The Scarborough Day School was a private school in Scarborough-on-Hudson, in Briarcliff Manor, New York. Frank and Narcissa Cox Vanderlip established the school in 1913 at their estate, Beechwood. The school, a nonsectarian nonprofit college preparatory day school, taught students at pre-kindergarten to twelfth grade levels and had small class sizes, with total enrollment rarely exceeding 150 students. Since 1980, the buildings and property have been owned by The Clear View School, which runs a day treatment program for 83 students. The current school still uses the Scarborough School's theater, which was opened in 1917. The school campus is a contributing property to the Scarborough Historic District.
The Scarborough Day School was accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools and the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York. The school also was a member of the Cum Laude Society and the National Association of Independent Schools. Its seal copies that of Scarborough, North Yorkshire; Scarborough-on-Hudson's namesake.
History
The Scarborough School was founded in 1913 by Frank A. Vanderlip and Narcissa Cox Vanderlip for their six children and the children of friends and neighbors. Having met educator Maria Montessori during their European travels, the Vanderlips pioneered the Montessori method at the Edward Harden Mansion in nearby Sleepy Hollow by creating the first Montessori school in the United States, in 1913. Frank Vanderlip's sister Ruth was married to Harden; the families maintained close ties. After a year existing in two rooms of the Harden residence, the school moved to the River Gate House at the north end of River Road and the Beechwood estate.
The school moved to its final location in 1917, at Vanderlip Hall, a building Vanderlip constructed in 1916 bordering Albany Post Road (current U.S. Route 9). The building was designed for classes of ten, to accommodate 120 children total. It was situated on Beechwood's parkland designed by Frederick Law Olmsted for the Vanderlips. Throughout the school's history, students were open to wander the woodlands and gardens, utilize the lawns and tennis courts, and swim in the Olympic-sized pool. There were always farm animals nearby for the children to see and play with and a circus carousel to ride on. The school had a gymnasium class, amateur theater group, folk singing, a swimming pool, and an economic forum. Frank Vanderlip had spent about $500,000 on the school ($ in ), and he remained chairman of the school board of trustees until his death in 1937. Regular art exhibits were held at the Scarborough School, including a sculpture exhibition in the Italian garden at Beechwood, which included works by Jose de Creeft, Jason Seley (a longtime professor of sculpture at Cornell), and Richard Stankiewicz.
Early on in the school's history, the Vanderlips decided to change the school's system from the Montessori method to a more formal approach with more discipline, although students still had more freedom than the average school. In the 1930s, the school was considered progressive: students were not graded and were instructed to work at their own speed. The school flourished during almost two decades under the helm of Dr F. Dean McClusky, who went on to a career as a professor in the Department of Education at UCLA.
The studio building was devoted to younger children (grades one, two, and three), and included a lunchroom, workshop, and art studio. Frank Vanderlip enjoyed teaching simplified political economy at the school; he would act out Swiss Family Robinson on an imaginary island with students to demonstrate the development of capitalism. Narcissa Vanderlip ran the school lunchroom, and it is recorded that she served good simple food. She named some of her foods artistically (rice pudding with raisins was called Bête Noire a la Bolshevik). The studio building burned down in 1959.