Furious father throws his children out of New York’s $62k-year Browning School after a donation of more than $1 million and claims it has “degenerated into a morass of dysfunction, misconduct and injustice”
- The father had promised to donate $1 million, but the school said he paid $60,000 less
- He raged against the leadership, which has changed the rules to allow trans children
- The father sent an angry email to the Browning Board of Trustees
A father who has sent his children to New York City’s Browning School for years has walked out in a rage, accusing the school’s new leadership of trying to squeeze him out of an extra $60,000 in donations.
The father sent an indignant email to the Board of Directors resigning and raging at the leadership.
He also suggested that the school retaliated against his children with baseless disciplinary action when he withdrew his charitable donations.
The Browning School has not yet responded to their claims.
In his email, the father said: “After a total of 25 years of three children attending school, seven years of service on the board, and over $1.5 million spent in tuition and donations, we are sending our children to elsewhere and discontinuing all ties.
The Browning School on New York’s Upper East Side, which was founded as an all-boys school in 1888
The father’s email to the school was shared on NYC Private School Watch, an Instagram page chronicling the growing problems at Manhattan’s most expensive and elite institutions.
‘Browning has degenerated into a morass of dysfunction, malfeasance and injustice.
“Those are serious words, and I use them carefully, as a parent and trustee.”
He claims that in the fall of 2022, after pledging $1 million to the school, he tried to give the remaining $651,400 after having donated $348,000 the previous year.
He was told by school leaders that he in fact owed $710,000, according to the parent, whose name has not been publicly identified but whose email appeared on NYC Private School Watch, an Instagram page chronicling the escalating problems at the most expensive and elite institutions in Manhattan.
Director of the John Botti School. The father says that she refused to meet with him after the initial incident and communicated only through lawyers.
Raising the issue with the school’s principal, John Botti, the father says Botti assured him he would follow up “immediately” but heard nothing afterward.
He says he decided to withdraw his financial support on the spot out of concern about the school’s ‘bad bookkeeping’.
In the months that followed, he claims the school took unwarranted disciplinary action against his sons, who had never been in trouble before.
When the family tried to investigate the matters, he claims Botti refused to meet with them, instead insisting on communicating through lawyers.
“We understand that we are among several Browning families this year, spanning various grades, who had to retain attorneys.
“This is due, in part, to the disastrous inability to hire, retain, or supervise competent principals of at least the middle and high schools,” he said.
It is the last issue in a series of Browning episodes.
The famous boys’ school was founded in 1888 to educate brothers Percy and John D. Rockefeller.
Now, it faces criticism for changing its policy to allow children “who identify as children” to come forward.
“As a school that proudly celebrates and affirms children at every stage of their lives, we recognize that the many ways in which gender can be lived and expressed are very different now than at our founding in 1888,” a recent letter read. to the parents.
