ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS OF NEW YORK CITY: WHERE YOUNG KNICKERBOCKER LADIES FROM THE FINEST SCHOOLS COMPETE

The Athletic Association of Independent Schools of New York City (better known as the AAIS or AAIS NYC) is a girls’ varsity athletic conference composed of some of the leading private independent schools, both co-educational and girls only (though mainly comprised of girls’-only or historically girls’-only schools), in New York City. The league covers a number of intermural sports programmes including: Badminton; Basketball; Cross Country; Indoor Athletics; Lacrosse; Soccer; Softball; Squash; Swimming; Tennis; Track and Field; and Volleyball. Many AAIS schools are members or associates of the prestigious New York Interschool consortium.

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ABOUT

New York City has played a significant role in American history, being one of the oldest cities and having established itself as the financial centre of the world’s largest economy and, arguably, the cultural hub of North America. The history of education in the city and, especially, the provision of girls’ education, has been heavily dictated by the history of the city itself, the needs of the earliest settlers and subsequent waves of migration and its emergence as a financial powerhouse. Moreover, the unique circumstances that shaped the girls’ education system in New York City has given rise to a sense of camaraderie and cooperation between the leading girls’ schools, particularly those that form the AAIS.

European settlers first arrived in the 1500s, with Giovanni da Verrazzano having conducted early exploration of the New York bay area for the Italian crown in 1524. The city traces its foundation back to the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam, founded a century after da Verrazzano’s survey in 1624. The favourable landscape lent itself well to pan-continental and trans-international trade, as well as being a well-defended maritime fortress. New Amsterdam became a critical trading point in the age of Empire. The outposts strategic importance was noted by the British who confiscated the colony at the outset of the Anglo-Dutch War in 1664 and renamed it New York.

The colony of New York grew rapidly in the years thereafter, attracting émigrés from Europe, particularly Protestants escaping persecution from the established churches in their country of origin (with European countries being heavily dominated by religious affairs until the late Renaissance Age). Similarly, many noble-born Europeans had crossed the Atlantic seeking fame and fortune and to establish great estates in their own name (typically being the second sons of a great dynastic family who, as a consequence of primogeniture, were not in line to inherit their ancestral estates). These early settlers brought with them their concepts of social hierarchy and structure, creating a quasi-class-based system (even caste-like system) in the American colonies. Cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Providence all had similar social systems, as did much of the Virginia Colony and the southern plantation communities. The wealthy continued to employ private tutors to educate their young offspring and to prepare them for administrative life in public service or for entry into the officer classes.

Mirroring the history of education in Europe, many of the earliest schools in the New World were established by religious communities to prepare educated young men for a life of ministry. However, unlike Europe, many of the pilgrims settling in North America were of low-church Protestant faiths which had eschewed the episcopal structure of the established churches and did not have need of an educated class of priests.

The renowned boy’s school, the Collegiate School, traces its foundation back to 1628 when ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church sought to establish a school for teaching the catechism to native American children in the colony, although the school was not officially chartered until 1638. The Boston Latin School was officially founded in 1635 and lays claim to being the oldest verifiable school in North America, a claim disputed by Collegiate. The equally estimable Trinity School was founded in 1709 when the congregation of Trinity Church determined a need to teach poor children in order to become priests in the Anglican faith (the forerunner of the Episcopal church) to serve the established English hegemony in the city.  These are amongst the earliest examples of American schools, that predate American independence and demonstrate how educational institutions were founded specifically to serve religious communities.

New York City, like many of the colonial cities of North America, suffered many early setbacks, through conflict, disease and even great fires. However, the booming trade from the resource rich continent and the expansion westwards of European settlement saw many of these cities begin to flourish. Early settlers and their descendants became enormously prosperous and America’s merchant classes and business tycoons were in the ascendance.

Many of the most successful merchants and industrialists of this era hailed from the Quaker community. Indeed, it was the Religious Society of Friends that incepted many of the early schools in North America, seeking to educate young men (and, later, young women) in their progressive principles to spread the Quaker ethos through the missions. They were early adopters of the scientific method and introducing technological and scientific study into their schools to better equip young graduates for the needs of business and industry. They sought to adapt the model of the early Puritan “dissenting” academies of New England (such as Deerfield Academy, Milton Academy, Phillips Academy Andover, and Phillips Exeter Academy), which had embraced the liberal arts pedagogy, and the tuition of sciences as opposed to a focus on the classics and the Latin grammar tradition that dominated the English schooling system which they had left behind.

Quakers were behind the founding of the William Penn Charter School (Penn Charter) in Philadelphia in 1689, the Darby Friends School in Darby, Pennsylvania in 1692 and the Abington Friends School in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania in 1697 which predate the Puritan academies and which had been loosely modelled on the grammar school tradition which formed the basis of tuition at the Collegiate School in New York City and other ancient schools such as the Boston Latin School (opened in 1635 in Boston, Massachusetts) and The Roxbury Latin School (opened in 1645 in Boston’s West Roxbury neighbourhood). The Quakers were early proponents for the education of girls and the majority of Quaker schools were co-educational from the outset, often with boys and girls segregated within the structures of the school.

The Quakers founded Friends Seminary in New York City in 1786. The school was, from the outset, co-educational. Many girls along America’s east coast, were not able to avail of education of a comparable standard to that on offer to boys. Where they were in education at all this was often at what was known as a “Dame School” – a school under the supervision of an unmarried woman who would instruct them in subjects deemed fit for a young lady seeking to enter into Society and to prepare them for married life overseeing the administration of a home. Whilst some degree of classics, literature, language and science might be taught at the best of these schools, many were more akin to a “finishing school” for young women as opposed to a rigorous college-preparatory school which many of the best boys’ schools were becoming. Friends Seminary was one of the first to offer a comparable education to both boys and girls. The presbyterian aligned The Alexander Robertson School would open three years later in 1789, also offering co-educational tuition.

The Dame Schools, nonetheless, continued to dominate the provision of education to young women in New York City, especially so for the wealthy elite who tended to be of the Anglican/Episcopal faith or other high church traditions such as the Lutherans and, to a lesser extent, Methodists. Increasingly, many of the descendants of the grand dynastic families that traced their lineage to the early Puritan settlers of the East Coast had converted to high church denominations (which some commentators would argue was a cynical move to enhance their social and business standing with Anglocentrism having been a defining trait of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) political class that dominated American high society). Of the great Dame Schools, Mrs. Okill’s Academy, was considered to be one of the first and finest proper schools for young highborn women, amongst others from New York’s Episcopal community. Ms. Okill’s Academy opened its doors in 1822 and closed in 1859.

Similarly, successive waves of Catholic immigrants escaping poverty and/or persecution had established a large community in New York and surrounding neighbourhoods. Within these Catholic communities, there existed parallel social hierarchies, often excluded from the WASP institutions due to sectarianism.

Various Episcopal, Methodist and Roman Catholic missions established themselves in the New World colonies, starting along America’s East Coast and eventually spreading Westwards and Southwards. They established multiple schools to provide a pipeline of qualified, educated young men for the priesthood and for missionary work. They also wished to preserve adherence to faith in their respective communities and to instil their virtues in future community leaders. Many would begin by accepting young men of limited means and poorer backgrounds, but, over time, would also come to welcome young men from prosperous backgrounds whose tuition fees would support the school and the work of the mission and ministry. Gradually, as was the case with schools in Europe, the wealthier pupils would be the majority of the student body at many of these institutions.

Many of this new wave of schools would remain exclusively open to boys only with girls continuing to receive their education at Dame Schools or the few co-educational schools that existed and were limited to adherents of a prescribed denomination. Some schools, attached to convents, had been opened in order to encourage young women to become nuns. Controversially, many of these schools were for orphans or for children born out of wedlock.

Catholic missions account for some of the oldest schools in the Americas with the first being opened in St. Augustine, Florida in 1606 and the Ursuline Academy of New Orleans being the oldest still in operation today, founded in 1727. It was the sisters of the Society of the Sacred Heart who established the oldest, independent, all-girls’ school in continuous operation in New York City – the Convent of the Sacred Heart, in 1881.

As was the case in England during the Victorian Era, so too were many great schools established across America in what is sometimes referred to as the “American Victorian” era. Having been inspired by the reforms and initiatives that had been introduced in the great “Public Schools” of England, with Thomas Arnold of Rugby School celebrated as their grand architect, a host of American schools adopted the habits, mannerisms and models of their English counterparts. The “St. Grottlesex” schools, largely Episcopal in ethos, are often acclaimed as America’s finest example of the British “Public School” tradition. Even the Puritan academies, predominantly inspired by their counterparts in England and Scotland (such as The Glasgow Academy, Rathmell Academy, Tewkesbury Academy, and Warrington Academy), came to adopt many of the ideas espoused by their peers. These schools served mainly as boarding schools and attracted young men from across the Northeastern region and from many of the great dynastic families therein. The best of these are still listed as amongst the world’s most prestigious schools, especially the so-called Group of Seven, Elite Eight, or Select 16.

Women’s education still lagged some way behind that available to men. This timeframe, however, coincides with the First-wave feminism and the early suffragette movement. Many illustrious female educators established female seminaries in the Northeastern states during this era, displacing the various Dame Schools and boutique boarding schools which existed. They sought to provide young women with an education equal to that afforded to young men. These seminary schools typically incorporated a high school component and a women’s college component, albeit few were eligible to issue degrees in their own capacity. Many would evolve into college-preparatory high schools, and others into women’s colleges, some of which were coordinate colleges to the great universities (which, at that time, would only admit men).

One of the earliest examples was the Bethlehem Female Seminary founded in 1742 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. This was the first female boarding school in North America, founded by Moravian progressives in Pennsylvania at the instigation of Countess Benigna von Zinzendorf. The school would later admit girls from outside of the Moravian Church, becoming the Moravian Female Seminary in 1985 before merging with the boys’-only Moravian College and which continues this day as the Moravian University (although no longer operating a high school division).

Notable women’s rights and education activists, including Emma Willard, sought to ensure that not only did women’s schools exist but that they offered an education on a par with that of their male counterparts. Emma Willard was the leading figure behind the Troy Female Seminary in upstate New York and which continues today as the eponymous Emma Willard School.

Despite these trends across the Northeast, New York City, however, saw a different trajectory. Many children from the great families of the Big Apple, instead continued to be educated at home or attended day schools across the city. Still, today, those great day schools that trace their foundation back to the same period in American history are amongst the most prestigious, selective and academically rigorous schools in the world.

With the burgeoning movement towards female education taking route, New York would also become an epicentre for girls’ schools and progressive education. New York City was one of the last of the big American cities to introduce a proper public school system with state money, earmarked for education, tending to be directed towards the well-established private school ecosystem. Long before universal education had taken a foothold in the city, successive educators and charitable bodies had instituted a system of “Free Schools” in New York City, providing educational opportunities to the city’s poorest communities where the state had not.

The anti-slavery, New York Manumission Society was responsible for the opening of the African Free School in 1787 to educate young black men and to inspire future community leaders. In 1805 the State chartered the Free School Society (which would subsequently be renamed as the Public School Society). This body would open various schools throughout the city to support poor and marginalised communities who could not afford to engage private tutors or send their children to any of the numerous private schools. Whilst this body was chartered by the state, it remained a private organisation until it was absorbed by the New York City Board of Education in 1853 thus marking the establishment of a true public school system.

These schools maintained segregated classrooms for boys and girls with separate curriculums. All pupils were taught basic arithmetic and grammar, but girls were afforded little additional education. This would change in 1855 when Ward School No 47 would open on East 12^th Street. A prominent female educator, a master of Latin and Greek, Lydia Fowler Wadleigh would be invited to join the school’s faculty and would run the girls’ department on the top floor of the ornate Italianate brownstone. The conservative denizens of the city would deride her efforts and predicted failure for the little girls’ school that Wadleigh oversaw, however she quickly proved her detractors wrong, and she would prove her experiment to be a just one. Her school, the 12^th Street Advanced School for Girls would offer a grammar school education to girls at primary and junior secondary level. The school would later become known as the Wadleigh High School for Girls and moved to a dedicated facility at 215 West 114^th Street in Harlem. The school, the first public high school for girls in New York City (the first public high school for girls in the United States being Western High School in Baltimore), attracted many distinguished families, particularly from the affluent Jewish communities that once inhabited this part of New York. However, the school’s enrolment declined substantially as the area’s demographics changed and it was forced to close in the 1953/54 academic year. Various other schools have since occupied the facility, maintaining the Wadleigh name but having no formal connection with their predecessor school. Today the site houses the Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing & Visual Arts.

This notwithstanding, it is the independent schools’ sector in New York that have garnered the city a reputation for experimental, progressive and cutting-edge methodologies and educational pedagogies.

New York City is home to many of the nation’s most celebrated schools many of which have come to be the leading luminaries in the various progressive education movements. Schools like Horace Mann School which is named for the famed American educational reformer, abolitionist and statesman of the same name, and The Dalton School, where Helen Parkhurst devised the Dalton Plan – a model which has been adopted by various highly-acclaimed schools around the world. Parkhurst’s philosophy was heavily inspired by John Dewey, who founded the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and whose own ideas were heavily employed, particularly, by many high schools across New York City. Similarly, the Dwight School was originally founded as the New York School of Languages but embarked on an early experimental model at the behest of Timothy Dwight, President of Yale University, who sought to trial a math and science program as the entrance requirement as opposed to the classics model used popularly at the time. Other leading schools embraced the early Country Day School movement which sought to harness the great outdoors as part of a holistic, experiential learning program.

New York City also saw many significant steps forward in the education of girls and young women, with many girls’ only schools and colleges opening to offer a modern, rigorous, college-preparatory education to females and to ensure a pathway to degree level. Many of the nation’s top-ranked girls’ schools were and are located in the city, such as The Brearley School, The Chapin School, Convent of the Sacred Heart, The Hewitt School, The Nightingale Bamford School, the Marymount School of New York, and The Spence School, all of which are members of the Athletic Association of Independent Schools of New York City. Other well-regarded independent girls’ schools in and around the city include Fontbonne Hall Academy and Dominican Academy. The city was also home to a number of women’s colleges, many of which were attached to girls’ schools and which allowed capable and intelligent young women to continue their education in preparation of a professional or academic career.

The city once hosted many other prestigious private girls’ schools such as:

• The Barnard School for Girls, a renowned girls’ school and counterpart to The Barnard School for Boys (which merged into Horace Mann School in 1972) before it closed in 1992;
• Bennett College and Bennett School for Girls, a high school and women’s college which discontinued its high school department in the early 20^th Century and continued as a private Junior College until it closed in 1977;
• The Fleming School, a particularly prestigious girls’ school which closed in 1991;
• The Gardner School for Girls which shut its doors in 1949;
• The Horace Mann School for Girls which was a counterpart to the famous boys’ school which continues today as a co-educational institution. The girls’ school merged with The Lincoln School in 1942 before the new combined school closed its doors in 1946.
• The Jacobi School which became The Calhoun School, once an all-girls’ school that became co-educational in 1971 and continues to be amongst the best in the city today;
• The Knox School – once an all-girls’ school in Briarcliff Manor, a northern commuter town on the outskirts of New York City’s metropolitan area but now a co-educational school of great repute;
• Mrs Dow’s School for Girls, a progressive girls’ high school and junior college that would later become Briarcliff College, a popular women’s college that closed in 1977.
• Riverdale Country School for Girls which merged with its male counterpart to form the co-educational Riverdale Country School in 1972;
• St. Agatha School for Girls, a popular choice with New York’s high society before it closed down in 1941;
• The Todhunter School which merged with the Dalton School in 1939; and
• The Veltin School for Girls which closed in 1924.

Many of these schools were early members of the Guild of Independent Schools of New York City (GISNY), a prestigious and still active association of the elite schools in and around New York that subscribe to a progressive ethos. Its membership includes many of those schools that participate in the AAIS. The progressive tradition being very much alive and well and adopted by many other schools in the city too, such as Grace Church School, LREI, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, The Beekman School, City and Country School, The Caedmon School, Bank Street School for Children, the Manhattan Country School, and the Greene Hill School in addition to those listed above.

So it was that many of the obstacles faced by young women were challenged and removed through the provision of excellent educational opportunities, at girls’-only or mixed-sex co-educational schools.

However, girls’ sports would lag behind that available to boys form many years to come. Until the passing of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 which forbade sex discrimination in any school or education program that receives federal funding, women’s sports at college level were deliberately limited. With no need for an athletic pathway to support college sports, athletics at the high school level was also similarly limited for girls.

This marks the historic societal view of women in sports which had largely restricted women to recreational play with many sports being reserved as the exclusive purview of young men. Indeed, it was a widely held conception that many sports would be too damaging to delicate young women and female participation served no great purpose for the needs of society. In many cases, school and college sports had developed as a means of subduing other ungentlemanly pursuits and perceived immoral activities. Allowing and developing means of engaging in sport would also quell unrest and prepare young men for the needs of the military amongst other, desirable outcomes. That sport would become a pleasure had not been the basis for its introduction into academic institutions.

Thus, whilst school and collegiate sports evolved into competitive fixtures for young men, opportunities for women to participate to the same degree were unavailable. Occasional intramural sports events existed, as did sorority competitions and sports day type fixtures, however this was the extent of female sport within academic institutions. Furthermore, academic faculty at prestigious women’s colleges subscribed to the belief that sport had corrupted the programmes at men’s colleges, and they did not wish to allow the same to happen to the curricula at their respective institutions. There was much concern at the advent of women’s college sport and a great deal of pushback. When the Women’s Division of the National Amateur Athletic Federation (NAAF) was launched, there was so much resistance that, upon formally codifying their approach to prohibit excessive costs, scholarships, media in a means to appease their critics, it had the net impact of reducing athletic competition in women’s intercollegiate sport.

Recognition of women’s sport changed substantially, however, during the Great Wars. With great numbers of fighting age men having been dispatched to the front lines, men’s sports and the accompanying public spectacle, could not continue. Authoritative figures in Western governments recognised that watching and following sports was a pastime of the public that was pursued with great passion and a rather helpful distraction during a difficult period. Quickly, women’s sport would be used to fill this gap with women’s basketball and baseball becoming enormously popular in North America and association football (soccer) becoming similarly successful in England.

This surge in support for women’s sport would help make the case for women’s collegiate sports, further enhanced by the march towards equal civil rights. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), remained exclusive to male-only programmes and it has been suggested, were steadfastly committed to so remaining. In 1971, the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) was constituted to govern intercollegiate sport for women. Its foundation coincides with the passage of Title IX, wherein secondary and post-secondary level educational institutions were given a set timeframe by which to achieve compliance and to ensure that equal opportunities were afforded to female students to participate in sports if those schools were in receipt of federal money.

The establishment of the AIAW and the passing of Title IX forced a revision in approach by the NCAA, concerned by a rival structure and the potential erosion of its position as the arbiter on collegiate sport. They initially argued that collegiate sports programmes were not in receipt of such finances and should be exempted from the application of Title IX.

The NCAA repeatedly sought to absorb the AIAW or to force the association to affiliate with it or to accept its interpretations and codifications. This resulted in an acrimonious relationship between the two bodies. Ultimately, the NCAA would amend its position to allow for women athletes and collegiate programmes within its existing structure that would lead to the collapse of the AIAW.

Nonetheless, these efforts would have a profound impact on women’s educational experience, with school and college athletics becoming a significant part and opportunities for female athletes presenting like never before. With opportunities to compete at college level and beyond with an advancement in professional sports for women, high schools recognised the part they could play in preparing young women to compete at a high level.

Those schools that owe their foundation to that first great leap forward in women’s education and the early suffrage movements, would continue to push the boundaries of what is possible for young women by embracing sports. Many of these schools had already established an outstanding pedigree in academic achievements, with girls far outpacing their male counterparts in exam results and college placements. Athletics, perhaps, represented the last hurdle to full equality.

Interscholastic competition at the high school level became regularised and existing associations, such as the New York State Association of Independent Schools Athletic Association (NYSAISAA) would include competition between girls’ teams representing their respective member schools. The NYSAISAA structure incorporates member schools of the New York Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS) and arranges competition in varsity sports. Many of those member schools, however, also compete in parallel leagues and conferences, some of which predate NYSAISAA sanctioned competition. Leagues such as the Independent School Athletic League (ISAL), the Ivy Preparatory School League (IPSL), the Private School Athletic Association (PSAA), the New York City Athletic League (NYCAL), and the Athletic Conference of Independent Schools (ACIS), count many of New York’s most prestigious independent schools amongst their membership. Historically, these leagues have included boys’-only competition. The Girls’ Independent School Athletic League (GISAL) was founded as a counterpart to ISAL and includes largely the same membership comprised of co-educational schools.

New York City’s elite, independent girls’ schools have come together in recent years to create their own interscholastic conference and to ensure that the young ladies in their charge afforded the same opportunities to compete in sports at the same competitive level.

The Athletic Association of Independent Schools of New York City sports conference was founded in 2014 in order to establish a top-tier, girls only, athletics and inter-varsity sports competition. Its membership is drawn from the most selective and prestigious schools in the city, many of whom offer complementing athletics programmes and shared the same ethos with respect to athletics scholarships and academic selectivity. The city’s most renowned all-girls’ schools are members as are a number of co-educational schools (to the extent that their girls’ representative teams may compete), that do not participate in existing conferences such as GISAL.

The AAIS is limited to senior varsity, high school level sports programmes at its member schools. The conference is structured to accommodate the typical formats for the various sports, such that team sports see members compete against one another in a regular season league with playoffs deciding the ultimate champions. Sports that are more focussed on individual performances see the schools collectively convene at organised meets.

All of the eleven member schools are considered amongst the best, not just in New York, but across the United States and many AAIS champions have achieved sporting success at collegiate and post-collegiate level, including at many of the nation’s most celebrated colleges at Division I to Division III level. Many AAIS schools have decorated themselves in championship honours within NYSAISAA competitions too. The AAIS schools have seen many of their graduating classes being offered full-ride scholarships to some of the nation’s best college athletics programmes, combining excellent academics with excellent sporting ability.

The conference’s membership is made up of:

• The Berkeley Carroll School’s Lions
  The Berkeley Carroll School Lions compete in a host of AAIS-sanctioned sports with girls’ eligible to participate in Association Football (Soccer), Athletics (Track & Field), Basketball, Cross Country, Softball, Swimming, Tennis, Ultimate Frisbee, and Volleyball. The Lions home facilities are located at The Berkeley Carroll Athletic Center at 763 President Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215, adjoining the Lower School Campus. The Lions also make use of facilities at Dyker Beach Park. The school’s has a rivalry with the Packer Collegiate Institute.
• The Brearley School Beavers
  With athletics facilities at The Field House, 353 E 87^th Street, New York NY 10128 and at their primary campuses at 590 E 83^rd Street and 610 E 83^rd Street, New York, NY 10028, Beavers girls’ can compete in Association Football (Soccer), Athletics (Track & Field), Badminton, Basketball, Cross Country, Hockey (Field), Lacrosse, Softball, Squash, Tennis, and Volleyball. The school also makes use of playing fields at Asphalt Green on the Upper East Side and on Randall’s Island. Brearley’s primary rival is The Chapin School.
• The Chapin School Gators
  Gators participate in Association Football (Soccer), Athletics (Track & Field), Badminton, Basketball, Cross Country, Fencing, Hockey (Field), Lacrosse, Softball, Squash, Swimming, Tennis, and Volleyball. The school boasts state-of-the-art facilities at their 100 East End Avenue, New York, NY 10028 campus and also make use of the Asphalt Green playing fields on the Upper East Side and the sports pitches on Randall’s Island. As noted, their fiercest rival is The Brearley School
• Convent of the Sacred Heart Cardinals
  The Cardinals are able to avail of athletics facilities that rival the very best in the city at their Athletics & Wellness Center at 406 E 91^st Street, New York, NY 10128. Girls at Sacred Heart may participate in Association Football (Soccer), Athletics (Track & Field), Badminton, Basketball, Cross Country, Lacrosse, Softball, Squash, Swimming, Tennis, and Volleyball. The school also uses the playing fields available on Randall’s Island and within Van Cortlandt Park. The Cardinals biggest rivals are the Marymount School of New York’s Lions.
• Friends Seminary Owls
  Girls at Friends Seminary represent the Owls in a number of varsity sports, including Association Football (Soccer), Athletics (Track & Field), Basketball, Cross Country, Softball, Swimming, Tennis, and Volleyball. The school has wonderful facilities for athletics on campus and avails of playing fields at Randall’s Island, Dyker Beach Park, Pier 40 at Hudson River Park and, occasionally, Owl Hollow Soccer Fields on Staten Island.
• The Hewitt School Hawks
  The Hewitt School’s Hawks use athletic facilities at The Buckley School and at Madison Avenue Presbyterian. As with many of their peers, they also regularly use the sports fields at Randall’s Island. Hawks can participate in many varsity level sports including Association Football (Soccer), Athletics (Track & Field), Badminton, Basketball, Cross Country, Softball, Squash, Tennis, and Volleyball.
• Marymount School of New York Lions
  The Marymount Lions represent the school in a number of varsity sports in the AAIS fielding teams in Association Football (Soccer), Athletics (Track & Field), Badminton, Basketball, Cross Country, Fencing, Lacrosse, Softball, Swimming, Tennis, and Volleyball. Their main rival is Sacred Heart. The school’s primary athletics facilities are located at their East 97^th Street, New York, NY 10029 campus. The school also uses nearby Central Park and the fields at Randall’s Island.
• The Nightingale-Bamford School Nighthawks
  Nightingale’s Nighthawks teams compete in Association Football (Soccer), Athletics (Track & Field), Badminton, Basketball, Cross Country, Lacrosse, Softball, Squash, Swimming, Tennis, and Volleyball. The school has state-of-the-art athletics facilities on campus and uses external facilities at Van Cortlandt Park, Randall’s Island, Central Park, Columbia University and Queens College.
• The Packer Collegiate Institute Pelicans
  The Packer Collegiate Institute fields girls’ teams in Association Football (Soccer), Athletics (Track & Field), Basketball, Cross Country, Softball, Squash, Swimming, Tennis, Ultimate Frisbee, and Volleyball. The Pelicans compete from their on-campus Roof Gym facility and also use external amenities such as those at Randall’s Island, Queen’s College and the piers at Red Hook. Packer shares a rivalry with Saint Ann’s School.
• Saint Ann’s School Steamers
  Saint Ann’s School participate in Association Football (Soccer), Athletics (Track & Field), Basketball, Cross Country, Softball, Squash, Tennis, and Volleyball. The school has athletics facilities at its 12^th Floor Gym and also uses facilities at the piers at Red Hook, Cadman Plaza and Dyker Beach Park. Packer is their biggest rival.
• The Spence School Sabers
  Spence’s Sabers have some of the best athletic facilities in the city with the school’s 412 E 90^th Street, New York, NY 10128 athletic facilities having been completed in 2021. Sabers represent the school in Association Football (Soccer), Athletics (Track & Field), Badminton, Basketball, Cross Country, Lacrosse, Softball, Squash, Swimming, Tennis, and Volleyball. The school also uses other sports venues including Riverbank State Park, Central Park and Randall’s Island.

Many of the schools offer other sports, such as gymnastics, fencing and ultimate frisbee. Chapin, Friends Seminary, Hewitt, Packer, Sacred Heart also boast golf programmes. They do not compete under the AAIS, however, in these sports.

The various member schools have each developed particularly strong athletic programmes that have seen them crowned as AAIS champions in recent years, the Spence School’s Sabers being squash league winners and having a strong record in volleyball, soccer and in track & field, Marymount’s Lions being similarly successful in both soccer and track and field and earning the school a reputation as one of the strongest for athletics in the city, Brearley’s Beavers earning honours in soccer and cross country, the Sacred Heart Cardinals dominating in cross country, Nightingale’s Nighthawks and Hewitt’s Hawks having strong basketball programmes and Nightingale also being a powerhouse in lacrosse and tennis and strong contenders in cross country. Berkeley Carroll’s Lions have also excelled throughout the conference’s history, as have Chapin’s Gators, Friends’ Owls, Packer’s Pelicans, and Saint Ann’s Steamers.

All of the schools are fully accredited independent schools in association with the Independent Schools Admissions Association of Greater New York (ISAAGNY), the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) and the New York Association of Independent Schools. Many of the schools are also members of the prestigious Guild of Independent Schools of New York and the New York Interschool consortium. All of them are recommended by the Parents League of New York (PLNY).

Outside of AAIS fixtures, those schools with boys’ varsity teams tend to compete in the Athletic Conference of Independent Schools (which also includes girls’ competition) or against peer schools in the Private School Athletic Association, the New York City Athletic League, the  Ivy Preparatory School League, or the Independent School Athletic League, or other competitions sanctioned by the NYSAIS Athletic Association. The AAIS league maintains a low-profile outside of the participating schools with its website currently on hiatus. If you would like to know more about the AAIS and the programmes under which member schools compete, you should get in touch with your preferred member school which has included those listed below.

We welcome any contributions from people connected with AAIS member schools, whether you attended as a pupil, were a parent of an AAIS child or worked at one of the schools. We would, especially like to hear any stories or thoughts you might have on the AAIS. Please feel free to comment below.

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MEMBERS AND ASSOCIATES

CHOOSE LIST VIEW FOR A SIMPLE LIST OF ALL LISTED SCHOOLS. ALTERNATIVELY, YOU CAN SELECT SCHOOLS USING THE MAP BELOW.

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