News & Events

Please see the photo gallery link below for some photos from the Medieval Knighting Ceremony and Feast.

First graders study mapping in social studies.  One project entails the boys drawing a route and writing directions to navigate from Saint David's to the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Recently, the boys used their maps to make the trip to the Met.  

On May 19th, the third graders visited the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in conjunction with their study of the Middle Ages.

Richard Ravitch, New York's Lieutenant Governor was the featured speaker at the Alumni Council Networking Event held on Thursday, May 20th at a private club in Midtown. Mr. Ravitch, the grandfather of three Saint David's boys, spoke about the fiscal crisis affecting all of the states and its troubling negative impact, particularly on higher education and infrastructure. He also called for a greater commitment to public service and emphasized the vital role that politics plays in a democracy. After his talk, alumni and current parents gathered for a networking cocktail reception. The Networking Event is sponsored by the Alumni Council under the leadership of Alumni Council Chair David De Luca '77.

Twenty-three Saint David's boys and many parents celebrated It's My Park Day on Friday, May 14th by cleaning up garbage and planting shrubs and bulbs in Thomas Jefferson Park on 112th Street and First Avenue. This has been a biannual event for a while, but for the first time, Saint David's boys worked together with the Nightingale girls. The park looks terrific and great fun was had by all!

The Fourth Grade recently visited The Seeing Eye organization in Morristown, NJ. During this culminating activity for the Pennies for Puppies community action program, which also involved a Valentine's Day bake sale, the boys toured the campus and presented the foundation with a check for over $2,300.

Take a look at some recent photos from our Lacrosse and Red Baseball teams in action.

Fifth graders recently enjoyed trips to the Botanical Gardens and the Central Park Boat Pond as part of their history and science studies. The Botanical Gardens visit integrated science study of plants (parts, adaptations, etc.) with history study of Colonial times with a focus on herbal remedies. Boys were given samples of chamomile--good for headaches, planted chocolate mint plants to bring home--good for stomach ache, and sketched both flowers and various herbs in the gardens.

At the Central Park Boat Pond, they tested the buoyancy of the boats they designed and created from recyclable materials in science lab. The boats were placed into the Boat Pond to see which boat can carry a pound of clay the farthest. Upon return to school, boys completed formal lab reports based on the data, both qualitative and quantitative, that they collected at the Pond.

On Friday morning, April 30th,  the grandparents and special friends of the boys in pre-primary grades visited Saint David's. After welcoming remarks by Lower School Head Kim Davidson and Headmaster David O'Halloran, visitors enjoyed a slideshow presentation of "A Day in the LIfe of a Saint David's Boy'" followed by musical performances by each grade. Songs included Do-Re-Mi, Inch by Inch, This Land is Your Land, Peace Like A River, Siyahamba and the finale, Seed to Sow, sung by all the boys.  Following the performances, grandparents and special friends visited boys' classrooms, where they participated in a class activity. Grandparents and Special Friends Day is an annual tradition at Saint David's, now in its sixth year.

This year's Alumni Parents Council Social event took place at the Park Avenue Armory, where Alumnus Samuel G. White '60, FAIA, presented a lecture on his recently published book Stanford White, Architect (Rizzoli 2008). The lecture was attended by nearly 100 alumni parents and guests. In his opening remarks, Headmaster O'Halloran introduced Mr. White and also thanked Alumni Parents Council Co-Chairs Dorothy Faux and Linda Foran and Alumni Director John Dearie '95 for their efforts in organizing the event.

Samuel is the great-grandson of the famed Gilded Age architect whose firm McKim, Mead & White was responsible for several institutional, residential, and commercial buildings in the American Renaissance style. As a partner of Platt Byard Dovell White Architects, Samuel oversees a general practice that focuses on designs that introduce new interventions to historic settings in ways that both reinforce and reinterpret their contexts. The firm is currently involved in the restoration of the Park Avenue Armory and the new entrances and galleries for the New-York Historical Society. 

Kindergarten classes recently visited the Guggenheim as part of their social studies unit on community. In addition to this trip, the boys visit a neighborhood pizza parlor and Central Park, and explore the different offices and departments of Saint David's.

A fifth grader recently treated Katie Cunningham's Second Grade reading team to a guest lesson on comic design.  The fellow Saint David's student created a PowerPoint presentation and led the younger boys through the process he uses to create original comics, from storyboarding to inking.

For the Third Grade book projects, boys read a book and then give an oral presentation  to their class in which they not only summarize the story, but also discuss such aspects as connections between the characters and their own lives, the qualities of their favorite characters, and what a potential sequel could be. In this way, the boys learn to read more critically and deeply for meaning while also gaining experience in public speaking.