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Welcome to the Ethical Culture Fieldston School and to our website!

Beth Beckmann

Beth P. Beckmann
Interim Head of School 
When you walk through the hallways of ECF and visit our classrooms, art rooms, wood shops, or playing fields, you see children actively engaged in their learning. Sometimes they are working in small groups, sometimes they are presenting to their classmates, sometimes they are listening to the teacher, but always they are engaged in their own learning. One of our graduates, recently interviewed about her experience here, put it beautifully: “I never felt like a kid in school, I felt like a young person learning.”

At ECF our goal is to find the passion within each child, the subject or project that the child loves so much it becomes the focal point of his or her learning for that month or the year, perhaps for years to come.   Once you find that connection, everything else becomes possible.

We design our program to be challenging and exciting at every age level. Our students lead very busy lives at school, whether in the classrooms, theater, art studio, or playing fields. And yet we also encourage them to think – and respond – beyond our walls. Engagement in the world starts early. In the elementary grades, students may participate in winter coat drives and the annual Penny Harvest. At the high school level, community service opportunities abound, and Fieldston students actively participate, whether it’s hosting a holiday dinner for 500 at the local Kingsbridge Heights Community Center or spending spring break in New Orleans, helping to paint schools.

We hope this website provides you with a view into life at our school.


Beth Beckmann signature
Beth P. Beckmann
Interim Head of School




















ECF at a Glance
Committed to academic excellence, ethical learning, and progressive education, ECF offers a rich and challenging curriculum in the arts, sciences, and humanities. A coed, nonsectarian school, it serves a diverse community of over 1,600 students from PreK to 12 on two campuses -- one in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, and the other in Manhattan.