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A Class Act
A local boarding school has Saturday classes, a rifle team and a price tag of nearly $30,000 a year

Story by Matthew Forte
Photos by Laura Freeman

Imagine a school where all students are required to play a sport, classes are in session until noon on Saturdays, and ties and jackets are required for class. And meals.

Welcome to the campus of Western Reserve Academy, a private boarding school in Hudson, about 10 miles northwest of Kent. The privilege of attending the school costs $29,050 a year for boarders and $21,500 for day students.

The red brick buildings and manicured bright green lawns give the academy the feel of an Ivy League university. After all, the school was founded by Yale graduates. But Western Reserve is only a high school.

The school’s rural beginning proves that it’s not a private high school only for rich kids, Headmaster Henry Flanagan says. Flanagan, who prefers that students call him Skip, is quick to point out that farm kids used to go to Western Reserve.

The school conducts itself “without a smidgen of pomposity,” Flanagan says. “We’re long in common sense and short on arrogance.”

Ken Smith, a landscape supervisor working on the campus, says he hasn’t had any bad encounters with students.

“They don’t act any different,” he says. “It’s just that their parents have more than other people. Money doesn’t always mean arrogance. My kids would go here, too, if I had the loot.”

Most students are sons and daughters of doctors and lawyers, says Russ Morrison, the school’s director of marketing and public relations. But the school awards $3 million in scholarships every year, so tuition is made affordable for students who need it. 

Alek Hansen, a sophomore from California, says most students he knows receive scholarships, and none of his friends pay full tuition.

“It’s a family thing,” Hansen says. His grandfather taught at Western Reserve, and his father, uncle and aunt all graduated from the school.

The school may be difficult academically, he says, but will help in the long run.

“I have two hours solid of homework every night, compared to a half hour at regular school,” Hansen says. “I don’t necessarily learn more, but I learn better study skills.”

And proper speaking skills.

“The word ‘like’ doesn’t belong in the middle of a declarative sentence as a filler,” Flanagan says. “We’re not going to have ‘what’ or ‘huh’ here. Instead, we use ‘Pardon me?’”

Campus Life

Western Reserve is more similar to a college than it is to a public highschool because most students live on campus. To get a better feel for academy life, potential students spend a night on campus. Also, each student is interviewed to see if he or she is well-suited for the academy.

About 400 students attend Western Reserve, representing 29 states and 19 countries. About two-thirds of students live on campus. Most dormitories house about 15 students and are separated by gender.

The outside door to Cutler Hall isn’t locked, and after climbing the stairs, Hansen uses a metal key to open his white wooden door. The brick-walled stairwell is bare except for a sign-up sheet for dodgeball.

Hansen’s room is identical to an Eastway room at Kent State. The beds are bunked in the far corner and clothes are scattered around the room and the floor. Hansen’s class schedule is taped to the wall above his desk and computer. Above that is a poster of a woman in an orange bikini.

Hansen’s mother won’t walk in and see the bikini, but a faculty member might. Two faculty members and their families live in each dorm. Flanagan says one thing that’s missing in public schools is a lack of adult interaction.

Molly Fowler from York, Pa., says the thing she enjoys most about the academy is her close relationship with her teachers. An average class size of 12 helps that teacher-student connection.

“It’s great,” she says. “You can call them up at night if you don’t know how to do a math problem or you have a question about something.”

Other faculty members, including the headmaster, live in white houses around the campus. Fowler said it’s not unusual for her to baby-sit her teacher’s children. “That would be weird at a public school. There, you’re not even supposed to know where your teacher lives.”

Jackets Required

Breakfast at 7 a.m. is optional for students. At noon, students enter the dining hall for lunch and fill the space with talking and laughter. Male students wear blue blazers and ties with khakis. Females wear button-down shirts and knee-length skirts.

When it’s warm out, the school’s dress code allows males to wear shorts, or “Bermudas,” as Flanagan calls them.

A student could get away with not wearing the mandatory blazer to class, and if a teacher minds, he or she would probably just ask the student to get his jacket, Hansen says. But proper dress is required for meals.

Ellsworth Dining Hall would be at home in a Harry Potter movie. It appears to be the length of a football field, with a lobby and chandeliers in the middle. The two wings of the hall contain wooden tables and chairs on a maroon cement floor. Light comes from the chandeliers and the enormous windows in the wooden walls. Seating is assigned and a placard between the plastic salt and pepper shakers with students’ first initials and last names tells them their position at the table.

Before each meal, a student reads a quote from a famous person, today from Igor Stravinsky. “The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music. They should be taught to love it instead.” Food is usually presented in themes, for example, fair food—corn dogs and onion rings. Students eat Middle Eastern and Chinese meals with their hands or chopsticks, but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are available at every meal for the less daring.

All students have a job at mealtime. They collect trays from the kitchen with the day’s meal, clear the table or pour drinks. The chores and the close living space contribute to the feeling of community, says Morrison, the marketing and public relations director. “You can’t flip somebody off in football practice because you might sit across from them at dinner.”

An Elite Tradition

All students are required to play two team sports every year, even if they’re not accustomed to American sports. Morrison, coach of the junior varsity baseball team, says he once had to point out the correct end of a baseball bat to a German student.

Western Reserve is well known for its lacrosse tradition, and they also play field and ice hockey and have a rifle team. Chandeliers light the Field House lobby, and on the shiny stone floor, a Western Reserve shield bearing the school’s motto, “Light and Truth,” written in Latin, greets people. Left of the lobby is the weight room. If George Washington had a weight room, it probably would have looked like this. The sun shines into the huge pane glass windows onto the free weight racks and white weight machines. The building contains a six-lane, 25-yard swimming pool and an indoor track. Inside the track are basketball courts.

At 8 a.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, students gather at the chapel for announcements. Like in the dining hall, chapel seating is assigned. Seniors sit up front, juniors behind them and sophomores sit in the back. Freshmen peer down from the balcony.

Many differences may separate Western Reserve students from public high school students, but some things remain the same. Students are overheard complaining in the library about teachers and “unfair” tests, and a sophomore was chided by a lady working the mailroom about remembering his mailbox combination.

“Carry that combination with you if you’re not going to memorize it. How many times did I tell you?” 

Some people at Western Reserve don’t see the differences between public and boarding schools. The Western Reserve secretary wondered why her school was newsworthy.

“What makes you think we’re so different from a public school?”

You mean aside from the $29,050 price tag?

Matthew Forte is a senior magazine major. This is his second story for The Burr.

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