean quesadillas (so long as the beans came from BPA-free tin cans). Unlike other New York City private schools, with their decades of institutional wisdom, Avenues was founded on the premise that its parents were partners in building a new community. So it was ready to hear them out.

In the black-box theater, Avenues’ chief administrative officer helped assure parents that their kids’ diet was sufficiently organic, local and healthful. The regional director of its food-service contractor was on hand to address any fears about carbohydrates. A doctor from Mount Sinai Hospital was ready to answer questions about allergies. A 25-page PowerPoint was presented.

Everything in the black-box theater, like the Sol LeWitt line drawing on the wall, was researched and intentionally chosen, just like all the other details at the school. That was why many of the assembled parents applied in the first place. Avenues, which was founded by the media and education entrepreneur H. Christopher Whittle; Alan Greenberg, a former publisher of Esquire magazine; and the former Yale president Benno C. Schmidt Jr., was designed to be “a new school of thought,” unencumbered by legacy. It hired seasoned teachers and brought in consultants on everything from responsive classroom training to stairwell design. Mandarin or Spanish immersion begins in nursery school; each kindergartner gets an iPad in class. Students will someday have the option of semesters in São Paulo, Beijing or any of the 20 other campuses the school plans to inaugurate around the world. The cost for all this: $43,000 a year.

In September, Avenues opened with 740 students, from pre-K to ninth grade. And with those students came 740 sets of parents, many of them determined to design the perfect 21st-century school in their own high-earning, creative-class image. They were entrepreneurs and tech millionaires, talent agents and fashion designers, Katie Holmes, hedge-fund managers and artists who refuse to live above 23rd Street. And they wanted to be heard. The school subsequently formed a parents’ association, but it had no rules. So there was a debate about who got to go to the meetings and who got to vote. Bylaws had to be created, which, in Avenues’ case, meant collecting the rules and regulations of 30 other private schools so as to determine the best way to even make bylaws. “There was nothing in place,” says Jacquie Hemmerdinger, head of the standards and values committee on the Avenues Parents Association, “and they empowered 700 parents.”

A committee was created to manage events, like galas and book fairs and bake sales, even though, as a for-profit school, Avenues couldn’t hold any events that raised money. (Did Avenues even want book fairs, some wondered? That was debated, too.) A task force was formed to investigate the safety of the neighborhood after at least one mother fretted that her child had seen the upper outlines of a homeless man’s backside en route to a playground. The complaint became known as the butt-crack e-mail. Other debates waged over the classrooms (were there enough books?); pickup (it was mayhem); identification cards (the photos were too high-resolution); and the school uniforms (was anyone enforcing the policy?). “I think we underestimated the degree of their energy and creativity,” says Gardner P. Dunnan, the former Dalton headmaster and Avenues’ academic dean and head of the Upper School. “They would take over if they could. They are New York parents.”

And then there was the food committee. After the PowerPoint presentation concluded in the black-box theater, the questions started flying: Why so much bread? What was the policy on genetically modified organisms? Why no sushi? Nancy Schulman, the head of Avenues’ Early Learning Center, who was sitting among the parents that night, has a theory about the wealthy parents of young children. Privileged parents want to control everything in their kids’ lives. When the kids go to school, the parents can’t control what happens for eight long hours; hence, food. She dutifully worked with parents to implement many of their ideas, including more education about nutrition, and more snack time.

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Baron Scicluna · May 5, 2013

It's important to remember, when looking for schools, to consider their student-to-teacher ratio, the number and variety of extracurricular activities, and their SORV. (Sushi Over Replacement Value).

LongTimeListener · May 5, 2013

More and more I realize the key to business success is not selling something reasonably priced to many people, but selling something so expensive that a few suckers assume it just HAS to be great.

Off to bottle my $200 Bathtub Wine!

Captain Obvious · May 5, 2013

What do you expect when you give rich douchebag bullies more of a role in administering a school?

Humungus · May 6, 2013

YankeeFan said:

The Onion couldn't come up with something as ridiculous as this:
Click to expand...

I actually read that the other day. I couldn't believe it either. I would say they're raising their kids in a bubble, but based on where they go to college and the company they keep afterward the ultra-rich stay in a bubble for their entire lives.

Not judging them, mind you, but it's a completely different America.

MCbamr · May 6, 2013

Baseball parents? Nothing compared to what these are: soccer parents.

Webster · May 6, 2013

Part of the Wall Street/hedge fund boom means more people with FU money are living in Manhattan. In the past, they would have lived in the suburbs. There number of multi-bedroom apartments in luxury buildings for them to live has exploded. But the number of private schools has stayed pretty constant and there is a huge excess demand.

We could never have afforded a private school and moved out before our oldest was 2 (and as a product of NYC public schools and being the son and nephew of NYC public school teachers, I never would send my kids to a private school). But all of the stories which you hear about the crazy parents, expensive schools and snooty administrators are true. I had a friend who paid $10k a year so that his 2 year old could go to school for 4 hours per week, just because they needed to be on a list for that preschool/grade school. My wife's cousin had her 18 month old meeting with an advisor to help him get into preschools.

This school appears to be like the country club which will take anyone as long as they pay an insane fee to join. The school appears to cater to the high maintenance parent and is getting what it deserves. What a nightmare.

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And you thought baseball parents were tough to deal with

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