Professional Children's School is a not-for-profit, college preparatory school enrolling 200 students in grades 6-12. The school was founded in New York City in 1914 to provide an academic education to young people working on the New York stage, in Vaudeville, or "on the road". Today's students include athletes, dancers, musicians and others who require the flexibility to pursue challenging goals that may sometimes require absence from school for professional or pre-professional reasons. PCS is accredited by the New York State Association of Independent Schools and PCS graduates attain admission to the most competitive colleges and universities.
Professional Children's School was founded by two reform-minded New Yorkers, Jane Harris Hall and Jean Greer Robinson. Ardent theatre-goers, the women learned of the plight of the city's professional children - young people working on the New York stage. Public and private schools of the day did not accommodate the schedules of stage children and, more often than not, children were simply skipping school to work on the stage. Some reformers talked of banning children from the stage entirely. Determined to help these "unknown friends on the other side of the footlights," as Mrs. Robinson would later write, the women decided to found a school especially for New York's professional children. On 6 January 1914, PCS admitted its first two students in borrowed quarters in the theatre district. An immediate success, the school enrolled over 100 students within its first year.
Richard Vincent "Dick" Van Patten (born December 9, 1928) is an American actor, best known for his role as patriarch Tom Bradford on the television sitcom Eight is Enough. He began work as a child actor and was successful on the New York stage, appearing in more than a dozen plays as a teenager. He later starred in numerous television roles including the long running CBS television series, I Remember Mama and Young Dr. Malone. Later, he would star or co-star in many feature films including Mel Brooks' Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Charlton Heston's Soylent Green and the Academy Award winning Charly.
Van Patten was born in Kew Gardens, New York, the son of Josephine Rose (née Acerno), an Italian American who worked in advertising, and Richard Byron Van Patten, a Dutch American interior decorator. He began work as a model and actor as a child making his Broadway debut at the age of seven. He was successful on the New York stage, appearing in a dozen theatrical plays before reaching his teen years.He later moved to Hollywood and began a lengthy career in film and television.