Lower School students have the option of participating in the Extended Day program, which offers a homework clinic and time for games and reading, all under the supervision of Lower School teachers. In addition, the Lower School offers age-appropriate after- school enrichment clubs in a wide range of areas, such as Spanish, Drama, Lego Robotics, Tap Dance, Science and Nature, Soccer, Knitting, and more.

There are just over 840 students currently enrolled K-12 at Hackley School. Most classes average 16 or few students, with sections often becoming even smaller as student schedules become more individualized in Upper School. Each K-3 classroom has two teachers, and every Middle and Upper School student homeroom, 16 students each, has two teachers as well, each serving as advisor to eight students.

Our campus is equipped to meet the needs of all aspects of our program. Hackley’s 285 acre campus includes an Athletics Center, Performing Arts Center, 8-lane swimming pool, two libraries, two baseball fields, two softball fields, six tennis courts, four soccer/lacrosse fields, a football field, track & field facilities, over four miles of cross-country trails, and nature trails that support scientific study. Each division (Lower, Middle and Upper) has visual and performing arts facilities. In January 2018, we opened our new Johnson Center for Health and Wellness, a 115,000 square foot facility designed to further enhance our physical education, athletics and wellness programs.

Students K-12 travel off campus for day-long field trips to local destinations. Middle and Upper School students take part in various overnight and multi-day trips to destinations both local and international.

All parents are warmly encouraged to join Hackley Parents’ Association (HPA), our volunteer organization that plans a wide range of campus activities such as a Book Fair, Faculty Appreciation Luncheon, Fall Parent Socials, and our Hilltop Speakers Series. Parents are instrumental in helping with managing community-building events, fundraising, finding internship opportunities for students and alumni, and providing other support for Hackley’s faculty and staff.

Hackley’s 5-day boarding program allows Upper School students to experience boarding school life while continuing to be present members of their family and home communities during the weekends. This is a distinctive feature of school life, not only for our boarders, as it creates a 24/7 community with residential faculty that makes the campus feel like home, even to day students.

Hackley’s community is geographically diverse, drawn from approximately 100 towns, villages, and borough in the tri-state area. We attract day students from as far north as Cold Spring, NY, as far east as Ridgefield, CT, as far west as Franklin Lakes, NJ, and as far south as the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan.

Our boarding students hail from even further afield!

Hackley students do not sit for any state-mandated tests. Instead, the school administers the ERB annually as tool to gauge how Hackley students are faring academically in comparison to other independent school students; the school-wide results also are used by faculty and administration for professional development work in regularly evaluating our curricula. ERB test prep is minimal.

In Lower School, your child’s Head Teacher will be your primary point of contact, and learning specialists and the Lower School Director often also serve as important resources.

In Lower School, our low student-teacher ratio combined with targeted specialists creates an environment that supports the learning needs of all students. Students receive a great deal of one-on-one time with teachers. Writing and literacy are a particular area of individualized focus and the Singapore math curriculum used in grades K through 6, provides extensive opportunities for differentiated instruction.

Exposure to Spanish begins in Kindergarten, with informal instruction continuing through Grade 2. More formal academic Spanish instruction begins in Grade 3 and continues through Grade 5. In Grade 6, students may choose to continue with Spanish or opt to study French, Mandarin or Latin. All modern langauge classes at Hackley are taught in the target tongue and continue through the AP level and beyond in the Upper School.

In Lower School, students have several special subjects as part of their schedule.

Hackley’s College Counseling Office provides individualized support to families through a series of meetings that begin in the winter of a student’s junior year. Prior to those meetings, parents are invited to attend both a general “broad strokes” introduction to the college process in their child’s sophomore year, and a special evening program in the fall of their child’s junior year that allows parents new to the college counseling process to ask any questions they might have. Beginning in September of their junior year, students will participate in the Intro to College class to prepare them for what’s to come when, as seniors, they actively begin to apply to colleges.

Hackley offers a Student Support program that provides accommodations for a specific set of learning needs. We offer limited short-term pull-out support for literacy development in Lower School with our Literacy Specialist, but do not have the ability to offer consistent, long-term pull-out support. School-wide, while we can provide accommodations that will help students get the most out of their learning experiences and meet the demands of our curriculum (e.g. extended time, use of a laptop or FM system, preferential seating), we do not offer programmatic modifications (e.g. second language waiver). Divisional education psychologists will arrange required accommodations and also provide support for students’ social and emotional needs.

At Hackley, emotional growth and character development go hand in hand with academic development. In Lower School, students are introduced to a different virtue every other month through the Lower School Character Education curriculum. They learn how these virtues impact their individual lives and the lives of others within the communities to which they belong. This character education work is done across the division, within grades and in individual homerooms; resources are sent home for parents as well.

Tuition at Hackley includes the cost of lunch, technology and laboratory fees, required diagnostic tests, and required school trips. Costs that are not covered by tuition include textbooks, school supplies, travel costs for optional school trips, and yearbooks.

Hackley provides a need-based financial aid program that works with families to determine what they are able to pay, taking into account the complexities of their family size, existing income, expenses, taxes, debt and other circumstances. Awards made to families are not loans and therefore need not be repaid to the school.

In 7th and 8th grade, all students must participate in three seasons of interscholastic sports to fulfill our physical education requirement. Upper School students have the option of either participating in an interscholastic sport or attending physical education twice per week. Upper School PE classes include yoga, martial arts, hiking, strength training/conditioning and others.

Hackley students begin to engage in healthy competitions with other schools in Grade 7 as part of the interscholastic sports program. Middle School teams emphasis teamwork, sportsmanship, participation and skill building.

Students are able to take private music lessons through the Hackley Music Institute, which will host recitals regularly. In addition, students may take advantage of numerous opportunities for theatrical performance in Middle and Upper School, with rehearsals taking place after school. Students also showcase their many and varied performing talents -- as soloists and in performing groups -- at the Middle School talent shows (at least once a year) and Upper School Coffeehouse events (three times a year).

All Lower School students participate in music and studio art. In Middle School, every student is required to take performing arts courses as well as visual arts as either “minor” or “major” courses. Upper School students must take one year of a performing or visual art; to graduate; however, the majority of our students elect to exceed this requirement. On average each school year, approximately one third of Hackley Upper School students participate in a major music ensemble. Across all grades last year, the Performing Arts Department produced 80 student performances while the Visual Arts Department held 5 showcases of student artwork. Clearly, the arts are thriving on the Hilltop!