DC area Private Schools sent a warning letter to parents in February 1990

February 4, 1990

The headmasters at seven of the Washington area's most prestigious private schools have written a letter to the parents of all students warning them that students are regularly throwing large, unsupervised parties where "excessive drinking and sexual license are common."

In what the headmasters called a rare joint effort, the letters, which were mailed Thursday, asked parents to step up supervision of their children to prevent them from attending or throwing weekend parties that are open to almost anyone and where alcohol is easily available.

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Individual schools have confronted the issue before. At the beginning of the school year, for example, Georgetown Preparatory School in Rockville held a conference with parents to discuss the problem of unsupervised parties and similar activities.

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The headmasters said they believe that on most weekends there is at least one large party, sometimes with several hundred students in attendance.

The letter said, "It would be hard to devise a better recipe for disaster than a social scene that includes the anonymity provided by an 'open party,' no adult supervision, considerable amounts of alcohol, and teenage hormones which encourage sexual or violent behavior."

The two-page letter was signed by the headmasters from Georgetown Preparatory, Landon, Gonzaga College High, National Cathedral, Holton-Arms, St. Albans and Sidwell Friends schools.

"Over the past few years, we've seen an increase in the sort of large, open parties which are not held at school, and involved students from a number of schools," said St. Albans Headmaster Mark H. Mullin. "Most of us have a pretty good feel for the generalities of what goes on over the weekend."

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Caleb Shreve, a senior at Sidwell Friends in Northwest Washington, said he threw a party this year that saw as many as 500 people stream through his back yard, where he had three kegs of beer.

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"There's always an empty house," said Patrick Welsh, an English teacher at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, who has studied excessive drinking among teens.

"It's a middle-class phenomenon," he said of the elaborate parties that can involve hundreds of guests and may be organized in as little as a day when word gets out that parents are out of town.

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