A local school existed in Scarsdale in 1784, before New York State had a public education system. According to tradition, this building stood on a hill west of the Post Road, north of today's Fenimore Road. Local children and boarders enrolled to "enjoy the advantages of the public school."

The most influential school commissioner of the early 1800's was George Donovan, a Methodist minister and graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. Donovan advocated the then-innovative idea teaching children foreign languages.

Scarsdale became a national lighthouse when it implemented the progressive Dalton Plan, later called the Scarsdale Contract Plan, in 1923. To escape "the morass of mass instruction," students in grades 5-12 progressed through individual contracts with their teachers. Class recitations gave way to project work, individual and small group conferences.

When the new Fox Meadow School opened in 1928, the principal, Claire Zyve, advocated "observing how a child develops and then shaping education to aid this process." Progressive methods at Fox Meadow, including school-wide learning projects and a school farm, also earned the school national attention.

In the 1940's, legendary high school principal Lester Nelson promoted a humanizing education as opposed to one that focused on grades or college admission. "We have consistently sought to extend to all the opportunity for equality of education," he said. "The essence of the understanding we seek is rooted in liberal education."

In the early '50's the District again gained national attention by resisting efforts to ban "Red-Fascist propaganda" from school libraries and to restrict speakers who did not reflect "basic American values."

Consistent with its commitment to "keep abreast of progress" but to "give place to improvements (that) are thoroughly tried," Scarsdale was involved in developing the Advanced Placement program, and was among the first to adopt team teaching, and student exchange programs. Superintendent Archibald Shaw nonetheless described the district's main strength as its historic appreciation for "the real necessity of children's contact with real teachers."

The Scarsdale Alternative School was founded in 1977. It continues to be a democratic community of students and teachers operating along the lines of work by Lawrence Kohlberg of Harvard University and the Swiss educator Jean Piaget. The A-School and the main high school have since moved closer to one another in style and approach.

Scarsdale parents boycotted state tests in 2001, protesting a program they saw as promoting test preparation over more significant learning. The schools responded by re-focusing on the liberal arts, seeking to provide a "deep, rich program, and letting the scores take care of themselves," in the words of a Board of Education statement.

In 2005, the District began to replace Advanced Placement classes with local Advanced Topics courses, one of several efforts to promote educational depth and richness in an era when schools had become increasingly driven by "metrics."

In recent years, the Schools have worked to define "An Education for the Future." Tomorrow's graduates will need many of the abilities that result from a liberal education. However, they will have to succeed and contribute in a newly interdependent world and to solve complex global problems that overlap traditional disciplinary boundaries. Programs and teaching are evolving to address these new needs.

Historical photo from the collection of the Scarsdale Public Library, reprinted by permission