Handbooks

The Harvey School provides a college preparatory program that fosters lifelong learning and
inspires students to develop the confidence and leadership qualities necessary to succeed in a
diverse, competitive, and changing world. With our commitment to small class size, our
community cultivates the strengths of each student through academic excellence, artistic
exploration, athletic achievement, community service, and global understanding.

Passion for Learning

• We value each student’s individuality.
• We inspire students to take on challenges and discover & develop their strengths.
• We foster the creativity & imagination of our students to best prepare them for a changing world.

Respect

• We empathize with individual differences & treat each other with dignity & appreciation.

Integrity

• We keep our word; we are truthful, clear & forthcoming at all times.
• We hold ourselves accountable to one another, our school & our community.
• We strive to live by a clear, moral compass.

Dynamic balance

• We strive to enhance each student’s total health, sense of self & purpose.
• We seek to infuse joy in learning & in life.

Excellence

• We strive for continuous improvement in pursuit of being the best.

The Harvey School was founded by Dr. Herbert Carter in 1916 as a residential school for boys, enrolling students through the secondary grades. Dr. Carter, a New York City pediatrician, built the school at his farm in Hawthorne, New York. His intention was to provide a country environment and an educational program for his son, Herbert Swift Carter, Jr., who had suffered from rheumatic fever. The school was named for Sir William Harvey (1578-1657), personal physician of King Charles I and first to describe the mechanics of blood circulation. Harvey’s discoveries and methods established him as one of the fathers of modern medical science.

John L. Miner was appointed as the school’s first headmaster when its doors opened in October 1916, with an enrollment of twelve boys. Mr. Miner served the school for ten years before leaving to establish Greenwich Country Day School, originally known as The Harvey School of Greenwich. Herbert Carter, Jr. graduated from Harvey in 1919 and from Princeton in 1923. Following a year at Oxford, he returned to Harvey to teach English, and in 1926, he succeeded Mr. Miner as headmaster.

After Dr. Carter passed away in 1927, the main purpose of the school was no longer to care for those needing a country environment; the educational emphasis was placed on providing a curriculum for boys from grades four through eight and preparing them for the leading eastern secondary boarding schools. The Harvey School soon established a reputation for providing a sound, traditional education of the English prep school style in a small residential setting.

Upon the early death of Herbert Carter in 1938, the school came under the leadership of Mr. Leverett T. Smith, who served until 1963. In 1947, the school established a Board of Trustees and joined the ranks of private independent schools operating as a not-for-profit organization. The school continued operating at the Hawthorne location until 1959, when construction of a highway cloverleaf interchange pre-empted the school’s property. The search for a new site led to the former Sylvan Weil estate in Katonah, where the school resides today on more than 125 acres of beautifully wooded and hilly land. The new campus provided boarding facilities for sixty residential students, while the day student population continued to expand total enrollment. As the school began transitioning to primarily a day school, Harry A. Dawe was appointed headmaster in 1969; it was his objective to continue the transition and the growth of enrollment while retaining the residential environment.

In 1970, the school added a ninth grade, and in 1979, the remaining secondary grades were established. Harvey began admitting girls as day students when it began operating as a full high school; this transition, which served as a significant challenge to the administration and trustees, was further complicated by a fire that destroyed the school’s central building. The first five years of secondary school operations involved many refinements necessary to establish what was, in many ways, a new school and a new constituency within the traditions of the old school.

Barry W. Fenstermacher was appointed headmaster in 1986, and under his leadership, the campus has developed further. The original mission had been met — development of a quality “country school” offering a unique five-day residential dimension close to the metropolitan New York area. Thirty-four senior classes have now graduated since the first in 1983, and college placement results serve as testimony to the quality of education being provided. Mr. Fenstermacher retired after thirty years as headmaster.

Mr. William Knauer began his tenure as head of school in the fall of 2016. In the 2015-16 school year, the school celebrated its centennial. The Harvey School has a traditional college preparatory curriculum based on the acquisition of fundamental skills in writing, reading, mathematics, science, ancient and modern languages, history, political science, and the arts. Building on these basic skills, a range of courses is offered through the Advanced Placement level in all disciplines. Exploration of special interests is encouraged with electives in every subject area. Extensive athletic and extracurricular activities supplement the academic program. An international program was started in 2014, with 5 foreign students admitted to the upper school each year and living with a host family on weekends and holidays. The first of these students graduated in 2017.