Horace Mann School

The history of Horace Mann School is one rich in tradition, scholarship, and leadership. It is a history founded on the premise that learning is not to be measured by grades alone, but by the remarkable, compassionate, and socially significant lives our students and alumni choose to lead while at Horace Mann School and beyond. That history is alive in all that we do at Horace Mann School, in the passion our students bring to their work in our classrooms and labs, on our stages, in our art studios and recital halls, and on our athletic fields.

Our School is a model of traditional educational excellence and sound values in a society in search of both. We are a community that cares deeply about its students within a structure of immense expectations. We pride ourselves on having a talented and imaginative faculty, capable of producing citizens who think freely and respond to reason. We pride ourselves on attracting students who long to be pushed to the height of their ability and want to mine their worth for all its worth.

Our School is recognized for the legacy of accomplishments of our distinguished faculty and alumni worldwide—a legacy we surely cherish. At the end of the day, though, we are a School that values honor before honors. Horace Mann School prepares a diverse community of students to lead great and giving lives. We strive to maintain a safe, secure, and caring environment in which mutual respect, mature behavior, and the life of the mind can thrive. We recognize and celebrate individual achievement and contributions to the common good.

In pursuit of its mission the Horace Mann community is guided by five core values, each of which is given its foundational meaning in developmentally appropriate ways throughout our students’ years on campus. We recognize as our core values: the Life of the Mind, Mature Behavior, Mutual Respect, a Secure and Healthful Environment, and a Balance between Individual Achievement and a Caring Community. These five core values govern the implementation of our curriculum and programs across all divisions of Horace Mann School.

Among the five core values, the Life of the Mind embodies the central relevance of independent critical inquiry and authentic self-expression. As members of a community that finds strength and resilience in its intellectual curiosity and diversity, our students acquire the analytical skills and intellectual range that enable them to engage with the world around them with candor, courage, and confidence. Our students are secure in the knowledge that upon graduation, the rigor of their education will have prepared them well to pursue their dreams and become leaders of character in their chosen professions.

As a core value Mature Behavior requires thoughtful translation at each grade level for our students, who range in age from three to eighteen years old. Over time, mature behavior is defined in broadening terms, from notions of civility and resourceful cooperation to the ultimate ethic inherent in personal integrity. Good sportsmanship, honest scholarship, and intellectual honesty are embedded in the principles of learning on which the School’s mission rests. These principles inform the rules and regulations by which all students are obligated to abide. At all times our students are expected to take on leadership roles both within and outside of the classroom, and to make responsible choices.

Mutual respect and the tolerance it engenders undergird our community’s embrace of both intellectual diversity and the diversity of culture, ethnicity, gender, race, sexual orientation, and socio-economic background on our campus. Our students, staff, and faculty hail from many different corners of the earth and from various walks of life. Our students are expected to grasp, in keeping with the precepts of humane learning, that tolerance fosters the trust necessary to make our School safe and sound as a place to explore, to question, and at times to challenge ideas and traditions that have shaped our world; and that they can do so in the sure knowledge that they will be respected.

Horace Mann School aims to provide a secure physical, social, and emotional environment for all students. The campuses of all five divisions are committed to using resources in an ecologically sound and sustainable manner. The physical plant is carefully maintained and upgraded to the highest security standards. Our Security staff safeguards and monitors the campus, and fire and safety drills are conducted on a regular basis. Our food service offers varied and plentiful healthy food choices daily and all students have a scheduled lunch period during their day. Care for students’ social and emotional health is provided by our guidance professionals, who offer a carefully calibrated sequence of age-appropriate programs and courses aimed at creating and maintaining an environment free from harassment and bullying.

In its pedagogy Horace Mann School seeks to balance the demands of an academically rigorous curriculum with the moral imperative to raise good scholars and good citizens, caring and socially responsible students whose awareness of the wider world will inspire them throughout their lives to service to others. The School leads by example, actively sharing resources with its neighbors in the Bronx and beyond. Spearheaded by the Dorr curriculum, all divisions seek to foster in our students a capacity for selfless dedication to the greater good. From the Nursery Division’s penny drive and the Lower Division’s Caring in Action Day onward, students learn to take an increasingly active role in designing, implementing, and reflecting on service projects. Community service is a graduation requirement, and many students participate in service projects through Horace Mann’s Center for Community Values and Action.