New Middle School at Marymount
By Sybil Maimin

Students in the fourth through seventh grades at the Marymount School are moving into bright new quarters in the fall. The independent Catholic girls’ school (nursery through 12), now housed in three beautiful adjacent townhouses on Fifth Avenue, has acquired and is renovating a Beaux Arts building on nearby East 82nd Street which will serve Middle School students exclusively.

As explained by headmistress Sister Kathleen Fagan, this is an effort to give youngsters in a sometimes difficult stage of life “a special place where they can shine.” The school will be a blend of the old and the new, a self-contained unit with its own program, faculty, dining hall and commons, library, science lab, computer center, and technical facilitator. A special advising system is being established. The students will interface with girls from the upper and lower schools in shared use of the chapel, gym, and assembly as well as in school service programs. The addition of a building, more a reflection of the need for “breathing room” following several years of increased enrollment than of plans for further growth, will be followed by incremental renovations of the original mansions including expansion of dining, library, technology, music, drama, and art facilities.

Though the stately buildings recall another era, the activities within are cutting edge. Don Buckley, director of technology at Marymount, oversees integration and faculty development. The key, he says, “is to get teachers to discover what technology works for them and get them to run with it.” The school has grant money to reward teachers who come up with interesting proposals about classroom applications. Marymount conducts summer technology workshops open to professionals from other institutions. Utilizing online learning, it was the first school in Manhattan to enroll students in a Columbia University course in Java, a computer language. Technology is introduced in kindergarten and, as they advance in grade, pupils do everything from creating fictitious online businesses to making videos of frog dissections.

Marymount is part of a religious order founded in Beziers, France in 1849. It is devoted to education and today has schools in 14 countries. They are not parochial (church or parish affiliated). Marymount, New York is part of a network that includes schools in London, Paris, Rome, and Los Angeles. Representatives of network institutions meet annually and set goals and objectives. Each has an implementation committee. Instilling values is central to the school mission, and each year a particular value, such as the current “Unity Through Diversity,” is chosen by the network for special focus. Recognizing changes in the Church and society, the network is presently developing plans to pass the schools on to lay leaders. In New York, only three sisters remain on a faculty of 75. As fewer people choose a religious life and the community work that needs to be done grows, schools that lose clergy must transfer their governance or close down. Marymount New York has been administered by a lay Board of Trustees since 1969, but has continued to be headed by clergy. Headmistress Sister Kathleen welcomes the coming changes noting that, previously clergy were considered an elite class, but now we are all equal in our possibilities of goodness.#

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