The centerpiece of Sidwell’s new strategic plan is the consolidation of the school’s two campuses into one site, an initiative that Head of School Bryan Garman calls a “once in a lifetime opportunity” but that will require a major fundraising campaign to pay for the renovation of buildings and other expenses related to the purchase of the Washington Home property.
The 20-page plan, approved by the Board of Trustees last week, also says Sidwell should attempt to double its $52 million endowment over the next six to eight years in order to provide more financial aid, raise teacher salaries and reduce reliance on tuition increases.
Other elements of the plan touch on the school’s culture, including a recognition of the tension between Quaker values such as simplicity and the competitive pressure students feel to excel academically. The four main goals listed in the plan are to “unify” the school at one location, “imagine the future of learning,” “inspire ethical leadership, and “welcome a wider community.”
May Liang, a member of the board of trustees who served as clerk of the steering committee for the strategic plan, said the campus consolidation, which would move the Lower School to Wisconsin Avenue and close the Bethesda campus, “will allow us the flexibility of providing space to allow creative ideas and minds—both faculty and students—to flourish.”
Liang acknowledged, however, that the consolidation “will also be the most difficult” part of the strategic plan to implement. “Raising the funds to purchase and renovate the Washington Home and implement all of the other goals of the strategic plan will be challenging,” she said in an e-mail interview.
Sidwell agreed in 2015 to pay $32.5 million for an in-patient hospice known as the Washington Home, located on the northern edge of the Wisconsin Avenue campus abutting Upton Street, but the school has not previously discussed details of how the property would be integrated into the rest of the Wisconsin Avenue campus or how the consolidation would unfold.
Garman said in an interview that the first step in the consolidation process will be to convert the main Washington Home building into classrooms for the Upper School, followed by relocation of the Lower School to the building now occupied by the Upper School.
He said a committee is working on a more detailed outline for reconfiguring parts of the Wisconsin Avenue campus, potentially including a new outdoor gathering space between the Middle School and the current Upper School classroom building. The move will create more room for the Upper School, allowing for larger classrooms and laboratories and more space for students to socialize.
Kate Lindsey, Sidwell’s chief financial officer, said consolidation will save money over the long run by reducing expenses for security, maintenance and utilities. In the short term, however, she acknowledged that the school will have to step up fundraising efforts to pay for capital projects involved in the consolidation while meeting its other strategic goals.
“We want to make sure we have endowment for the capital project,” Lindsay said in an interview. “Doing renovations for the Upper School is going to be the lion’s share of the next [fundraising] campaign for the next few years, because it has to be. It’s really dependent on the philanthropy and generosity of alumni and parents and grandparents to make it happen for us. That's really to ensure we don’t rely on tuition for some of the decisions we’re making, and to ensure we move that needle on financial aid.”
Lindsey said Sidwell currently allocates 16.8 percent of total tuition to financial aid or approximately $7.6 million out of an operating budget of $50 million; however, the school wants to increase financial aid to 20 percent of total tuition. According to Lindsey, about 250 of the approximately 1,200 students enrolled across the three branches of the school receive a financial aid award, with the average award covering 65 to 68 percent of their tuition.
Lindsey said the school is sensitive to the impact of tuition increases on families that do not qualify for financial aid and would like to be able to expand eligibility to more families. She added, however, that Sidwell is not going to raise tuition to increase financial aid. “Those funds must come from endowment growth and cannot come from tuition,” she said.
Lindsey said an augmented endowment also would be used “to make sure teacher compensation is at the top end of the market.” She said teacher salaries at Sidwell are in approximately the 90th percentile of the region’s independent schools, and the school intends to maintain or improve the competitiveness of salaries while pursuing its other strategic objectives.
Ian Symmonds, the consultant Sidwell hired to help develop the strategic plan, said that the school’s ability to remain competitive depends on improving its fundraising, both to support its short-term goals related to campus consolidation and to make sure it is affordable to families with a range of incomes while attracting a diverse student body, which requires financial aid.
“High quality independent schools are numerous in the Washington DC area,” Symonds said in an e-mail interview. “The school will need to stay true to the Quaker principles and roots and yet adapt and evolve in a constantly evolving world. We know that accessibility and diversity are highly important to SFS for the future, which means that the school will need to focus deeply on creating even stronger financial plans, access through increased financial assistance, and raise more money to grow the depth of the school program.”
The plan reflects this view of the connection between the school’s competitiveness and financial aid, tuition levels and diversity. It calls for “a financial aid policy that makes permanent our mission to assemble an economically diverse and remarkably talented student body from across the capital region . . . and identify and implement strategies for . . . cost reduction to establish a more stable and predictable tuition-pricing model that will give families more certainty regarding their financial commitment.”
Side bar:
The strategic plan also highlights Sidwell’s need to focus on how its culture and values relate to the challenges students will face in school and beyond.
Ian Symmonds and Associates, the consulting firm Sidwell hired to help develop the plan, conducted a survey of students, faculty and staff, alumni and parents last year on the school’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The most commonly cited weaknesses were “cost,” stressful working environment, the school’s “elitist” image, and “student diversity.”
Garman said the plan aims to address each of these issues, particularly by aiming to reduce the academic pressure many students feel.
“In some ways there is tension between [the school’s] really deep commitment to intellectual excellence and [Quakerism’s] very values based humanistic approach to being in the world, and what I think we want to do is deepen both of those things and not see them as either/or but mutually reinforcing,” he said.
The document says Sidwell should “embrace the Quaker tenet of simplicity to develop programs, practices, and expectations that support the health and wellness of the school community and encourage students . . . to lead centered and balanced lives.”
While the plan acknowledges that students feel intense academic pressure, it does not propose specific solutions to combat that problem, and students were not included on any of the committees involved in writing the plan.
Garman said students will have opportunities to offer input on the plan’s implementation in coming months. “As we move forward to turn these goals into a plan, we’ll reach out to more students so they have an input in some of the initiatives we are talking about,” he said.
The strategic plan also emphasizes that Quaker values are especially relevant to the challenges students will encounter after they graduate.
“Quaker education has a lot to say about the moment we’re in. There are certain values that are central to the Friends tradition that we should use now, such as deep and careful listening. I think if you… are able to listen deeply to one another, that you can imagine a solution you wouldn’t be able to do without engaging with one another,” Garman said. “We’ve been thinking about what it means to be a Friends school in Washington, DC.”
By Kelly Anderson, Horizon News Editor, November 2017
The 20-page plan, approved by the Board of Trustees last week, also says Sidwell should attempt to double its $52 million endowment over the next six to eight years in order to provide more financial aid, raise teacher salaries and reduce reliance on tuition increases.
Other elements of the plan touch on the school’s culture, including a recognition of the tension between Quaker values such as simplicity and the competitive pressure students feel to excel academically. The four main goals listed in the plan are to “unify” the school at one location, “imagine the future of learning,” “inspire ethical leadership, and “welcome a wider community.”
May Liang, a member of the board of trustees who served as clerk of the steering committee for the strategic plan, said the campus consolidation, which would move the Lower School to Wisconsin Avenue and close the Bethesda campus, “will allow us the flexibility of providing space to allow creative ideas and minds—both faculty and students—to flourish.”
Liang acknowledged, however, that the consolidation “will also be the most difficult” part of the strategic plan to implement. “Raising the funds to purchase and renovate the Washington Home and implement all of the other goals of the strategic plan will be challenging,” she said in an e-mail interview.
Sidwell agreed in 2015 to pay $32.5 million for an in-patient hospice known as the Washington Home, located on the northern edge of the Wisconsin Avenue campus abutting Upton Street, but the school has not previously discussed details of how the property would be integrated into the rest of the Wisconsin Avenue campus or how the consolidation would unfold.
Garman said in an interview that the first step in the consolidation process will be to convert the main Washington Home building into classrooms for the Upper School, followed by relocation of the Lower School to the building now occupied by the Upper School.
He said a committee is working on a more detailed outline for reconfiguring parts of the Wisconsin Avenue campus, potentially including a new outdoor gathering space between the Middle School and the current Upper School classroom building. The move will create more room for the Upper School, allowing for larger classrooms and laboratories and more space for students to socialize.
Kate Lindsey, Sidwell’s chief financial officer, said consolidation will save money over the long run by reducing expenses for security, maintenance and utilities. In the short term, however, she acknowledged that the school will have to step up fundraising efforts to pay for capital projects involved in the consolidation while meeting its other strategic goals.
“We want to make sure we have endowment for the capital project,” Lindsay said in an interview. “Doing renovations for the Upper School is going to be the lion’s share of the next [fundraising] campaign for the next few years, because it has to be. It’s really dependent on the philanthropy and generosity of alumni and parents and grandparents to make it happen for us. That's really to ensure we don’t rely on tuition for some of the decisions we’re making, and to ensure we move that needle on financial aid.”
Lindsey said Sidwell currently allocates 16.8 percent of total tuition to financial aid or approximately $7.6 million out of an operating budget of $50 million; however, the school wants to increase financial aid to 20 percent of total tuition. According to Lindsey, about 250 of the approximately 1,200 students enrolled across the three branches of the school receive a financial aid award, with the average award covering 65 to 68 percent of their tuition.
Lindsey said the school is sensitive to the impact of tuition increases on families that do not qualify for financial aid and would like to be able to expand eligibility to more families. She added, however, that Sidwell is not going to raise tuition to increase financial aid. “Those funds must come from endowment growth and cannot come from tuition,” she said.
Lindsey said an augmented endowment also would be used “to make sure teacher compensation is at the top end of the market.” She said teacher salaries at Sidwell are in approximately the 90th percentile of the region’s independent schools, and the school intends to maintain or improve the competitiveness of salaries while pursuing its other strategic objectives.
Ian Symmonds, the consultant Sidwell hired to help develop the strategic plan, said that the school’s ability to remain competitive depends on improving its fundraising, both to support its short-term goals related to campus consolidation and to make sure it is affordable to families with a range of incomes while attracting a diverse student body, which requires financial aid.
“High quality independent schools are numerous in the Washington DC area,” Symonds said in an e-mail interview. “The school will need to stay true to the Quaker principles and roots and yet adapt and evolve in a constantly evolving world. We know that accessibility and diversity are highly important to SFS for the future, which means that the school will need to focus deeply on creating even stronger financial plans, access through increased financial assistance, and raise more money to grow the depth of the school program.”
The plan reflects this view of the connection between the school’s competitiveness and financial aid, tuition levels and diversity. It calls for “a financial aid policy that makes permanent our mission to assemble an economically diverse and remarkably talented student body from across the capital region . . . and identify and implement strategies for . . . cost reduction to establish a more stable and predictable tuition-pricing model that will give families more certainty regarding their financial commitment.”
Side bar:
The strategic plan also highlights Sidwell’s need to focus on how its culture and values relate to the challenges students will face in school and beyond.
Ian Symmonds and Associates, the consulting firm Sidwell hired to help develop the plan, conducted a survey of students, faculty and staff, alumni and parents last year on the school’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The most commonly cited weaknesses were “cost,” stressful working environment, the school’s “elitist” image, and “student diversity.”
Garman said the plan aims to address each of these issues, particularly by aiming to reduce the academic pressure many students feel.
“In some ways there is tension between [the school’s] really deep commitment to intellectual excellence and [Quakerism’s] very values based humanistic approach to being in the world, and what I think we want to do is deepen both of those things and not see them as either/or but mutually reinforcing,” he said.
The document says Sidwell should “embrace the Quaker tenet of simplicity to develop programs, practices, and expectations that support the health and wellness of the school community and encourage students . . . to lead centered and balanced lives.”
While the plan acknowledges that students feel intense academic pressure, it does not propose specific solutions to combat that problem, and students were not included on any of the committees involved in writing the plan.
Garman said students will have opportunities to offer input on the plan’s implementation in coming months. “As we move forward to turn these goals into a plan, we’ll reach out to more students so they have an input in some of the initiatives we are talking about,” he said.
The strategic plan also emphasizes that Quaker values are especially relevant to the challenges students will encounter after they graduate.
“Quaker education has a lot to say about the moment we’re in. There are certain values that are central to the Friends tradition that we should use now, such as deep and careful listening. I think if you… are able to listen deeply to one another, that you can imagine a solution you wouldn’t be able to do without engaging with one another,” Garman said. “We’ve been thinking about what it means to be a Friends school in Washington, DC.”
By Kelly Anderson, Horizon News Editor, November 2017
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