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Trinity Valley School ("TVS") is a private, coeduacational, college prep school catering to grades K-12 in southwest Fort Worth, Texas. The school was conceived and founded in 1959 by Stephen Seleny.

Stephen Seleny, the founding headmaster, was then the Assistant Director of the Texas Boys Choir in Fort Worth, and upon one of the choir's international tours, found the need to provide the boys he knew with an education beyond that of a strictly music education - he reasoned that to know one thing you must know many others. That is where it began: as a benefit to the students on the choir's tour who asked "What is that?" or "Who is Charlemagne?"

To remedy the problem, he established the Texas Boys' Choir School. Seleny became the new school's headmaster, and with the help of six volunteer teachers, classes began on September 8, 1959. The school was eventually renamed Trinity Valley School on May 29, 1962.

The will to find out is therefore central to the Trinity Valley education, where students are asked every day What do you know? and indeed, What do you want to find out?

Seleny wanted Trinity Valley to provide talented students with a challenging educational experience in an atmosphere that fostered intellectualism and respect for the world around them. This vision, along with his passion for knowledge, and remarkable background, attracted numerous teachers and administrators who have remained with the school for decades. The school has flourished since its founding, and its success is widely attributed to Seleny, whose name has become synonymous with Trinity Valley.

The school has become more than that, in fact. It has grown to become, in one analyst's words, "one of the top one hundred private schools in the country," ^[specify] and, too, a sleeper hit for families looking for a small environment that is, like the school's public relations boasts, "like a family."

One of the notable attributes of Trinity Valley is its mission statement. Written by TVS father and noted Texas essayist John Graves, he in the 1970s wrote the school's purpose with Eunice Rutledge, a trustee and mother; Earle Haley, a former Board president and TVS father; and Stephen Seleny, the founding headmaster. Graves interpretated their conclusions from the day's meeting as the following:

Trinity Valley School has four main objectives for its students:

• fine scholarship with its fulfillment at college;
• the development of wide constructive interests;
• intelligent citizenship; and
• spiritual and moral development which promotes lasting values.

Toward the attainment of the first of the above goals, the school maintains high academic standards. The curriculum is designed to prepare students for any college or university that fits the ability of the individual.

College entrance, however, is not its sole objective. Trinity Valley School encourages intellectual curiosity because the school believes that the recognition of quality is more important than the accumulation of facts. The school seeks to develop mastery of ideas as well as of skills, respect for intelligence as well as for cleverness, and a capacity for understanding as well as for learning. In the belief that a breadth of general interests and abilities is vital for leaders of the future, the school encourages every extracurricular activity for which there is a demand.

Trinity Valley School recognizes that intelligent and purposeful discipline is a prerequisite of not only a sound academic atmosphere but a necessary part of the training for responsible citizenship as well, so the school tries to have as few discipline rules as possible. Administrators rely on the good judgment of the students and give them responsibility as judges and as members of a student government. The individual rights of a student are respected and protected while, at the same time, he learns that he must be responsible for his own actions.

Finally, Trinity Valley School believes that neither fine scholarship nor wide interests nor intelligent citizenship will bear good fruit unless they are sustained by a belief in spiritual and moral values.

Although the school is non-denominational, through personal example, and the study of philosophy, it tries to foster respect for and belief in the moral and ethical laws on which our society was built. Students must realize that the ultimate goal of mental discipline cannot be accomplished without self-discipline. Therefore, the school employs an honor code which serves to act as a reminder to the students of this philosophy.

Trinity Valley School is not affiliated with any religious denomination. Nevertheless, its leaders believe in God. Thus, they conduct their teaching on the premise that Man is not merely an ephemeral animal with a transitory existence. They believe that Man's purpose on earth involves his coming to terms not only with his physical and social environment and his own body, but more importantly, with his eternal soul. They are of the opinion that if the sort of all-encompassing humanism currently in vogue, with its emphasis on hedonistic, self-centered thinking, is accepted as a substitute for religion, it must inevitably lead to an intellectual and spiritual dead end.

Therefore, the school encourages students' participation in any established form of religion that they and their parents may choose, whether Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, or Muslim, and seeks to create respect for all of them. Furthermore, the school believes it is the responsibility of a school like it to instill awareness of the moral and ethical obligations inherent in knowledge. In this specific sense, the school leaders consider education to be a religious occupation, with consciousness of a set of values that animates every field of knowledge, whether it be the humanities, mathematics, the physical sciences, or the social sciences. Such an occupation carries with it the duty to define and teach these values.

The school accepts that it exists in a pluralistic society, but holds that cultural pluralism cannot be allowed to become an excuse for moral indifference or confused thinking, and that any school devoted to quality education which shirks its responsibility in this ethical realm is committing a grave error. Students who go out into the world with superior preparation stand a better chance than most of becoming the leaders of tomorrow, and it is thus crucial that they not use their minds and abilities amorally. For, as it has been said, goodness without knowledge is weak, but knowledge without goodness is dangerous.

It follows, therefore, that the rules of conduct laid down by the school are neither mere laws of convenience nor merely rules. They reflect an ethical concept that is integral to the school's philosophy.

• Barrett Benge, White House staff member
• Sharon Benge, founder of Shakespeare in the Park, theater department head at Texas Woman's University
• Ed Caballero, appeared on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, won $25,000, 5th grade history teacher
• John Dyer, folk singer residing in New York City.
• Judith Gans, Lower School choir teacher, opera singer
• John Graves, TVS father, essayist, author of mission statement and, most notably, Goodbye to a River, nominated for the National Book Award
• Allison Gustafson, director of Gustafson Dance and a founder of State Street Ballet of Santa Barbara, California, wife of State Street Ballet Artistic Director Rodney Gustafson
• Kent Henning, former head of All Saints Episcopal School
• Sally Graves Jackson, daughter of John Graves, and author of A History of Skiing in Utah
• Susan Paulose, retired Biology and Anatomy teacher, winner of Southwestern Biology Teacher's Award
• Thomas Robertson, professor of history and philosophy at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis
• Annamaria Seleny, professor of economics at Princeton University
• Stephen Seleny, school founder, Headmaster emeritus, concert pianist
• Tom "Gaytardfaggy" Williams, Jacksonville Jaguars Assistant Special Teams Coach

• Trinity Valley School