At the sidewalk on Wesley Street, the Hartleys took a sharp left turn. Immediately, they found themselves across the way from a phalanx of news-chasing but decidedly mild-mannered journalists who chose not track them.
A moment later, still on foot, without a sedan in sight, the Hartleys made another left, onto broad and yawning National Boulevard, which was groaning from beneath the mid-morning rush hour.
The Love Story Begins
Once he was hailed by thefrontpageonline.com, Mr. Hartley immediately launched into a bountiful bouquet of remarkable exuberance and articulate insights over the academic experiences of his daughter at Turning Point.
Indisputably, he is a father with an unusually comprehensive understanding of the nuances and signposts in his daughter’s life.
“This is a wonderful, wonderful school,” he said. “The faculty here are just amazingly sensitive and intelligent. So caring for our children. We have a seven-year-old in the second grade.”
From their home in Venice, the Hartleys were drawn to Turning Point’s strong academic reputation.
“”But that was not my only criteria,” said Mr. Hartley, a restaurateur/film producer. “When I came for the interview — because they interview you — I reversed the roles.
“I said, ‘Look, I am interviewing you. It is more important to me that my child goes to the right place than it is that you get my child into your school.’”
Praise for Point Instructors
With intense, embedded, full-bodied enthusiasm, Mr. Hartley, standing near a street corner, raved about the atmosphere at Turning Point.
“I really like the spirit of teachers,” he said. “Like I say, sensitive, and yet intelligent about their learning.
“Class size was very, very important to me. My daughter has fourteen or fifteen kids in her class with two teachers, which is wonderful. Very, very personal.
“Again, I go back to the faculty. It is not just about the size. The caring that those two teachers put into the fourteen, fifteen kids is amazing. Ms. Midell, she is just fabulous. The kids love her so much.”
In his introduction to Turning Point, Mr. Hartley said he was struck by seeing that “they were here to inspire the children to learn, rather than being really dogmatic about a lot of things that private schools are dogmatic about.
“Two of the things I did not want imposed on my child were politics and religion. That’s our job at home.
“Either way.
“I didn’t want them to be anti-religious or pro-religious. That is my job as a parent at home, those two areas. And I brought that to the table when I interviewed them.
“Religion and politics are not the reasons I send my kid to school. If they had not answered in the appropriate manner, I would not be here discussing this with you today.
He Wins a Promise
“They basically said they don’t delve into those two areas whatsoever. I said that was important because I don’t want my child, during a political campaign, out on the sidewalk with placards for whatever political party you are supporting.
“They said they don’t do that. But I see it at private schools a lot.”
Now that his daughter is a second grader, Mr. Hartley was asked what signs he sees in her that affirm the choice of Turning Point.
“Her thirst for knowledge,” he said. “That does start at home. But you have to remember she spends more of her waking state in school than she does with us.
“She is being influenced by them in many ways more than she is by us. I’ll tell you: She has been inspired to be a voracious reader.
“I think, if you were to give a child one sole ingredient, if you could pick only one thing, to love to read — it becomes like a domino effect. Everything else will happen.
“We prepared her for school by reading to her at a very early age. Every evening, she would sit on my lap. I would read a story to her.
“In the beginning, it was fairy tales. Now she is a big girl. She is seven and three-quarters years old. She goes to the library and picks her own books. She reads things like a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt.
“She is reading about strong women, Cleopatra, Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart. Women like this are her inspirations.
“You must form this kind of a base at home, and support it. But it is a tribute to the big, big job they are doing at school.
“In classrooms where there are thirty-five, forty children and one teacher, this is impossible. You spend your time just trying to maintain order.”
When Tragedy Visits
Mr. Hartley learned of the tragedy when his mother-in-law telephoned shortly after it happened.
“My wife and daughter were already in ballet class after school. They had no knowledge of what had happened.”
Mr. Hartley was asked how he and his wife interpreted the killing of teacher Carrie Phillips for their child.
“We have never, ever incubated our daughter from death,” he said. “I always felt it was important for her to know that death was the most natural evolution of man. The one thing you can’t get out of. Everything else is a toss of the coin. But death is the most absolute thing in our life. And it is not something to be feared.
“She was two years old when her grandmother died. She was at her death bed, holding her hand. It was a wonderful experience — bittersweet as it was — for both of them.
“She understood, sad as it was, that that was something we are all going to experience.
“It is only in Western culture that we fear death so much. Eastern culture doesn’t fear death as much.”
Assessing the morning-after environment on the Turning Point campus, Mr. Hartley said that “certainly it was somber for adults.
“But little children, seven, eight years old, they are just so natural. They can be sad. But they can also turn around and play with their other friends. Do you know what I mean?
“They don’t linger. They don’t have as many fears as we do. They are not as encumbered as we are with fear.
“They handle it, sometimes, much better than adults. Sometimes adults impose so much fear on children that the children feel they really need to be afraid.”
With regard to the arrival of grief counselors for the student body, there is some disagreement among professionals over the precise degree of their usefulness.
One size dos not fit all, in this father’s opinion.
“What’s right.” Mr. Hartley said, “is whatever works for your family.
“We dealt with the tragedy in our own way last night. Our way is a little bit different. We discuss it from an intellectual standpoint. And then we choose a spiritual path.
“We meditate. We put out a love that is based on the joy of life as opposed to the sorrow of death.”