Why choose a school that ends in grade 8?

At Elisabeth Morrow, we feel strongly that a school ending in eighth grade serves children more effectively.

Early leadership opportunities

Middle School students at The Elisabeth Morrow School are the oldest and have many opportunities for genuine leadership, whereas at a K-through-12 school they would simply be “in the middle.” Students in our lower grades look to our middle school for leadership and our older students respond with maturity and confidence. Current leadership opportunities include student council, community service, clubs, team building, music/performance, yearbook and interscholastic athletics.

Free to be a kid

Our middle school building, Morrow House, is devoted to students between the ages of ten and fourteen–children generally at the same developmental level. Our middle schoolers are not leading their academic and social lives in the shadow of high school students, and we find that there is substantially less pressure on our students to be, or act, “older.”

Appropriate curriculum development

At The Elisabeth Morrow School, because we specialize in elementary and middle school education, it is our priority to make sure that our students are fully prepared for their next academic steps.  At a school that goes through the twelfth grade, the middle school years can simply be stops in a long line of successive grades. Since a primary focus of these schools is high school graduation and college placement, they may gloss over skills essential to an elementary school education. 

A choice of high schools

Families grow and students change, especially in their early teens: a school that graduates students in the eighth grade allows time to consider secondary school options that "fit" best, rather than just moving forward in a K-through-12 school.  At The Elisabeth Morrow School, we work with every student and family, beginning in seventh grade, to identify appropriate high schools and to provide guidance through the process of applying to independent day and boarding schools, or preparing for the transition to public high school. Our students emerge from The Elisabeth Morrow School confident and capable, ready for the challenges of high school.