FAQs

All transportation to airports, train stations and bus stops is arranged through the student life office. Blair uses State Shuttle, a 24-hour service that will take students almost anywhere they need to go. Contact Jon DeJesus at dejesj@blair.edu.

For student mail, the address is: Student Name, Blair Academy, P.O. Box 600, Blairstown, NJ 07825.

For mail to business or academic offices, the address is: Blair Academy, P.O. Box 600, Blairstown, NJ 07825.

When using UPS, FedEx and other shipping companies, the address is: Student Name, Blair Academy, 2 Park Street, Blairstown, NJ 07825.

If your child becomes sick, they should go to the on-campus Health Center located in the Center for Health and Well-Being. There are beds available if a child needs to stay over. Blair also uses the services of Leroy Nickles, MD, a specialist in internal medicine and pediatrics who comes to Blair for appointments. Blair refers emergency cases to Lehigh Valley Health - Pocono, East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, approximately 10 miles away.

Community (closed) weekends are designed to re-enforce the sense of community at Blair. On these weekends, parents are welcome to visit campus (and to take their children out to eat), but are asked not to request permission for their son/daughter to leave campus otherwise. Refer to the school year calendar for the dates of this year's Community Weekends.

Students are expected to dress in a way that respects the standards and academic purposes of the school. Clothing must be neat, clean and in good repair. Footwear is required at all times. The school may make exceptions to the dress code in accordance with sincerely held religious tenets. Students who are out of dress code shall be sent back to their dormitory to change and will receive a tardy mark for their class or meeting attendance, as well as other potential consequences. 

Class Dress 
Respect for the collective academic endeavor and respect for all community members and the school includes attending to appearance. From 8:30 a.m. until the conclusion of the class day when in the dining room and all academic buildings, the following dress code applies: 

• Shirts/tops: Collared shirts, blouses, turtlenecks or knit sweaters that cover the front and back of your torso. A collar or sweater is required with pants.

• Pants: Khakis, chinos, trousers, or denim jeans without holes or tears. 

• Shorts: must have pockets and be fingertip length or longer, and can not be athletic, swim shorts, or similar. (Shorts are permitted up until October 1 and after March 31.)

• Dresses and skirts: do not require a collar but must be fingertip length or longer. 

• Footwear: sneakers, dress shoes, boots, and leather sandals with straps are permitted. Slippers, slides, flip flops or any footwear without direct heel support/straps or that are intended for home/lounge use are not allowed.

• Hats, caps and hoods must be removed in classroom buildings, in the theater, the library and dining facilities, except in accordance with sincerely held religious tenets.
 
• Team members may wear parts of their game uniforms to classes on game days with the approval of their coaches.

• On Saturdays, students may wear a Blair sweatshirt as their top as long as bottoms and footwear meet the standards of Class dress.

Formal Dress 
On certain occasions, more formal attire is required. Choice of formal dress should be sincere and consistent with the significance of the occasion. For select family-style dinners and other formal school functions, the following formal dress code applies: 

• Dress shirt and long trousers must be accompanied by a blazer, and/or tie.*

     *Blazers and tie required for Convocation, Prize Assemblies, Baccalaureate and Commencement.

• More formal dresses, finger-tip length or longer.

• Skirt or dress pants, a blouse or sweater, or blazer. 

• Dress shoes, clean sneakers or leather sandals (no flip-flops or slides). 

• Any comparable cultural attire. 

Items That Do Not Meet Class Dress, Formal Dress, or Dress Down Days 

• Any clothing that exposes undergarments. 

• Clothing which advertises tobacco, alcohol, or drug products, blatantly political messaging, or which contains inappropriate or vulgar messages. 
 
• Clothing which depicts hate speech targeting groups based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious affiliation or any other protected groups.

• Tops and bottoms are required at all times outside of individual dorm rooms.
 
Note: Pajamas, flannel pants, sweatpants, t-shirts, athletic attire, slippers and rubber slides/sandals are not part of class day attire but may be worn on Dress Down Days and outside of the times and occasions defined above. 

Blair Academy student debit/ID cards allow students the ability to purchase items in the school store, The Black Canteen and the athletic supply store without the need to use cash. Students may also use this card to withdraw cash from the Student Bank (located in the School Store). There is an online process through mykidsspending.com, a third party administrator, that allows parents to deposit funds into their son's or daughter's debit card account either with a credit card or an electronic check. Parents may put money in a student’s account by contacting Jo Ellen Redshaw in the business office at (908) 362-6121 ext. 5641, or redshj@blair.edu. Parents can limit how much a student may spend per week, month or term in any particular area. For more information, please click here.

Some children do experience homesickness, especially in the first few weeks of school. If this happens, encourage your child to get involved! You should also encourage him/her to speak with his/her prefect, housemaster, advisor or monitor. You may contact the housemaster or advisor as well. These people often have a more realistic sense of how your child is doing than he/she does. Support your child, but remember, many phone calls and visits home will usually prolong the homesickness.

Weekend activities range from trips into New York City to fast food runs and trips to the mall. There are also various planned activities on campus including food trucks, the fall festival, international food and cultural events, the always popular "grill and chill" gatherings and more! To view a list of weekend activities, click here.

There is room in most dorms to store luggage during the school year, either in an attic or a basement. There is also limited space to leave a few larger belongings over the summer.

It is strongly recommended that students bring their own computers to Blair. Either a laptop or a desktop computer is permitted, although many students choose laptops due to limited dorm space and flexibility. Both PCs and Macs are suitable choices. There are computers in many campus buildings, including the Chiang-Elghanayan Center for Innovation and Collaboration, Timken Library and dorm common rooms, which students may also use. For more information, please click here or contact the technology office at tech@blair.edu.

Each student is assigned a monitor who oversees his or her academic progress. Faculty advisors are chosen by the student (within the first five weeks of the school year) and serve as his or her advocate and mentor.

A prefect is a senior leader who helps Blair housemasters run the dorms. Prefects act as liaisons between students and faculty.

Every effort is made to place students with a compatible roommate. However, roommate issues still arise. Remind your child that good communication is very important, as is respect for each other’s space. If there are still issues, a student or parent can contact the housemaster for further help and guidance on how to deal with problems.

Remember that your child will be sharing a relatively small room with another student, so space is limited. View a list of what to bring (and not to bring).

There are laundry machines in every dorm and there is no charge for their use. All Prep Laundry is an outside service that offers wash and fold, as well as dry cleaning. Pick-up and drop-off days are Mondays and Thursdays. Service can be arranged by contacting Jo Ellen Redshaw in Blair's business office at (908) 362-6121 ext. 5641, or redshj@blair.edu.

Blair's cellphone and headphone policy is about solidifying and sustaining a culture built on in-person connection and appreciation for the spaces we share together. Additionally, the policy is designed to support the development of habits, skills and a mindset for healthy living and appropriate interactions with cellphones. 

Accordingly, from 8:20-3:20*, phones must remain in dorm rooms (or lockers for day students). If a phone is seen, it will be taken by a faculty member and the student should be told to report to the Student Life Office immediately after class to retrieve it.

*8:20 to the conclusion of Chapel on Wednesday and 8:30-12:00 on Saturday.

Additionally, phones must not be seen during gatherings outside of the academic day including but not limited to art openings, concerts, Society of Skeptics talks Be Well evening sessions, STACC sessions, etc.

A driver’s education classroom course is offered in the fall semester at Blair for New Jersey residents only by an outside organization. Behind-the-wheel training can be scheduled independently after successfully completing the classroom course.

For more information, contact Jon DeJesus in the student life office at (908) 362-3120, or dejesj@blair.edu.

Working papers are not issued through Blair. Students must obtain a work permit through their home public school district, then bring them to Blair for signatures. Ryan Pagotto, associate head of school, and Andee Ryerson, acting dean of students, are authorized to sign working papers.

Room assignments are not finalized until just prior to the Opening of School. We will endeavor to inform new students of their roommate approximately one week before the start of school. Students who knew each other before coming to Blair are generally not placed together because the experience of learning to live with someone new is both enjoyable and valuable. After their first year, students may choose their roommate for subsequent years.

Yes, as long as the student has no other obligations that he or she will be missing. Students must, of course, let their dorm head know they are leaving campus. Parents are asked to avoid taking children off campus during family-style dinners.

As a new student, your child’s course load will be determined by the dean of academics based on grades and classes taken at his or her previous school. You and your child will be asked to decide if and what language and art classes he or she would like to take. After the first year, the student will work with his or her monitor, with guidance from teacher recommendations, to choose classes.

Blair does not have a typical physical education program during the class day; instead, all students are required to be physically active during the afternoon sports period. Freshmen, sophomores and juniors are required to participate in a team sport or team sport equivalent (drama, robotics, dance) minimally two out of the three seasons. They may opt for a physical activity offering (weight training, yoga, etc.) one season per year. Seniors have no team sport requirement but must be involved in an afternoon activity. All freshmen—as well as sophomores new to the School—are required to participate in a team sport during the fall season; experience has taught us that such involvement helps significantly with the adjustment to a new community.