Selwyn School

The Selwyn School is an independent, coeducational day school located in Denton, Texas. Founded in 1957, it covers grades PK-12.

The school has an enrollment of about 300, primarily from Denton, but also from surrounding north Texas towns including Argyle, Aubrey, Corinth, Copper Canyon, Flower Mound, Highland Village and Sanger. The school celebrated its 50th anniversary on September 28 and 29, 2007.

History

Its predecessor school, the Denton Civic Boys Choir School, was founded in 1955.

In 1957 an organization headed by local company executive reorganized it and renamed it Denton Preparatory School. That year Englishman John D. Doncaster resigned as an English instructor at Southern Methodist University to become headmaster, a position he held for more than 30 years.

In 1959 the school left its original location, an abandoned dorm across the street from Texas Woman's University, and leased a farm on the Dallas Expressway in Denton. In 1961, however, Houston lawyer and oilman (and former Dentonite) Jesse Newton Rayzor (1895-1970) donated 100 acres of land just west of Denton to the school. Construction at this new site, which included the labor of students, faculty, and parents, was completed in the fall of that year. The following year the school changed its name to The Selwyn School, in honor of Rayzor's daughter, Jeanne Selwyn Rayzor, (1926-1976).

Selwyn, financed through tuition and private donations, quickly became known as one of the leading private preparatory institutions in the Southwest. In part this reputation resulted from Doncaster's rejection of a progressive philosophy of education in favor of a traditional, academic approach emphasizing "discipline and the disciplines."

The school was accredited by the Texas Education Agency in 1963. The lower school offered classes from pre-kindergarten through the sixth grade; the upper school offered classes in grades seven and eight.

Over time the school became both a boarding and day school and it gained accreditation to the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest a regional association of the National Association of Independent Schools. It also gradually added grades, eventually becoming K-12.

The 1970s and '80s saw Doncaster making trips to the Middle East to encourage parents there to send their children to boarding school in Denton. This was the time of Saudi Aramco (Arabian American Oil Company), which would pay for parents to send their children overseas to school. This led to a collection of students from all over: children of oil executives, international students, the local day student population and boarding students from across the Southwest. This diversity led to the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the school.

As the 1980s drew to a close, the plummeting price of oil made recruitment difficult for the school. This was compounded by the recession dealt by 1991's Gulf War. The school as it stood then was unsustainable, so painful measures were taken: the upper school was closed.

Despite cries from its small number of far-flung alumni, the move allowed the school to get on more solid financial footing by focusing on its local pre-K and Kindergarten programs, even converting the girls dormitory into an extensive set of children's classrooms -- including an internal sandbox.

As attendance grew, grades were added to accommodate demand, gradually building the middle school, and, eventually, in 2003, the reopening of the upper school beginning with the 9th grade and adding an additional grade through the 12th grade.

Today, the school continues on as a day school.

Curriculum

While the quality of students varied, the quality of teaching was generally very good. Retired university professors, experienced -- if eccentric -- teachers at the middle and upper levels, and a solid Montessori atmosphere in the lower school made for a well-rounded education.

One of the things that set Selwyn apart from other schools at both the middle and upper schools was its Perspectives program. This two to three week trip was a mandatory travel and educational experience. While middle school students generally stayed in the state, upper school students ventured to Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and throughout the United States. It was an opportunity for students to expand their horizons in a relatively structured way.

The Perspectives program was extended into the lower grades in abbreviated form.

At present time, the upper school is growing. The Montessori program was eliminated in 2007.

Architecture

As the years went on, a menagerie of buildings was constructed on the hilltop site.

In the mid-1960s, notable architect O'Neil Ford was commissioned to design several buildings and a master plan for the campus. The Preston House portion of the girls dorm, was built in 1965; the Kramer Building and the Moody Dining Hall, in 1966.

In some cases the buildings' uses changed -- dormitories into faculty apartments or classrooms, for example. But in general, the angular design and adobe-like brick used in many of the buildings, made for a consistent look. Notable exceptions were the art dome -- a geodesic dome constructed in the 1970s and demolished in the early '00s due to deterioration, the Quonset hut -- a green, military style multipurpose room -- and the gym -- a corrugated metal building common in the area. Around 1980, the Sid Richardson library was built. In the mid-1980s, a significant two-story classroom building was built.

External links

* [http://www.selwynschool.com/ The Selwyn School website]
* [http://www.placeopedia.com/?9367 Placeopedia Selwyn School entry]
* [http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/SS/kbs64.html] "Handbook of Texas" Online article
* [http://mikecochran.net/Selwyn.html O'Neil Ford's Selwyn work]