One Mother’s
Unimaginable Tragedy

On January 13th, 2022, Nate Bronstein committed suicide at the age of 15.  Nate was in 10th grade at the Latin School of Chicago.  Our hearts break for the Bronstein family.

Such an unimaginable tragedy leaves many questions.  What events and environment led to this?  Was this an isolated incident?  What can we do to ensure this does not happen again?  The answers lie within the very system constructed at The Latin School of Chicago (LSC) and being enacted at private schools across the nation under the direction of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS).  Coincidentally, the current headmaster at LSC, Randall Dunn, is also the Board Chairman of NAIS, and Randall Dunn is the incoming headmaster at Rye Country Day School (Rye). 

Dunn claims to believe that a school must undertake the work of “difficult dialogues” coupled with social-emotional learning to achieve diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB).  With Randall Dunn at the helm, LSC told parents and students:

•  We promote physical and emotional wellness because they are essential to the pursuit of educational excellence and our happiness.

•   We support and celebrate one another and take responsibility for our words and actions, because we shape the lives of others in our community.

•  We embrace diversity within our school and in Chicago, knowing that it deepens our learning and enhances our empathy.

•  We use our resources wisely in order to be good stewards of our community and our world.

While lovely sentiments, these are nothing but empty platitudes couched in the language of social-emotional learning (SEL) and devised by expensive consultants to patronize, gaslight, and trap parents into compliance.  In fact, the work LSC administered actually created the exact environment of bullying, hypocrisy, and administrative negligence that led directly to the inconceivable death of a child.

Headmasters like Randall Dunn, whose loyalties lie with NAIS, boast about viewing our schools as laboratories and our children as subjects for NAIS’ theories and agenda.  The foremost agenda is activating SEL in every aspect of our schools to dismantle “racist” aka capitalist systems.  Originally meant to help children whose learning achievements were being hindered by their struggles with social awareness, SEL is now used to create deep insecurity in young children and destroy their innocence by exposing them to mature and developmentally inappropriate concepts like victim/oppressor dynamics, gender ideology, and explicit sexuality so they are more receptive to indoctrination.  

The proof is in the pudding.  Headmaster Randall Dunn put the business of independent schools and agenda of NAIS over his singular duty of ensuring a safe environment where children could learn.  He grew the endowment while creating administrative bloat, increasing tuition, and steering the exodus of experienced teachers.  Instead of enforcing LSC’s zero-tolerance policy against harassment, NAIS and Dunn fostered an environment of hypocrisy and identity narcissism under the cover of “SEL” that left the children at LSC with depression, anxiety, and learning deficits.  With an administration and board of trustees distracted with fundraising and DEIB over academics and real safety, it was only a matter of time before Randall Dunn’s implementation of NAIS’ agenda resulted in tragedy.  Since Dunn wielded total control and silenced parents with enrollment contracts that include the threat of expulsion, Dunn bears full responsibility for the school environment and safety of the students.

In light of these new discoveries, we call on the Board of Trustees of Rye Country Day School to reconsider and repeal the appointment of Randall Dunn as the new incoming Head of School.  Headmasters report to the Board.  It is time to throw off the shackles of NAIS and return to being an actual independent school run by our own parents on our Board and not by a self-interested group in Washington DC.  Randall Dunn and NAIS cannot be allowed to inflict the same damage at Rye Country Day that they wrought onto the children and families at Latin School of Chicago.  Nate Bronstein will never graduate high school.  He will never attend a college with big time sports or get married and have his own family.  Randall Dunn achieved one primary achievement at LSC – an expanded endowment, at the expense of the very lives he was entrusted to protect.