Damage Control at Dwight
NYC Prep debuts this evening on Bravo and although the schools that the bratty kids attend in real life—Dwight, Nightingale-Bamford, Birch Wathen Lenox, the Ross School, and non-private Stuyvesant—aren't mentioned by name on the program, some administrators at private schools around town are now talking about banning kids from reality TV shows, reports a young Times reporter who knows of what he writes, A.G. Sulzberger.
In a letter sent out to alumni, Stephen H. Spahn, Dwight's chancellor, explained that there is "zero tolerance for students" who violate school's ethics policy, which requires that students maintain, well, "high ethical standards" and "behave, both on and off campus, in ways that reflect favorably upon the School."
High ethical standards at Dwight? The same school that has its very own entry in the Urban Dictionary and its very own acronym? The same school that Paris Hilton attended when no other private school in NYC would have her? (Not that she managed to graduate.)
Dwight shouldn't think for a second of banning kids (like PC Peterson!) from appearing on tawdry TV shows. The fact that a Dwight grad is earning a steady paycheck on his/her own—without any help from his/her parents— is probably something the school should consider adding to the promotional material it hands out to prospective parents.
Should Schools Ban Students From Reality TV? [NYT]
Previously: A Greek Tragedy for the Peterson Family