Ross School (East Hampton, New York)
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Ross School is a private Nursery-Grade12 school located on two campuses on
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—a 63 acre Upper School campus for Grades 6-12 in the Town of East Hampton, and a Lower School campus for N-Grade 5 in the Town of Bridgehampton. Named after her late husband Steven J. Ross, the school was founded in 1991 by Courtney Sale Ross as a girls-only day school for their daughter Nicole and several of her friends. The original pre-nursery program was discontinued in September 2020. Ross School transitioned to a co-ed boarding school in 2002 after its founder discontinued private funding. Students in grades 7-12 may board five days per week or full-time. The school has supplemented its budget by catering breakfast and lunch from its café to the Bridgehampton School and offering culinary arts and landscaping classes to
East Hampton High School East Hampton High School is a high school in East Hampton, Suffolk County, New York, United States. Located on the east end of Long Island, the school is the easternmost high school in New York State. It is part of the East Hampton Union Free ...
students. A majority of the student body is international, with the highest-represented nations including Brazil, China, Japan, and Mexico.


Curriculum

Ross School's curriculum is based on world cultural history and the evolution of consciousness and reflects the collaborative work of its founding mentors, mathematician Ralph Abraham and cultural historian William Irwin Thompson. Cultural history is integrated with other academic subjects, such as language arts, math, and science, at every grade level. Field Academy takes place during a three-week period between the school's winter and spring terms. Students and teachers travel and work on intensive projects and courses covering an array of subjects at home and across the world. Since August 2016, a 20" Meade RCX 400 telescope of the Hamptons Observatory (formerly Montauk Observatory) has been housed at the Ross School, where students and stargazers gather for viewing and free astronomy lectures.


Campus

In 2018, the school closed its five-building Lower School location in Bridgehampton and moved the early childhood and elementary grades to the Upper School campus in East Hampton. In 2000, the school proposed a 50-building, expansion to its campus which would have made it one of the biggest complexes in the Hamptons. Environmentalists said that Courtney Ross was polluting the debate by paying to protest proposed expansion of the
Long Island Central Pine Barrens The Long Island Central Pine Barrens (also known as the Long Island Pine Barrens) is a large area of publicly protected pine barrens in Suffolk County, New York, on Long Island, covering more than . Overview The Barrens operates similarly to ...
protections into East Hampton. The school eventually backed down on the expansion.


COVID-19 Impact and Response

In response to a surge in applications during the summer of 2020 and spacing mandates related to COVID-19, Ross School reopened its Bridgehampton, NY campus. The Bridgehampton campus was listed for sale after the school moved its lower school program to its East Hampton campus, where its middle and high school grades are situated. The rise in enrollment was part of a trend seen across the East End as families from New York City moved east in pursuit of full-time, in-person schooling. Ross School operated on campus for the entirety of the 2020–21 school year, due in part to the extensive facilities on both campuses which allowed for maximum social distancing.


Summer events and programs

The Ross School hosts an annual fundraising event in June which has featured
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Cyndi Lauper Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper ( ; born June 22, 1953) is an American singer, songwriter and actress. Known for her distinctive image, featuring a variety of hair colors and eccentric clothing, and for her powerful four-octave vocal range;Jerome, ...
and
Seth Meyers Seth Adam Meyers (born December 28, 1973) is an American comedian, television host, writer, actor, and producer. He hosts ''Late Night with Seth Meyers'', a late-night talk show on NBC. Prior to hosting Late Night, he was a cast member on NBC's ...
. The largest event to date was held in 2007: a series of five musical concerts entitled "Social @ Ross" with
Prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...
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Tim Reynolds Tim Reynolds (born 15 December 1957) is an American guitarist and multi-instrumentalist known as both a solo artist and as lead guitarist for the Dave Matthews Band. AllMusic critic MacKenzie Wilson has called Reynolds "an under-rated master". ...
;
Billy Joel William Martin Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Piano Man" after his Signature song, signature 1973 song Piano Man (song), of the same name, Joel has ha ...
;
James Taylor James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A six-time Grammy Award winner, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. Taylor achieved his breakthrough in 1970 with the single "Fi ...
and
Tom Petty Thomas Earl Petty (October 20, 1950October 2, 2017) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. He was the leader and frontman of the Rock music, rock bands Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Mudcrutch and a member of the late 1980s sup ...
and the Heartbreakers. The price of a ticket to the series was $15,000. Ross Summer Term offers summer courses for middle and high school students. They can earn academic credits in ESOL, STEAM, Math, English, and Cultural History and or enroll in enrichment courses and tutoring services in different subjects including Math, Science, ESOL, Studio Art, SAT Prep, and others.


College admissions public resources

In 2020, Ross School made its college counseling resources available to the public. In a series of videos and a workbook for parents, Ross college counseling staff cover topics related to the college application process.


Nexus Lecture Series

In 2019 Ross School debuted a public lecture series aimed at bringing current thought leaders and experts in a variety of topics and backgrounds to the local community in order to facilitate an exchange of ideas and a sharing of insights. Speakers included Bob Roth, CEO of the David Lynch Foundation; Dr. Johannes Wagemann, a psychologist, anthropologist, and philosopher who is a professor of consciousness studies at Alanus University in Germany; Dr. Shefali Tsabary, a clinical psychologist who brings Eastern mindfulness into her practice; and iconic musician, composer, and performance artist
Laurie Anderson Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson (born June 5, 1947) is an American avant-garde artist, musician and filmmaker whose work encompasses performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and sculpting,Amirkhanian, Cha ...
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Ross Institute

In 1996, Courtney Sale Ross founded Ross Institute for Advanced Study and Innovation in Education. The Institute provides training and certification for teachers interested in establishing schools based on the Ross School model. Mentors associated with Ross Institute include economist
Jeremy Rifkin Jeremy Rifkin (born January 26, 1945) is an American economic and social theorist, writer, public speaker, political advisor, and activist. Rifkin is the author of 23 books about the influence of scientific and technological changes on the eco ...
, scientist and engineer
Danny Hillis William Daniel Hillis (born September 25, 1956) is an American inventor, entrepreneur, and computer scientist, who pioneered parallel computers and their use in artificial intelligence. He founded Thinking Machines Corporation, a parallel super ...
, sociologist
Pedro Noguera Pedro Noguera (born August 7, 1959) is the Emery Stoops and Joyce King Stoops Dean of the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education. He is recognized as a leading scholar of urban public education, equity, and school reform ...
, neuroscientists Antonio and Hanna Damasio, paleoanthropologist
Yves Coppens Yves Coppens (9 August 1934 – 22 June 2022) was a French anthropologist and co-discoverer of "Lucy". A graduate from the University of Rennes and the Sorbonne, he studied ancient hominids and had multiple published works on this topic, and a ...
, and sociologist and media scholar
Sherry Turkle Sherry Turkle (born June 18, 1948) is an American sociologist. She is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She obtained a BA in social studies and lat ...
. Among the universities and organizations that have worked with the Institute are Harvard's Graduate School of Education; NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development; University of Southern California; Smithsonian Institution, Moorea Biocode Project, Moorea IDEA, and the
National Geographic Society The National Geographic Society, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, natural sc ...
.


Lawsuit

In 2020, in a suit that was initially dismissed by State Supreme Court Justice William J. Condon, former Ross School student Hayden Soloviev and his father Stefan Soloviev filed a $10 million lawsuit against the school alleging that the student was subject to bullying, harassment, and threats by Ross School faculty. In the dismissal, Justice Condon ruled the plaintiff had not "shown that any of these allegations hold any weight to create a cause of action on this matter". However, in 2024, the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court overturned the dismissal, ruling that the lower court had erred in dismissing the claims without further proceedings.https://beckerlawyers.com/becker-scores-significant-reversal-in-the-appellate-division-second-department-on-behalf-of-the-soloviev-family/https://www.nycourts.gov/courts/AD2/Handdowns/2024/Decisions/D74308.pdf


Notable alumni

* Alexa Ray Joel, singer *
Scott Disick Scott Michael Disick (born May 26, 1983) is an American media personality and socialite widely known for his role as a main cast member on ''Keeping Up with the Kardashians'' and its spinoffs. Disick's popularity on ''Keeping Up with the Kardas ...
, reality television star * Victoria de Lesseps, artist *
Naomi J. Ogawa Naomi J. Ogawa (born 3 August 1996) is an English and Japanese actress. Early life Ogawa was born in central London to an English father and a Japanese mother. Ogawa moved around growing up, attending multiple different international schools i ...
, actress * Tessa Gräfin von Walderdorff, socialite


References


External links


Official page

Ross School Summer Camp

The Association of Boarding Schools profile

Ross Institute
{{authority control Private high schools in New York (state) East Hampton (town), New York Private elementary schools in New York (state) Private middle schools in New York (state) Schools in Suffolk County, New York