Fed-up parent slams ‘dysfunctional’ Browning School, claims he’s being bilked for $60K after spending $1.5M in tuition
A furious parent and board member at the prestigious Browning School resigned and trashed the all-boys institution as “dysfunctional” just prior to the school planning it would accept transgender students.
The anonymous parent — who claims to have spent $1.5 million in tuition and donations at the historic institution — accused the progressive administration of trying to bilk him of thousands of dollars and unfairly punishing their children.
“Browning has degenerated into a morass of dysfunction, misfeasance, and unfairness,” the seven-year board of trustees member said in an email leaked to nycprivateschoolwatch.
“Those are serious words, and I use them carefully — as a parent and a fiduciary.”
The fed-up parent claimed he committed to a $1 million donation for the Upper East Side school in 2022 and attempted to make the payment out in two massive sums.
In October, after initially gifting a $348,600 payment, the board member tried to pay out the remaining $651,400 balance, but the K-12 school allegedly told the parent they owed even more.
“Because of discrepancies in Browning’s poor bookkeeping, the Chief Advancement Officer took the bizarre position I somehow ‘owed’ $710,000” — nearly $60,000 more than the parent had committed to, they claimed in the email.
The school allegedly gave the parent the run-around for two months until the frustrated parent took back the entire hefty donation.
“Almost immediately, the administration turned against our sons,” the board member claimed.
The parent accused the school of handing down disproportionately heavy punishments to their sons on at least three different occasions throughout the rest of the school year.
The boys — who reportedly had not been the subject of disciplinary action before the revoked donation — were not afforded “even the most basic due process” in any case, the parent said.
Browning allegedly only backed down when the boys’ parents sicked their lawyers on the school — which cost them thousands of dollars in legal action and a week of classes for their targeted son.
Throughout the ordeal, Browning’s Head of School John Botti allegedly refused to meet with the parents.
“With the administration in an ivory tower, Browning is no longer a school run for its students — and it is behind time for accountability,” the former board member said.
“Browning has put our sons, and undoubtedly many other students, through a massive amount of stress and anguish. This conduct is, put simply, cruel — the antithesis of the lofty rhetoric the administrators extol in their speeches and blogs but betray in their (in)actions.”
A representative for Browning did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The email was sent prior to the school making its announcement on trans policy.
However, nycprivateschoolwatch shared the email just hours after Browning announced it would begin accepting students who identify as male as part of a new gender policy and would work to accommodate current students who no longer identify as a boy.
The academy said in its letter to parents that the school had been evaluating its admissions policy during years of public discourse over gender and diversity.
“Like many schools around the world in recent years, we have witnessed changing cultural concepts, vocabulary and identities with regard to gender,” the letter said.
“As a single-gender school that educates boys starting in kindergarten, we are engaging with how gender is viewed today, particularly by the students whom we serve.”
The decision has left multiple parents fuming, with some claiming it defeats the purpose of sending children to a single-sex school.