HACKLEY SCHOOL
http://www.hackleyschool.org/default.aspx
About Hackley
Mission & History
Mission
The Hackley board approved mission statement is simply: “Hackley challenges students to grow in character, scholarship, and accomplishment, to offer unreserved effort, and to learn from our community’s varying perspectives and backgrounds.”
Hackley believes that students will grow in character and responsibility by participating in structured activity that serves the needs of people outside the spheres of home and school. By committing their energy, time, and imagination to serving those needs, students can experience the satisfaction of helping others and can gain some appreciation of the complexity and concerns of the larger community.
Hackley students are expected to be good citizens. The School shares with its parent community an active commitment to character development as well as academic excellence. Students are encouraged to have respect for and to act responsibly toward themselves and others. The School strives to provide an overall environment that supports the development of virtuous qualities and good personal habits.
Hackley students are expected to go beyond mere observance of the rules and to strive to make Hackley a civilized community where courtesy, kindness, and forbearance reign, and incivility and intolerance are shunned.
History
In 1899, Mrs. Caleb Brewster Hackley, a leading supporter of the Unitarian movement, decided to give her summer mansion in Tarrytown, New York, for the purpose of creating a college preparatory boarding school for boys. The school would welcome students of diverse religious, economic, ethnic and national origin within an ethos shaped by the school's Latin motto, Iuncti Iuvamus, which we translate as, "United, We Help One Another."
Hackley Hall, as Mrs. Hackley’s mansion had become known, was quickly outgrown by the needs of the new school. Mrs. Hackley funded the purchase of a beautiful estate not far from Hackley Hall, which provided the grounds for the Hackley School that we know today. Construction began, and the first new buildings were in use by 1902. Over the main entrance was engraved the phrase that has represented the Hackley spirit for over a century -- “Enter Here To Be And Find A Friend.”
From the beginning, Hackley’s curriculum was rigorous. But the school also provided a family environment for its students, with masters and their wives living in the residence halls. A vigorous interscholastic sports program began during the first years, with football already at the center of action in 1900-1901. In the decades that followed, additional clubs were added, allowing students to put their energies to all manner of activities, including drama, debate, music, and the Dial, the school newspaper.
As the twentieth century progressed, Hackley evolved from a boarding-only school to a boarding and day school and increased the number and variety of perspectives in its community. In 1970, girls were admitted for the first time, and between 1970 and 1972, the lower grades (K-4) were added, all coed. In 1972, boarding was officially changed to the current 5-day program. Throughout all of these transitions, however, Hackley retained those traditional elements – academic rigor, a tightly-knit community, an accessible faculty - that gave it its distinctive warmth and character.
Under the leadership of current Headmaster Walter Johnson, Hackley has more than doubled the size of its campus to nearly 300 acres; has constructed a new Middle School facility, science wing and Lower School building; has instituted a growing Chinese program; and will soon open our renovated Goodhue Hall, home to a new Upper School library, a new student lounge, and the new offices and classrooms of our Upper School History Department.
Students now participate in humanities and arts electives and an extensive AP program, in our 62 competitive sports teams, in the lessons and courses offered by the accomplished teachers in our Music Institute, in dozens of community service opportunities and after-school activities like cooking, electronic composition and competitive math. They help one another study, they cheer enthusiastically at competitions and performances, and they value the successes of their classmates as much as they value their own. And in doing so, our community faithfully and vibrantly carries on the vision of Mrs. Hackley and knows that her traditions will serve Hackley well in its second one hundred years of life.