The original Milton Academy was founded by a Massachusetts bill granting a charter in 1798, but operations ceased in 1866 with the opening of the public Milton High School; the institution, however, was re-established in 1884 on a new 125-acre site by John Murray Forbes, with the approval of the old board of trustees.
Students and faculty
As of 2020 Milton hosts 730 Upper School students, of which 333 live on campus. There are 140 faculty members in the Upper School, 78% of whom have postgraduate degrees, and 9% holding doctorates. It has an average class size of 14, and a female-to-male ratio of 50–50. There are 305 students in the Lower School. The Middle School and Lower School have 25 and 28 faculty members respectively.
Athletics
Milton offers 15 interscholastic sports for both boys and girls each, as well as nine intramural teams. It is a member of both the Independent School League and the New England Schools Sailing Association division of the Interscholastic Sailing Association. Since 1886, Milton's traditional rival has been the Noble and Greenough School of Dedham. Recently, the ultimate team was ranked seventh in the nation and the varsity football team "entered the 2005 season with the best ten-year record of all ISL prep programs". In the past five years, Milton has won 17 ISL Championships and most recently the boys' tennis team won New England's. The boys' tennis team has won four New England titles in a row. The coed sailing team has won two national championships—one in team racing and one in fleet racing. They have also won team racing worlds in 2015. Milton's boys' hockey team has had several players go on to successful professional careers, most notably 12-year NHLer Marty McInnis and current Boston BruinJosh Hennessy. In 2011, Milton's boys hockey team won the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council championship. The team featured two NHL draft picks: Patrick McNally and Rob O'Gara. In 2012, the Girls' Cross Country team placed 1st and the Boys' Cross Country team placed 2nd in the ISL, earning the team's highest finish in 25 years. In 2013 the Girls Track & Field team clinched the ISL title while the Boys did the same in 2015. The Boys' Varsity Soccer team earned a first-round bid in the playoffs for the NEPSC in 2013. In 2014 they went undefeated until a semi-final elimination in the playoffs but returned to a perfect untied and unbeaten 22–0 season the following year, earning the ISL title, the New England Class A championship and the ISL Sportsmanship award.
Controversies
In February 2017, the academy announced the results of a nine-month sexual misconduct investigation by T&M Protection Resources. The firm interviewed 60 alumni, parents, current and former staff and came to the conclusion that four former employees had engaged in illegal sexual conduct with students in the 1970s and 80s. The most egregious abuse came from a drama teacher named Reynold Buono who had abused at least 12 male students before being terminated by the school in 1987. On June 27, 2018, Buono was arraigned in Norfolk Superior Court on three counts of rape of a child and three counts of rape of a child with force. Six of those counts were reversed in 2019 and four were reinstated in 2020 by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The original District Attorney alleged the rapes happened while Buono was teaching at the school between 1975 and 1987. Buono was terminated in 1987 after admitting to molesting a student and had been living in southeast Asia. In 2005, the school expelled five members of the boys varsity ice hockey team for rape/sexual assault of a female student. Following the county criminal investigation and prosecution by the state of Massachusetts, the three defendants over the age of 18 were found guilty of rape in adult court, and the two who were 16 at the time of the incident were found guilty in juvenile court. This incident was used for fictional accounts in both print and a Lifetime movie.
