Barron Trump’s School For The Next Few Years: St. Andrews Episcopal School, A Tony Private School In Maryland
Barron Trump will be attending a new school beginning in the fall, and his parents have chosen St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland (in the Washington, D.C. suburbs). Interestingly, the school’s program takes kids – whose parents pay tens of thousands of dollars for tuition – to a homeless shelter to help feed and interact with the homeless people.
As The Daily Caller reported, an insider source close to the Trump family, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirms that Donald and Melania have selected the tony private school for their son, who is 11.
As you may already know, Barron and his mother, Melania Trump, famously stayed behind in New York for the first few months of Donald Trump’s administration, in order to allow Barron to finish the 2016-2017 school year at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in Manhattan, without having to change schools. Now that the 2016-2017 year is coming to a close, Barron is preparing to move in to the White House with his father and mother, and he’ll attend school near Washington, rather than New York.
According to the school’s website, the Maryland institution values diversity.
“From its earliest days, St. Andrew’s cultivated challenging programs in a joyful and supportive atmosphere, celebrating its students’ diversity of interests, backgrounds and abilities and developing each child’s potential in the “four pillars” of academics, arts, athletics, and spiritual life.”
‘Keep the children out of it’: Barron Trump unites social media users more than any other issue https://t.co/NfgXYFGHcN pic.twitter.com/lrW4SEGCPx
— RT (@RT_com) April 30, 2017
Some other quick facts about Barron’s new school:
- Tuition costs about $38,590 at Barron’s grade level; when Barron is old enough for high school, that fee jumps up to $40,650.
- The small school only has about 580 students, as well as an exceptionally high student-teacher ratio of 7:1, and class sizes of 11 to 15 students.
- Though the school is nominally affiliated with the Episcopal church, religion isn’t a particularly strong focus of the institution.
Perhaps most interestingly, the school values community service – to the point that kids at Barron’s grade level will be required to take a two-day trip to Washington, where they’ll serve a meal to homeless people and listen to a homeless person tell their life’s story.
Should Donald Trump be elected to a second term in office, Barron will be in high school. If he continues his education at St. Andrews, he’ll be required to complete 20 hours of community service between grades 9 and 11, and then complete 60 hours of community service in the last two weeks of his senior year.
That Donald and Melania selected St. Andrews, in Maryland, for Barron represents something of a departure from where more recent presidents have sent their kids. For starters, it’s in the D.C. suburbs, about a 30-minute drive in daily Washington traffic to and from the White House.
Comparatively, Sidwell Friends school – the choice for Obama daughters Sasha and Malia, and Nixon daughters Tricia and Julie – is just a hop, skip and a jump from the White House. Sidwell Friends, which is nominally affiliated with the Quaker movement, has a curriculum that is described as “not Republican-friendly,” and thus likely didn’t appeal to Donald Trump.
As for other Presidents with school-age children still living at home during their term in office: Jimmy Carter sent daughter Amy to regular Washington public schools (Stevens Elementary School and then Rose Hardy Middle School); George W. Bush’s daughters, twins Laura and Jenna, finished high school in Texas while their dad began his first term.
Do you think St. Andrew’s Episcopal School is a good choice for Barron Trump?
[Featured Image by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]
