The Academy Fund is an annual effort to raise funds through donations from the Board, faculty, parents, alumni and friends of the school.  Its purpose is to bridge the gap between tuition revenues and operating costs.
All independent schools in the United States must confront this yawning gap.  The simple fact is that any independent school that tried to cover its operating costs with tuition alone would need to charge so much that it would attract very few students.  This would also mean excluding talented, deserving students who do not come from wealthy families, but who enrich the school environment in countless ways.  As strange as it seems, the truth is that higher tuition would buy poorer education!

It is also true that giving financial aid does not increase the cost for full-paying parents.  The Academy has to pay for teachers anyway, so partial-pay students mean revenue for us.  Quite simply, a classroom of eight full-pay and four partial-pay students brings in more revenue than a classroom of only eight full-pay students (besides being a more interesting classroom).  So partial-pay students enable us to pay higher teacher salaries—meaning that we can attract and keep better teachers—as well as pay for other enhancements to your child’s education.     

Last year, gifts to the Academy Fund last year ranged between $5 and $15,000.  Every gift is important.  Foundations and corporations that can make gifts of tens of thousands of dollars, or even millions, know that many people who care about a cause can only give small amounts.  Therefore, potential funders are interested in all acts of giving, of any size, by members of a community.  Even the smallest gift will show that you believe in the Academy’s future and consider it an important cause.