#Elite NYC private schools received millions in PPP loans: SBA

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The entrance to St. Ann’s School in Brooklyn Heights.
Helayne Seidman

Nearly two dozen elite private schools in New York City have received millions of dollars in federal bailouts meant for small businesses struggling amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to data released by the Small Business Administration.

At least 23 schools were among about 600,000 recipients of forgivable loans under the Paycheck Protection Program — with many of the prestigious institutions located in Brooklyn.

They include Saint Ann’s in Brooklyn Heights, Poly Prep in Dyker Heights, Packer Collegiate Institute in Downtown Brooklyn and Berkeley Carroll in Park Slope, which were among the biggest beneficiaries, receiving between $5 million and $10 million each.

Tuition at those schools — which is typically paid in full in advance — costs an average of just over $50,000 a year for high school grades.

They also count celebrities and notable dignitaries among their famous alumni. Actresses Lena Dunham and Jennifer Connelly attended Saint Ann’s, while “Good Day New York” anchor Rosanna Scotto graduated from Packer Collegiate.

Saint Ann’s has one of the highest admission rates to Harvard University in the country, and students there don’t receive grades.

Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School on the Upper West Side, which charges $52,070 a year for pre-K and counts Herman Melville and Sarah Michelle Gellar as graduates, and United Nations International School, which has campuses in Manhattan and Queens, also bagged $5 million to $10 million loans.

Loans in the amount of $2 million to $5 million went to a handful of other Big Apple schools — Fordham Prep, Brooklyn Friends Seminary, Friends Seminary, Grace Church School, Marymount School, Calhoun, City and Country, Nightingale-Bamford, Town, Collegiate and Birch Wathen Lenox.

And Bay Ridge Prep, Blue School, Buckley, Rudolf Steiner, York Prep and Staten Island Academy nabbed $1 million to $2 million in loans.

The New York City schools were listed in a massive spreadsheet released Monday by the Small Business Administration — the most detailed look yet into the PPP program that’s meant to help keep small businesses and nonprofits afloat. The loans are forgivable if the businesses can prove the cash went toward saving jobs.

The spreadsheet, which doesn’t specify exact loan amounts, lists small businesses that received more than $150,000 — accounting for 75 percent of the nearly 5 million that received loans, according to the Treasury Department.

Other PPP loan recipients include high-end cultural institutions, top law firms, lobbyists and trade groups.  A business partially owned by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, was listed as receiving between $350,000 and $1 million.

Sidwell Friends School in Washington — where former President Barack Obama’s daughters and former President Bill Clinton’s daughter Chelsea attended — also collected between $5 million and $10 million.

Reps from at least two of the New York City schools — Buckley Country Day School in Roslyn and Collegiate School on the Upper West Side — said they didn’t take out PPP loans, even though they are included in SBA’s spreadsheet, along with their addresses. The reps said they never received the money and that the spreadsheet is inaccurate.

The other schools didn’t return messages.