A fight to keep lower prep school

MILTON -- Fearful that Milton Academy might close its elementary and middle schools, parents are waging a major revolt, slapping bumper stickers on their minivans, putting buttons on their lapels, and reaching into their bank accounts in protest.

In the past two weeks, parents launched a website, hired a public relations consultant, and raised $7.2 million to preserve the K-12 academy and its long tradition of enrolling students from Milton, Boston, and the surrounding area.

The parent rebellion has shaken the 200-plus-year-old academy, one of seven private schools in Massachusetts that run kindergarten through 12th grade. School officials said they considered eliminating the K-8 grades as a way to increase faculty salaries and financial aid and maintain strong programs. But on Wednesday, after weeks of e-mails and meetings, the Board of Trustees announced it is in talks with parents and faculty to avoid closing the lower schools.

Parents, backed by faculty and students, say they are furious that trustees even considered closing the elementary and middle schools. Tuition for those grades ranges from $16,700 for kindergarten to $28,450 a year in eighth grade, and normally guarantees a slot in the competitive upper school. Parents say they fear that trustees want to transform Milton into a high-powered school mostly for boarders. At Milton, 6 in 10 students overall are local residents.

"We feel like the rug is just being pulled out from under us," said Matthew Lawlor, a lawyer who has a kindergartner and first grader at the school. "This has enormous consequences for us."

Milton Academy, founded in 1798, is a quaint campus of red-brick buildings, lush fields, and a stone chapel on 125 acres south of Boston. The school enrolls 965 students, 290 in elementary and middle schools and 675 in the upper school, about half of whom are boarders.

The furor on campus exploded in recent weeks when rumors circulated that the board was planning to eliminate the lower schools.

To quell concerns, the board's president, Franklin W. Hobbs of New York City, e-mailed parents and faculty late last month that the board had been discussing Milton's future for the past year. The academy's endowment has swelled to $180 million from $120 million in 2003, he wrote, but Milton would need more funds to raise financial aid and meet additional goals.

"We are concerned about the ability of families to afford the education Milton provides," he wrote. He declined an interview request from the Globe through Cathleen Everett, the school spokeswoman.

Everett said the school could face a shortfall of up to $4.5 million a year in a decade if trustees increase financial aid and teacher salaries and maintain school programs. She said the board members had planned to seek community input over the next six months. "They completely understand the fear and the difficulty and the angst that parents are experiencing," Everett said.

Parents say they resent the closed-door deliberations. Hobbs canceled a large parent meeting Tuesday at which some parents planned to demand a commitment to the lower schools, and met with a smaller group instead.

Robin Robertson, who as head of school earns more than $370,000 a year and is one of the highest-paid leaders of private preparatory schools in Massachusetts, upset parents because she could not say that the lower schools were secure. Robertson declined to comment.

"We're especially frustrated because parents like ourselves are so ready to do what needs to happen to help the school if there is some kind of long-range problem," said parent Burns Stanfield, a Presbyterian minister whose family is one of many who moved to Milton for the academy. "We would like the board to be forthcoming with that and give us a chance to respond."

Parents, students, and faculty worry that the school's trustees are trying to transform Milton into a boarding school like Phillips Academy in Andover, which has triple Milton's endowment, or Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, where boys must wear neckties to class. At Milton, students stroll the campus in flip-flops and T-shirts.

In the past few years Milton has tilted more toward boarders, opening two new dorms and increas ing the percentage of high school boarders from roughly 40 percent to 50 percent.

But Everett said the local tradition is stronger in the lower schools than in the upper school. Eight in 10 of the high school graduates never attended the lower schools and had to go through the normal application process of taking a test, writing essays, and having interviews, she said.

Parents say they chose Milton because it was different from other prep schools. Because students grow up together, sharing Halloween parades and popsicle parties, Milton fosters a sense of community. "Milton Academy has a more family feel to it," said James A. Peyser, a parent of two at the academy and former chairman of the state Board of Education, which governs public schools. "It's a little bit of a humanizing factor for the upper school to have the lower school, just to have these little kids walking around."