Ethical Culture Fieldston School. Photo by Andrew Schwartz.

By Rebecca Harris

When a group of New York prep school students were banned from attending their senior prom last month after getting high on a class trip, their parents were angry—some at the school administration more than at their kids, students say. Quick to lay down the law, one or several of those parents reportedly rented a yacht and, in an interesting display of discipline, threw the banished seniors an alternative, private prom party.

About 15 seniors at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School admitted to consuming brownies containing marijuana on an overnight class trip April 29-30 to Camp Mason, a YMCA summer camp in New Jersey, according to two classmates who just completed their senior year at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School.

The accused students were prohibited by administrators from attending May 19 color war festivities as well as the Fieldston senior prom at Studio 450 on May 29.

Two sources spoke on the condition of anonymity, and several other Fieldston students confirmed that the “anti-prom” was held the same night as the official school party.

“We had this field trip and some kids brought pot brownies to it. They couldn’t prove it, I guess, but everyone knew,” said a female student who graduated with the rest of her class—or “form,” as it is called at Fieldston—June 6.

On the same night as the scheduled prom, the banned seniors, their dates and some friends attended a party on a yacht.

“One of the parents ordered a yacht for them,” said a male student who just graduated. “I don’t think any of them said no—it’s a pretty cool alternative.”

One girl’s parents were angry with her for getting in trouble with the school, but most of her classmates’ parents “didn’t seem to care that much,” according to a source.

Pictures and posts on Facebook and Twitter documented a night of revelry—or “yachtingtons” as dubbed by one photo album title—for the banned seniors, courtesy of their parents. Comments branded the event “Fieldston anti-prom 2012.”

In one photo posted on Facebook, a group of girls who had been involved in the drug incident posed together. It was captioned ‘j sisters’—“like joint sisters,” the female student said. She added that the picture has since been taken down.

The Fieldston administration has made a concerted effort to prevent students from discussing the incident and school officials denied repeated requests for comment.

Fieldston Upper, whose campus is located in the Riverdale area of the Bronx, includes students in ninth through 12th grade and is a member institution of the Ivy Preparatory School League, often considered the Ivy League of New York City private high schools. Fieldston is included in the League alongside schools such as Horace Mann, Trinity and Dalton.

In 2011, Business Insider reported Fieldston as America’s 11th most expensive private high school. Tuition and fees for the 2011-12 academic year totaled $37,825 per student.

Fieldston also has two lower schools for pre-kindergarten through fifth grade: Ethical Culture, on the Upper West Side, and Fieldston Lower, on the Riverdale campus along with Fieldston Upper. Sixth through eighth graders attend Fieldston Middle, which is also located on the Riverdale campus. The four schools serve about 1,600 students in total, many of whom hail from the Upper East and Upper West sides.

According to both students, Fieldston administrators threatened harsher disciplinary consequences in order to elicit confessions from the students accused of getting high on the Camp Mason overnight trip. They said the school claimed to have a list of “the kids we know who did it,” and that the accused teens were told that if they confessed, they could avoid further disciplinary action—including potentially notifying the universities they will attend in the fall.

“The administration said, ‘If you come and confess, you won’t be allowed to go to prom…but if you don’t confess and we know you did it, we’ll contact your schools and you may not be able to walk at graduation. And you still won’t go to prom,’” the female student said.

The other student criticized Fieldston officials for using “scare tactics” to compensate for what he desribed as a lack of evidence that the students were under the influence of marijuana.

“They all confessed,” he said, “but parents were angry at how [the school] gathered evidence. A lot of people thought they handled it badly.”

The female student disagreed with his criticism of how Fieldston officials handled the incident.

“I think the school was more or less fair about it,” she said. “[They said,] ‘We’re not gonna ruin your future, but there will be consequences if you go against our rules.’”

The students’ accounts are confirmed by an email sent to parents of the class of 2012 by Fieldston Upper Principal John Love on May 11, after most, but not all, of the students involved, had confessed. The email does not go into detail about the accusations—students eating marijuana brownies on a school trip—referring to the situation only as “a recent incident.”

“We feel it is absolutely essential to our mission and to the environment we want to create for our students that we take violations of this rule very seriously,” read the email. “We asked that the students involved come forward and take responsibility for their involvement, telling them that if they did so they would lose the privilege of participating in the color war on Friday, May 18 and of attending the prom at Studio 450 on May 29. We also said that if a student was involved and chose not to come forward, his or her case might be brought to the Discipline Committee, with potentially severe consequences.”

No students other than those who came forward voluntarily were ultimately subjected to disciplinary action at Fieldston.

As the basement door opens, other young people mill about inside. This is Trinity Place Shelter, a safe-haven for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender

Heidi Neumark, pastor at Trinity, is looking to fund a rehabilitation project estimated to cost $1.6 million to $2 million. Photo by Andrew Schwartz

(LGBT) homeless youth between the ages of 18 and 21. Both the shelter and Trinity, an “activist immigrant congregation” established in 1888, are housed in a church that is in desperate need of repair.

“The building is in distress,” said Heidi Neumark, pastor at Trinity. “One hundred years of wear and tear are beginning to show.”

Like many struggling churches, Trinity doesn’t have the resources to fix its historic home. The church collects about $100,000 each year in donations, an amount that’s less than the average salary of the new residents moving into this gentrifying neighborhood. But in an unexpected twist, the shelter, which Trinity created, might now help to rebuild the church.

The shelter’s roots date to 2005, when the Metropolitan Community Church hosted a meeting of the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing, and made a plea for houses of worship to open their spaces to LGBT youth for one week during the peak of winter.

“Trinity answered the call,” said Kevin Lotz, the shelter’s director and ex-vice president of Trinity Church.

At the time, state and city resources for all social services were diminishing and city homelessness was on the rise, according to the Coalition for the Homeless, a group that tracks homelessness in New York City. The coalition estimates that 16,000 youth are homeless in the city every night; 20 to 40 percent of them, according to the National Lesbian and Gay Task Force, are believed to be LGBT. Many have been kicked out of their homes because of their sexual orientation, and they are often the victims of violence and discrimination at city-run shelters.

“We lament the fact that churches and religious bodies contribute to the abuse that gays have experienced,” said Lotz, “and we wanted to be a positive witness to dispel and protest that position.”

Within six months, the congregation had voted unanimously to create a permanent LGBT shelter in the building, receiving initial funding from the task force.

At that point, though, the church was already in disrepair. The most obvious signs began to appear in 2004, when a piece of slate fell off the cylindrical steeple, landing dangerously on the sidewalk in front. Cracks that allowed water to leak into the building near the pipe organ and choir room also began to show. Church leaders were concerned about the condition of the windows and frames. To protect pedestrians, scaffolding and nets were erected in front of the building and around the steeple, costing the church an estimated $1,500 a month.

After considering all options, including tearing down the building and constructing affordable housing, the congregation voted to fight to keep its home. The rehabilitation is estimated to cost between $1.6 million and $2.0 million.

Recently, Trinity embarked on a capital campaign to raise those funds, identifying three sources of support: the congregation ($300,000), grants available to buildings on the National Register of Historic Places ($600,000 to $1 million) and the shelter, which is hoping to contribute $500,000.

To help reach that goal, shelter leaders formed an advisory committee, co-chaired by Nicholas Forge, a shelter volunteer since 2007. The committee plans to raise funds by “cultivating new donors and reaching out to those who have helped in the past,” Forge said. “There is no shelter without the church.”

That may be how Assembly Member Daniel O’Donnell, who represents the area, sees the situation as well.

“I want Trinity to stay,” said O’Donnell, who has pledged to support the project with $125,000 to $250,000 from a discretionary capital fund. “The needs of LGBT youth don’t get addressed. They suffer great dangers, exposure to HIV, violence.”

The only obstacle remaining, the assembly member said, is for the shelter to meet the standards for capital state allocations.

Already incorporated as a 501(c) 3 non-profit organization, the shelter is a separate entity from the religious arm of the church and receives most of its $130,000 budget from the New York State Department of Health’s AIDS Institute (additional funds come from events, individual donors and foundations). Now, a lease agreement between the shelter and the church is needed to receive the capital state allocations, according to O’Donnell’s office. At press time, Neumark said the lease would be signed in the next few days.

To complicate matters, plans are being drawn to renovate the Department of Health and public library building that sits on the other side of Trinity, opposite the Columbus Square development. There have also been discussions about the construction of a 22-story nursing home for Jewish Home Lifecare, currently on West 106th Street, next door to Trinity. Any excavation near the church has the potential to further damage it.

In a hopeful sign, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation recently awarded the church a $112,000 reimbursement grant to be used for continued rehabilitation planning. The award marked the first step in an often-lengthy process to get state dollars for preserving historic landmarks.

In from the cold and safe at Trinity Place shelter, homeless LGBT youth can develop the skills to become independent, productive adults. Neumark hopes a similar transformation can happen to the shelter’s home.

“In the end,” Neumark said, “we want the outside of the church to match the inside.” 

———–

Window Project On Hold

In 2007, developer Joseph Chetrit prepared to excavate land next to Trinity Church for Columbus Square, a 15-story mixed-use development. Rather than risk damage to its hand-painted Birkenstock Studio windows, Trinity asked Chetrit to pay to have them removed, covering those that were left, including the large rose window above the church’s entrance, with plywood. Chetrit agreed and paid Trinity $155,000 for the work.

Now, three years later, some think the agreement might have been shortsighted on Trinity’s part: reinstalling the windows is a costly project, and one that makes little sense to complete unless larger church renovations are done.

“He is not legally responsible to reinstall them,” Neumark said, “but the church doesn’t have the resources to do it.”

So most of Trinity’s windows remain in storage, at an estimated cost of $600 per month, and plywood continues to shield the rest.

“In light of the building’s other problems,” said Neumark, “the windows aren’t a priority right now.”

—JM

Dan Hicks isn’t used in either way by the Bowdoin College soccer team, but he still managed to net a goal this season. Playing against New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) heavyweight Trinity Oct. 26, he took a free kick from the edge of his own box. After 80 yards and a deceptive bounce on the wet turf, the ball found its way past the opposing keeper.

“My first reaction was that I felt pretty bad for their goalie because I’ve been there before. Sometimes it’s tough to judge the bounce,” Hicks said. “I have a strong kick, but it’s inconsistent. Sometimes I shank it.”

Bowdoin College goalie Dan Hicks was named Second Team All-New England Small College Athletic Conference.

Not this time, though. Hicks’ peculiar goal gave his team a 2-0 lead, one that he had helped preserve several minutes earlier by stopping a penalty kick. With him protecting the net this year, Bowdoin finished 11-4-2 and qualified for the Division 3 NCAA Tournament for the first time in six years. Hicks started 14 games and made 48 saves, surrendering only 10 goals in nearly 22 hours of playing time, for which he was named Second Team All-NESCAC. He also was a member of the NESCAC All-Academic Team.

“Overall, it was probably the best season we’ve had here,” he said. “It was a big step up for Bowdoin soccer.”

Hicks, a native Upper East Sider, played soccer at Trinity in high school, but he credits two years with the Manhattan Soccer Club for providing the foundation of his skills. Originally a baseball recruit at Bowdoin, he eventually decided to play two sports, and the soccer team has benefited ever since.

Hicks isn’t the only Trinity graduate playing soccer at Bowdoin. Daniel Chaffetz started 16 games this year and had three assists on defense. Andrew Scott, yet another Trinity alum, played 14 games for NESCAC foe Hamilton and had one assist. Elsewhere in the conference, Alisha Neptune (Beacon) capped her career at Wesleyan by starting 11 games on defense and serving as team captain. Alex Klotman (Collegiate) appeared in three games for Tufts as a freshman, while Chelsea Davies’ (Beacon) first year at Williams included 11 games and 144 minutes of playing time.

Beacon, always a powerhouse in New York City soccer, had a strong contingent playing at the next level. From last year’s PSAL runner-up, Will Congdon saw action in 10 games for St. Lawrence, while Caetano Sanchez played 18 games and started five at Hobart for a team that went 15-4-2 and was ranked fourth in Division 3 at one point. Aldin Dervisevic and Byron Walker teamed up at George Washington, with the former playing four games and the latter starting 12 on defense. At SUNY-Albany, Lily Honor appeared in two games, while David Grad was a goalie for SUNY-Binghamton.

Elsewhere in the SUNY system, Hussam Buoyancy (Lycée Français) was part of the team at Old Westbury. And George Kiladze (Beacon) played two games for Purchase, while Alyssa Rosado (Cathedral) appeared in one.

Among local colleges, Hunter enjoyed the services of Devin Leahy (Trevor Day), who started 11 games in midfield, and Leander Kotsopoulos (Beacon), who started three. Ousmane Toure (Brandeis) had five goals and one assist while starting 16 games at York. Emiliano Tramontozzi (LaGuardia) started all 18 games as a senior for Long Island-Brooklyn. Baruch’s Brian Wright (Eleanor Roosevelt) appeared in 11 games, had two goals and one assist and was named his conference’s “Rookie of the Week” Oct. 12. Another freshman, Vincent Mark (Art and Design) started 14 games for City Tech, and had one goal and three assists. His teammate there, Harold Villegas (Environmental Studies), played in 10 games. City College boasted a strong array of locals: Rafael Dymek (Eleanor Roosevelt) played one game as goalie; America B. Nazario (Julia Richman) started all 15 games on defense; Oisin McGoldrick (UNIS) appeared in four games; and Abdul Jalloh (Martin Luther King) started nine times and had a goal.

As always, MLK had plenty of alumni still showcasing their skills on the pitch. Bazoumana Bamba played in 16 games and scored six times for Monroe. At SUNY Tech, Malick Faye had one game in goal, and Emelio Haughton was named Third Team All-North Eastern Athletic Conference for starting in 16 games and registering three goals and four assists. Hartwick’s Steven Amaya recorded two goals and two assists in 16 games. Archie Dweh played one game for St. Bonaventure. And Mohammed Ahamed started 17 games and had two assists for Nazareth, where Mike Chuqui (MLK) and Giancarlos Molina (St. Agnes) were also on the roster.

Other locals playing upstate included Michael Chew (Collegiate), who appeared in four games for Bard. Marist’s Tim Garger (Regis) had two assists in 14 games and was named to the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference All-Academic Team. Luci Rawe (LaGuardia) got into 11 games as a freshman at Vassar.

Lucas Neustadt (Beacon) started twice at Clark, where Rachel Minsky (LaGuardia) played 18 games and registered a goal and an assist. Haverford’s Max Stossel (Dalton) started 13 times, recording three goals and two assists along the way. And Chris Weinstein (Trinity) played in three games at Washington University in St. Louis.

Justin Griffiths took his game from Regis to Oberlin, where he got into 11 games this fall. Briggin Scharf (Spence), also at Oberlin, played 12 times. Her conference rival, Kenyon, fielded Clara Fischman (Riverdale) in seven games and Shanna Keown, who got two assists while starting all but one match. Finally, Eric Libby, another Spence alumna, played two games in goal for Claremont McKenna and had one save.