The Dexter Southfield School is an
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
co-educational day school located in
Brookline, Massachusetts, educating students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. Dexter Southfield was founded in 1926 as the Dexter School. In 2013 the Dexter School merged with the sister school
Southfield School to form Dexter Southfield with which it had shared its campus since 1992.
Statement and School History
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History
The Dexter School was founded in 1926 in response to the closure of the Noble & Greenough Lower School and lack of educational opportunities for boys in the Brookline area. The Dexter School opened on Freeman Street in the affluent Cottage Farm neighborhood educating boys through ninth grade. The school developed a strong bond with many of Boston's leading families with ties to the leading preparatory and Ivy League schools. In 1966, Dexter sold its campus on Freeman Street and moved to its present location on Mount Walley on Newton Street on the South Brookline/Jamaica Plain line. The school bought the property from the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America who had resided on the site since 1945. The property was the former estate of Anna Sears, who had built a Mediterranean Revival Style villa on the site in 1928. As Dexter expanded, the school continued the style of the white stucco façade and red terra-cotta roof of the Sears House. Today, the original house remains the central structure on campus and houses the Senior Lounge, Business Office and Admissions Office. In preparation for the school's move in 1966, the A building, Fiske Hall, and pool and gymnasium were built to the west of the Sears House. The Thorndike Hockey rink was added to the campus in 1973. From its long tradition as a boy's lower school, Dexter has undergone a vast transformation over the last 25 years. In the 1990s, further additions were made to the campus including the construction of the Mid-Rise and original lower school building. In 1992, the Southfield School was established on the same campus to expand Dexter's educational philosophy to young girls. In 2002, the Upper School was established to enable both the Dexter and Southfield schools to continue the school's mission into the competitive secondary school market. The Clay Center was also constructed to the east of the Sears House greatly altering the school campus. The new center included a new lecture hall, dining hall and fifth floor observatory. In 2011 Mr. and Mrs. William Phinney, who had led the school since 1964, and oversaw its move and expansion, retired after 47 years at the school. In 2013, the school was rededicated as the Dexter Southfield School, after receiving formal accreditation from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) Today, Dexter Southfield students offers single-sex classrooms in Pre-K through 8 and co-education in grades 9 through 12.
Campus
The campus on the Boston-Brookline border includes buildings such as Fiske Hall and the Sears Building grace the campus. Of particular note is the Clay Center for Science and Technology which provided students with classroom opportunities as well as an astronomical observatory.
Academics
Dexter Southfield School's curriculum includes arts as painting, wood shop, choir, and much more. Beginning in Kindergarten 2, each homeroom does one public speaking event per year. Starting in sixth grade, every student takes Latin through eighth grade. When in seventh grade, each student takes Latin and a modern language. Every student in the seventh and eighth grades is required to take a language and all students take six classes in grade 8. In the high school, there are approximately fifteen AP courses offering anything from AP Physics to AP European History to AP Latin. There are also honors and normal level classes for most courses. There were many upper class electives in history, English, and science.
Athletics
The Varsity Hockey team is year after year one of the strongest in New England competing against teams like Cushing, Nobles
Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The characteri ...
, Belmont Hill, Kimball Union, and Salisbury
Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath.
Salisbury is in the southeast of ...
. Dexter's Varsity Tennis in 2012 was in NEPSAC Class A and beat teams like Phillips Andover and Phillips Exeter and advanced to the semifinals of the Class A tournament. The Varsity Hockey, Lacrosse, Tennis, Football, and Baseball teams have all had many athletes continue their careers at the Division 1 level of NCAA sports.
Upper school sport offerings
* Fall: Cross-country, football, soccer, volleyball
* Winter: hockey, squash, swimming, basketball,
* Spring: golf, crew, tennis, lacrosse, baseball, track and field
Athletic Facilities
* Dalrymple Gymnasium (squash courts)
* Kraft Fieldhouse (ice rink, basketball courts, tennis courts, weight room, athletic training facility, indoor turf, locker rooms)
* Fuller Field (soccer, lacrosse)
* Cornish Field (football, field hockey)
* Charles River Boathouse (crew)
* Southfield, Farm Field (multipurpose)
* Lincoln Pool (swimming)
* Baseball field, softball field
Notable alumni
* John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
, 35th President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
(1961–1963)
* Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Brother of John F. Kennedy, Naval aviator during World War II; killed in action
* Dmitri Nabokov
Dmitri Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: Дми́трий Влади́мирович Набо́ков; May 10, 1934February 22, 2012) was an American opera singer and translator. Born in Berlin, he was the only child of Russian parents: author Vlad ...
, son of Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bor ...
, opera singer and author
* Story Musgrave
Franklin Story Musgrave (born August 19, 1935) is an American physician and a retired NASA astronaut. He is a public speaker and consultant to both Disney's Imagineering group and Applied Minds in California. In 1996, he became only the second a ...
, Astronaut
* Ben Bradlee
Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee (, 1921 – , 2014) was an American journalist who served as managing editor, then as executive editor of ''The Washington Post'', from 1965 to 1991. He became a public figure when the ''Post'' joined ''The New Y ...
, Editor of ''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
''
* McGeorge Bundy, United States National Security Advisor
The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor (NSA),The National Security Advisor and Staff: p. 1. is a senior aide in the Executive Office of the President, based at t ...
* Gaston Caperton
William Gaston Caperton III (born February 21, 1940) is an American politician who served as the 31st Governor of West Virginia from 1989 to 1997. He was president of the College Board, which administers the nationally recognized SAT and AP te ...
, Governor of West Virginia
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
, President of the College Board
* Ernie Adams, Director of Football Operations for the New England Patriots
* David Walton, actor
* Ryan Donato, ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...
player for the San Jose Sharks
The San Jose Sharks are a professional ice hockey team based in San Jose, California. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference, and are owned by San Jose Sports & Entertainm ...
* Conor Garland
Conor Garland (born March 11, 1996) is an American professional ice hockey right winger for the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League (NHL). Garland was drafted in the fifth round (123rd overall) by the Arizona Coyotes in the 2015 NHL ...
, ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...
player for the Vancouver Canucks
The Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division (NHL), Pacific Division of the Western Conference (NHL), Western Conference, and ...
* Matthew Boldy
Matthew Boldy (born April 5, 2001) is an American professional ice hockey forward who is currently playing with the Minnesota Wild of the National Hockey League (NHL). He was drafted 12th overall by the Wild in the first round of the 2019 NHL En ...
, ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...
player for the Minnesota Wild
The Minnesota Wild are a professional ice hockey team based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The Wild competes in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference and play their home games at the Xcel Ener ...
* Jack Rathbone, ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...
player for the Vancouver Canucks
The Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division (NHL), Pacific Division of the Western Conference (NHL), Western Conference, and ...
* Joshua Baez, baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...
player in St. Louis Cardinals orginazation
References
{{authority control
1926 establishments in Massachusetts
Defunct boys' schools in the United States
Educational institutions established in 1926
Private elementary schools in Massachusetts
Private high schools in Massachusetts
Private middle schools in Massachusetts
Schools in Norfolk County, Massachusetts