Garden School

Garden School was a wonderful educational experience for our son. Yes, he probably would have been pushed harder in a school with more consistently rigorous academic standards and feedback. (He needs to learn this in college.) Yes, there are some facilities which simply aren’t there due to its small size and budget. However, the sense of community which he experienced at Garden was very deep with him and he created many close bonds with many staff members; I see these as being lifelong bonds. He was given the chance to participate in multiple extracurricular and leadership opportunities — it’s up to the student to lead — and to take all the AP classes which were offered. (We’d like there to be more, but I’m not sure it’s feasible given its small enrollment.) Intellectually, he’s ready for college — and I feel that it is the mentorship of the majority of the staff at Garden which got him to this place. And. .. as far as private schools go. .. it’s a pretty good deal!

Our child has been at Garden School for 7 years, and we have been really pleased with both the quality of the academics and the school atmosphere — and it includes wonderful visual art classes, music, and sports, much more so than many public schools of the same size (or larger). It’s been really great, both for our child and for us as a family, to be part of the Garden School.

Garden School is the complete package. It’s a school, a family, a second home, a
summer camp and a fine place to get your education. The small classes are a prize
here in NYC and students are known by everyone in the school –Headmaster, the
Coaches, the cafeteria and maintenance staff. The bigger and smaller kids know each other too.
There is a warmth that is of the” I got your back type” rather than suffocating and too fuzzy. Teachers are wonderful and many are also characters in the best sense of the word. Real thinking encouraged here as well as intellectual freedom. If there is any possibility for your child to attend this school, go for it and they will emerge better in so many aspects of life. We absolutely love this school.

Not gonna lie, this review was wholly inspired by Britton.
I went to school here, not just to some event (sorry Jeff, no hard feelings).
The good: small classes, and you get out of school like 3 weeks before public schools do! I had some fantastic teachers here, although I think the science department is definitely the weaker spot in their curricular offerings. Extracurriculars are pretty hefty for such a small school (my graduating class was 32 people) and the college counseling is top notch.
The bad: well, it’s pricey for sure (hey it is a private school) and has high turnover for young teachers, my guess is they go there to get something on their resume and bounce t better paying jobs pretty quickly.
The ugly: it doesn’t get clique-​y, but some of the kids definitely aren’t there for an education (think upper middle and upper class brats who just don’t care). If you’re a scholarship kid, you definitely get moments of insecurity and feeling like you just don’t belong sometimes (I was a scholarship kid, trust).
It’s definitely a good option for schooling your wee ones (and not so wee ones, the school runs nursery through 12^th grade), especially if you don’t want to deal with the Manhattan private schools, which are way snottier and way more filled with drugs and nonsense.