Storm King School

I always thought boarding school is where you deposit snotty, spoiled, incorrigible kiddies when you have a pile of cash and nothing more worthy to do with it.
Storm King is NOT such a place.
Set on manicured grounds in the shadow of Storm King Mountain and just down the road from West Point, SKS is an educational community with an impressive 150 year history (see:
).
My nephew teaches here. He lives here, with his charges and family. He is an extraordinary educator and reflects the sensibilities of this place. His colleagues are just like him.
SKS is exclusive in the sense of expense and rigor (hence not for everyone) but it is not your stereotypical UK snobatorium — flush with secret handshakes and trust fund teens. It is elite, sure — but in a good way — like Unilocal; with a Bohemian vibe.
Were I in the market for a prep school that boards their students, SKS would be high on my list.

In her first year at Storm King School (9^th grade), our daughter has thrived. We are young parents and have had to make a significant sacrifice to send our daughter to SKS. Based on her first half of the year, it has been the best investment that we could have made.
Academics: Coming from public schools in New York City, we have been very pleased that the teachers have high expectations for our daughter and also offer her support and time after class to cover material that she found challenging. In addition to helping her learn the content of each class, she has received support from the Learning Center that has enabled to her to begin to develop the independence and study habits that she will need to be successful in college. Moreover, the teachers have demonstrated a true passion for pedagogy. We have been particularly impressed with her English teacher, and the way that he guides his students to engage with literature and traditional essay writing, while also developing his students’ creativity and critical thinking. We also really like that she has the opportunity to take Mandarin Chinese — this is indicative of the breadth of course offerings at Storm King.
Extra-​curricular activities: From an extra-​curricular perspective, SKS has created the environment where students are able to take risks and encourages them to find areas outside of academics that they are passionate about. While previously she did not demonstrate a passion for sports, she has already played on two sports teams in her first half of the year. She particularly enjoyed the experience on the soccer team and built great camaraderie with her teammates. Also, she has participated in the dance program, which is quite extraordinary. The recent dance recital gave the students in the dance program the opportunity to showcase all that they had been working on to the entire school community.
Boarding environment and peers: As you might imagine, we were very apprehensive to send our 9^th grade daughter to boarding school. However, the SKS boarding experience has exceeded our expectations. First of all, The dean, house parents and other faculty are well attuned to what is happening with the students — which puts us at ease as parents. We also really like that our daughter has the opportunity to interact with such a diverse group of students from all around the world. As a byproduct of being in this environment, she has become more intellectually curious about the world outside of NYC and the United States. She also has developed a close group of friends that have ambitious plans for their future.
In summary, the individualized attention, the deep commitment to excellence and the nurturing environment of SKS makes it an ideal place for our daughter to attend high school.