1969 - 1980

It was a transitional time for the school. The Board had decided against merging the school or moving to the East Side or to the suburbs, despite the hard economic times in the city and on the Upper West Side. “We believe in the West Side; we feel that once more this is the coming place, this is where the future is,” Board Trustee Blanche Surut was quoted as saying in a New York Times article. “We feel that the presence of the school is a necessary factor in revitalizing the area.” (“A Private West Side Girls School Decides to Seek A New Role,” 5/18/69).

In 1969 Miss Parmelee and Miss Cosmey retired, and the Board selected Philip E. McCurdy to be the first male Head of School. Mr. McCurdy (known by friends and colleagues as Pem) was given a mandate to guide Calhoun’s transformation into a fully coeducational school, and much of his time was devoted to planning for a new building at West End Avenue and 81st Street. He and the Board of Trustees also entertained ideas for changing Calhoun’s educational program, doubling enrollment, and getting more involved in the community.

In 1973-74, math teacher Jean Oppenheim supervised students in the math "environment," in Calhoun's temporary  Learning Center for middle school students, located at Young Israel of the West Side at 210 West 91st Street.	Calhoun's five-story, $2.7 million building, which opened in 1975 on West End Avenue and 81st Street, was planned for an open-space, learning-centered program for pre-school through twelfth grade.

In 1970 Eugene (Gene) Ruth was hired to pioneer an experimental sixth grade in a West Side brownstone on West 92nd Street. A doctoral candidate at Teachers College with six years of teaching experience in urban and suburban elementary schools as well as colleges, Gene had been developing his own philosophy based on current educational theories. With Calhoun’s sixth grade learning center, he got the chance to use the principles of “learner-centered instruction.” Words like “open-space,” “individual differences,” and “independent learning” were fundamental to his approach.

The sixth grade experiment was a huge success. While some were skeptical at first, Gene had the capacity to inspire faculty, students, parents and Trustees with his theories, and he was soon asked to expand his program to include fifth, seventh and eighth grades. The cluster advisor system, anecdotals (faculty meetings to discuss individual student needs) and the custom of calling teachers and administrators by their first names were all born at this time.

Gene was appointed Head of School in 1973. In the spring of 1975 Calhoun opened its five-story, $2.7 million structure on West 81st Street, designed by architect Costas Machlouzarides. The unique building on West End Avenue was planned for the open-space, learner-centered program that would now be integrated throughout the coeducational school, pre-K through 12th grade.

Students learned to set their own goals with “contracts,” work in interdisciplinary “environments,” and do self-evaluations. The goal of teaching and preparing the “whole child” with democratic values—concepts often advanced by the early headmistresses— found its natural expression in the design of the new building and the learner-centered educational approach.

Jolly Uhry, elementary art and social studies teacher, 1975	Kathleen McDonough, math teacher, 1975

Teachers were committed to providing academic excellence while nurturing the total individual at a time when many tended to measure educational quality solely in terms of SAT scores and elite college placement.

The diversity that Miss Parmelee and Miss Cosmey had talked about in the ’40s was finally becoming a reality in the ’70s. The school graduated its last all-girl class in 1975. That same year, the school became a member of the ABC financial aid program in order to recruit more students of color. The student body began to better reflect the racial and economic diversity of the Upper West Side, while at the same time, by 1978, the faculty had become more diverse by recruiting more men, and teachers and administrators of color.

Dedicated parents participated in all aspects of school life, and many continued to be active well beyond their children’s graduation. Parents participated as members of the Board of Trustees in helping manage and plan for the future of the school. Through the auspices of the Parents Association, they were responsible for fund-raising, social and educational events. And many parents were involved in the classroom—as artists-in-residence, speakers and mentors.