july 8–21, 2019 | new york 27the board, who looked at her like she was from another planet,
Morgano observed. “We crushed it,” she’d once overheard her tell-
ing some parents after a fund-raiser.
There was a pause. “Does that mean ... you did ... well?” one
of them asked.
The fashion moms were much friendlier. Chelsea and her
auction-gala co-chair, Jane Keltner de Valle, the style director at
Architectural Digest, had become friends. As had she and Morgano.
They probably wouldn’t have hung out back in Orlando, but in
Brooklyn Heights, where people could be polite to the point of being
uptight, Chelsea appreciated Morga-
no’s brash sense of humor, the way she
called it like she saw it.
Not everyone enjoyed these quali-
ties. For instance: many of the long-
time teachers at Grace Church. “There
are some things you can think inside
your brain that shouldn’t come out,”
one of them used to tell the toddlers in
her classes, and by all accounts, Mor-
gano said a lot of those things. “She
overshared in a really uncomfortable
way,” says one former teacher. “She
could not stop herself.” “She’s difficult,”
Morgano would say to one teacher
about another, even though they were
friends. “Don’t waste your time,” she
told a teacher who said she was think-
ing of enrolling in Brooklyn College.
Then there was the board. Once
Morgano realized it was an advisory committee, and therefore not
really the boss of her, she displayed significantly less patience with
the members, especially board president Ashley Phyfe, who, accord-
ing to Morgano, thought she knew everything about education
because she’d taught public school for seven years. At one point, the
Diversity Committee, which had been formed in response to a
request from a parent of the only child of color in her class, rejected
a motion to give up legacy spots to more diverse children. Someone
suggested the possibility of busing children to Grace Church from
other neighborhoods, and Morgano had snapped, “It sounds like
more of an idea that would benefit your kids.” “The thing about Amy
Morgano is, she had no filter,” says one former Grace parent. She’d
say the most inappropriate things. “Like, ‘That’s the kind of bag I
wish I could have. But you don’t get that in my job.’ ”
It was perhaps not unrelated that some parents had noticed Mor-
gano’s office would fill up with fancy gift bags over the holidays and
the end of the year. “It felt not good,” said one parent, who wrote
Morgano a letter advocating for a return to a “collective gift.” “I agree
a collective gift is best,” Morgano responded. “However, I cannot
insist parents follow the guidelines given.”
The parent was incensed. Still, his child was graduating, so he
decided to let it go. Others were not as easily mollified, especially
after an image of Morgano with JJ Redick at a Sixers game surfaced
on Instagram in February 2018. “This is the person who was like, ‘I
want a wall,’ ” says one parent. “People were like WTF.”
The issue, of course, was exmissions. As the director of the school,
Morgano had an enormous amount of power over the futures of
Grace Church children, and she made sure everyone knew it.
Each spring, Grace Church School holds an annual exmissions
meeting, where the parents of Threes, soon to be Fours, are invited
to learn about the stressful process of applying to kindergarten the
following year. The meeting takes place in the basement—the same
room the gala is normally in—although in this case, no one is having
fun. Parents who have been through the terrifying gauntlet are
invited to share their experiences, and the director gives an overview.
“This is the first time in your life you are not a consumer,” was how
Morgano liked to open the event. All the control belonged to the
elementary schools. For parents accustomed to control in every
aspect of their lives, the prospect was terrifying. “You’re like, palms
sweating, edge of seat,” one says.
In 2018, Chelsea Redick was in the audience, scribbling notes as
one mother, a lawyer, offered time-management tips for private-
school interviews, which usually have to be done with both parents.
“I know everyone is busy, two parents working,” she was saying when
what was later referred to as The Incident occurred. “So what
I would suggest is, pre-clear windows
of time in your calendars in advance,
so that when a school says, ‘How is a
meeting at 10 a.m. on Tuesday?,’ you
don’t have to check with your
partner.”
It was at this point that Redick, per-
haps thinking of her husband’s travel
schedule, made a face that indicated
grave distress. At which point Mor-
gano, according to people in the meet-
ing, leaned over and said to her, out
loud, in front of everyone: “You don’t
need to worry about that.”
Morgano would later clarify that
she meant for this to apply to all par-
ents whose extraordinary jobs kept
them out of pocket for periods of
time, be they a basketball player, a
brain surgeon, or Peter Sarsgaard.
But it’s unclear if anyone heard that justification over the rush-
ing of blood in their ears.IN MARCH 2018, Grace Church installed a new rector. The
Reverend Allen Robinson, lately of St. James’ Church in Balti-
more, was “the first black rector in [Grace Church’s] 170-year
history,” according to the Brooklyn Eagle. And the poor man had
no idea what he was about to walk into.
Parents were still up in arms about the exmissions meeting.
“She said this in a room of the most highly stressed parents in
the world,” one parent said.
Fanning the flames was a new tidbit on the birthday-party
circuit, which was that Chelsea Redick was joining the board.
Supposedly the family had donated a total of $150,000—a stag-
gering amount for a tiny nursery school—and Redick had
hinted, in return, that something should be named after the
family. A gym, maybe. Or the library. (The Redicks say they don’t
discuss their private philanthropy but deny that Chelsea ever
made such a request.)
Ashley Phyfe had been a little reticent—there were a lot of worthy
candidates, and Chelsea was new to the school and had never been
on a board before. But how hard could it be? It was nursery school.THAT SUMMER BEGAN EARLY for Morgano, who took
the last few weeks off school to help her pregnant daughter with
child care. This meant she’d miss Goodbye Day, one of the last re-
maining Hope Prosky traditions, in which children gathered in front
of the church piano to perform songs like “You Are My Sunshine”
for their parents. It was always an emotional event. But the parents
in Pat Jones’s Threes class were surprised when the teacher, who was
usually so calm, started sobbing.
When Jones recovered, she explained to the parents and children
that she was very sad because this would be her last year at Grace.
After 12 years, Morgano had declined to renew her contract. “Some
of the things she told me was that I am hard, (Continued on page 76)he’d say the most
inappropriate
things. Like, ‘That’s
the kind of bag
I wish I could
have. But you
don’t get that
in my job.’”
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