The Pembroke Hill School

All you want to know about The Pembroke Hill School

The Pembroke Hill School
Logo of Pembroke Hill
Freedom with Responsibility
Location
Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Information
Type Private
Religious affiliation Nonsectarian
Established 1910 - Pembroke-Country Day (boys), 1913 - Sunset Hill (girls), 1984 - Pembroke Hill (coed)
Headmaster Dr. Steve Bellis
Faculty 129
Enrollment Approx. 1,200
Average class size 11 students
Student:teacher ratio 9.5:1
Campus Urban, two campuses
Color(s) Red & Blue
Athletics 14 interscholastic, numerous club
Athletics conference Missouri State High School Activities Association
Mascot Raider (Viking)
Average SAT scores (2005) Verbal: 658, Math: 656[1]
Average ACT scores (2005) 28[1]
Website http://www.pembrokehill.org/

The Pembroke Hill School (commonly known as Pembroke Hill) is a nonsectarian, coeducational, private preparatory school in Kansas City, Missouri, USA.

The school has two campuses, the Ward Parkway Campus and the Wornall Campus, both in Kansas City's Sunset Hill neighborhood near the Country Club Plaza. Both campuses pre-date the Plaza itself. Pembroke Hill enrolls approximately 1,200 students in preschool through 12th grade. The school accepts approximately 66 percent of applicants.[1] The school has a strong academic tradition and usually matriculates all of its graduates to four-year colleges, many in the Ivy League.[1]

Contents

History

Establishment

Vassie James Hill, founder of The Pembroke Hill School

Vassie James Hill, born in 1875, was a prominent Kansas Citian. She graduated from Vassar College in 1897, and first married Hugh Ward, a rich son of pioneer Seth E. Ward. When Ward died, she married educator Albert Ross Hill, who formerly had been president of the University of Missouri. Hill was dismayed at the lack of nonsectarian private education in Kansas City, as at that time those of means in Kansas City commonly sent their children to boarding schools on the east coast.

Seeking a similar education for her three sons in Kansas City, Hill proceeded to arrange funding from twelve prominent Kansas City businessmen in 1910 and founded the Country Day School for boys, accepting both day students and boarders. (Boarding at the school ceased in the 1950s.) Initial enrollment was 20 students and grew to 52 within three years. Several years later, the Country Day School merged with the Pembroke School for boys to form the Pembroke-Country Day School for boys, establishing itself on the Country Day School's large campus along State Line Road, which is today the site of Pembroke Hill's Ward Parkway Campus. The school was often called Pem-Day.

In 1913, Hill sought the same sort of education for her daughter and founded the Sunset Hill School for girls (named after the neighborhood in which it was situated). The school established itself on a large campus overlooking what was then the location of the Kansas City Country Club (today Loose Park), including a portion of the battlefield from the Battle of Westport. The Sunset Hill campus is now Pembroke Hill's Wornall Campus.

Merger

From the start, Sunset Hill and Pembroke-Country Day worked cooperatively. Often, teachers taught at both schools. For generations, many Kansas City families would send their boys to Pem-Day and their girls to Sunset Hill. School activities, such as plays and dances, often were combined, and Sunset Hill girls were cheerleaders for Pem-Day's sports teams.

Given this cooperative environment, in the early 1980s the two schools began merger discussions. Finally, in 1984, Pem-Day and Sunset Hill merged to become the Pembroke Hill School, although the class of 1985 elected to have separate graduation ceremonies. True co-education began the next year. The former Sunset Hill campus became home to preschool through sixth grade, and the former Pem-Day campus became home to seventh grade through twelfth grade.

Image and improvements

In 1988, Pembroke Hill gained some local notoriety and scorn after Kansas City Magazine published an articled entitled "A High School on Easy Street," which criticized Pembroke Hill's students' "advantaged way of life."[2]

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Pembroke Hill completed a $50 million capital improvement project, which renovated both campuses extensively. The Ward Parkway campus gained a new middle school building, Boocock Middle School (which now serves grades six through eight), a new upper school building, Jordan Hall, a new arts center, and a new library, the William T. Kemper Library.

Athletics

Pembroke Hill has a long athletic tradition.[3] Its colors are blue and red, its teams are known as the Raiders, and its mascot resembles a Viking raider. Pembroke is a member of the Missouri State High School Activities Association.

Pembroke Hill Raiders athletics logo

Sports offered

For girls, Pembroke Hill offers:

Fall Winter Spring
Cheerleading (V) Basketball (8, 9, JV, V) Soccer (JV/V)[4]
Cross Country (7/8, JV, V) Cheerleading (V) Swimming (JV, V)
Field hockey (8, C, JV, V)[5] Dance team Track and field (7/8, JV, V)
Golf (JV, V)
Tennis (JV, V)[6]
Volleyball (8, JV, V)

For boys, Pembroke Hill offers:

Fall Winter Spring
Cross Country (7/8, JV, V) Basketball (8, 9, JV, V) Baseball (JV/V)[7]
Football (7/8, JV, V)[8] Wrestling (7/8, JV, V) Golf (JV/V
Soccer (JV, V)[4] Lacrosse (JV/V)
Swimming (JV, V) Tennis (JV, V)[6]
Cheerleading (V) Track and field (7/8, JV, V)

In the past, Pembroke also has participated in softball, rugby union,and ice hockey. Additionally, the lower school campus has facilities for racquetball, and the upper school campus is one of only three locations in Kansas City which contain squash facilities.[9]

Championships

For three years in a row, 1997, 1998, and 1999, Pembroke Hill's boys basketball team won the Missouri division 2A state title. In 2000, however, the Missouri State High School Activities Association stripped Pembroke of the titles and placed the school on probation after the Kansas City Star revealed, in a nationally-publicized scandal, that promoter and AAU coach Myron Piggie had made cash payments to two of the school's star players, Kareem Rush and his brother JaRon Rush, to play on his "amateur" basketball team.[10][11][12][13][14] Piggie admitted to paying JaRon Rush $17,000 and Kareem Rush $2,300, after which the brothers "submitted false and fraudulent Student Athlete Statements to the universities where they were to play intercollegiate basketball," certifying that they had not been paid to play basketball.[14] As a result, the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Missouri found themselves subject to NCAA penalties for awarding athletic scholarships to non-amateurs.[14] On Piggie's appeal in 2002 from his prison sentence and restitution for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud, and tax evasion, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit found that Pembroke Hill had "sustained a loss of $10,733.89 in investigative costs and forfeiture of property as a result of" Piggie's conspiracy.[14]

In 2006 and 2007, the girls' basketball team won the Missouri Class 2 state title. The school is a perennial contender for or winner of Class 2 state championships in boys golf, boys tennis, boys soccer, girls golf, and girls tennis.[3]

Rivalries

Pembroke Hill has cross-state athletic rivalries with MICDS and John Burroughs School, both in Ladue, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis.

Additional information

Tuition and financial aid

In the 2008–2009 school year, tuition and fees will range from $15,120 (for students up to second grade) to $17,670 for high schoolers.[15] About 17 percent of students receive financial aid, totaling more than $1.6 million per year.[16]

In May 2007, the Malone Family Foundation, established by John C. Malone of Denver, Colorado, gave a $2 million grant to Pembroke's endowment, the largest single endowment gift in the school's history.[17] The gift will be used to create the Malone Scholars Program to give need-based financial aid to highly qualified students who otherwise would qualify for at least 50 percent in financial aid, including not only low-income families but also middle-income families as well.[17]

Assets and contributions

The school has assets of over $100 million and an endowment of more than $22 million.[18] It receives substantial contributions not only from a large percentage of its alumni base, but also from Hallmark Cards, Kansas City Southern Industries, Sprint, H&R Block, and other leading regional corporations, many of whose executives attended Pembroke Hill.[18]

Accreditation

Pembroke Hill is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Central States (ISACS) and the National Association for the Education of Young Children.[19] The school is a member of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS).[19]

Notable alumni

Government and politics

Media and the arts

Science and technology

Education

Business

Sports

References

  1. ^ a b c d Peterson's Guide to Private Secondary Schools, 2008: "The Pembroke Hill School"
  2. ^ The Kansas City Library: Catalogue
  3. ^ a b The Pembroke Hill School (Official Website): Athletics
  4. ^ a b The Pembroke Hill School (Official Website): Soccer
  5. ^ The Pembroke Hill School (Official Website): Field Hockey
  6. ^ a b The Pembroke Hill School (Official Website): Tennis
  7. ^ Pembroke Hill Baseball (Official Website)
  8. ^ Pembroke Hill Football (Official Website)
  9. ^ United States Squash Racquets Association: Missouri facility locations
  10. ^ ESPN: "Piggie indicted on 11 counts in Kansas City" (April 14, 2000)
  11. ^ "Summer league basketball coach indicted on fraud," CNN and Sports Illustrated, April 13, 2000
  12. ^ "Basketball Brief: And This Little Piggie Went To Jail", The Daily Bruin, June 1, 2001
  13. ^ "Beyond Blood", ESPN Magazine, February 4, 2001
  14. ^ a b c d United States v. Piggie, 303 F.3d 923 (8th Cir. 2002)
  15. ^ The Pembroke Hill School (Official Website): Tuition and Fees
  16. ^ The Pembroke Hill School (Official Website): Tuition/Financial Aid
  17. ^ a b "Pembroke Hill gets $2 million", The Kansas City Star, May 31, 2007
  18. ^ a b Nonprofit Organization Profile
  19. ^ a b The Pembroke Hill School (Official Website): PHS at a Glance
  20. ^ IMDB: Elizabeth Craft
  21. ^ IMDB: 2002 Academy Awards
  22. ^ St. Louis Commerce Magazine: Cover Story, November 2002

External links

v • d • e
The Kansas City Area
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pembroke_Hill_School"

No comments have been added.



Your name:

City:

Country:

Your comments:

Security check *
(Please enter the number into adjoining box)

 

  • Ads

           
eXTReMe Tracker