A CAMPAIGN FOR ALEXANDRIA COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL
1985
ACDS has its first graduating class.
1989
Jim Girard and Suzy Tacktill start teaching at ACDS.
1983
ACDS is founded and classes begin in the basement of Del Ray Baptist Church.
1992
ACDS moves across the street to its current home at 2400 Russell Road.
1997
Joan Barton, founding principal, retires.
“More than just a school, ACDS is truly a second home for all of us—students, parents, and teachers.” -JIM GIRARD
2002
Building on the Dream Campaign raises over $1 million for 3rd floor renovations and the addition of an elevator.
2008
Fulfilling Our Vision Campaign begins to fund the addition of a new gym and cafeteria and renovation of the PAC.
2012
Scott Baytosh becomes the fourth Head of School.
2010
New cafeteria, new gym, and renovated PAC open.
2014
ACDS receives an anonymous $3 million gift, marking a transformational moment in our history.
2013
ACDS students name our mascot Russell Alexander Bobcat.
2015
The next chapter begins!
OUR STORY The forward-thinking parents and educators who founded ACDS 32 years ago ensured that our School would be known for its vibrant and diverse mix of bright students, dedicated teachers, and innovative educational practices. Since its founding, ACDS has grown stronger while always staying true to its mission and commitment to the community. Today, ACDS is a leading independent school providing unparalleled academic preparation in an environment that is nurturing, innovative, community-minded, and child centered.
Now, through a focused and community-wide campaign, ACDS looks to build on its current momentum. With continued emphasis on outstanding students, best-inclass faculty and staff, and facilities that inspire our community to innovate, learn, and play, ACDS is poised to begin its next chapter.
OUR NEXT CHAPTER STRATEGIC PLAN GOALS
1
Continue to advance the School’s academic programs
2
Enhance our ability to attract and retain exceptional teachers
3
Identify and cultivate a signature component of the School’s identity that sets us apart in the market
4
Strengthen our school community through efforts that promote inclusivity and diversity
5
Build endowment to establish long-term financial stability
Through a comprehensive strategic planning process, completed in the spring of 2014, ACDS has identified priority initiatives to guide our work over the next five years. Achieving these Strategic Plan initiatives will enable ACDS to advance our mission for current and future students. It will also make ACDS even more competitive in the market, maximizing enrollment and, most importantly, enriching our students’ academic and socialemotional education.
A TRANSFORMATIONAL MOMENT In 2014, in response to our strategic planning initiatives, ACDS received an anonymous gift of $3 million—the largest single gift in its history. This transformational gift launched the implementation of the Strategic Plan by funding enhancements to the ACDS curriculum, improving interior and exterior campus space, and building a more robust endowment. In addition to enabling ACDS to accelerate many of its goals, the gift serves as the inspiration for a successful campaign to raise the resources required to fully realize our strategic vision. The anonymous gift affirms that ACDS is in a place of strength and that our community is confident in its leadership, direction, and stewardship. Now is the time for us to fulfill our bold vision.
2014 INSPIRATIONAL GIFT An inital anonymous gift of $3 million is funding: • Curriculum enhancements • Unrestricted endowment • Renovation of interior classroom spaces • Phase I of the Landscape Master Plan
ALWAYS ACDS A Campaign for Alexandria Country Day School Inspired by the hard work and dedication of past ACDS families, teachers, and students, we now look to continue our journey with fervor. Always ACDS tells our whole story, recognizes our School’s past, present, and future, and ensures that ACDS continues to be the best educational home for our community and for generations of ACDS students to come. Through Always ACDS, we seek $3,000,000 in philanthropic support to build on our current momentum and set ACDS on an even stronger and more sustainable course. Funds raised by the campaign will complete our strategic vision by fulfilling two essential priorities for ACDS: endowment ($2 million) and campus improvements ($1 million).
2015–2016 ALWAYS ACDS $3 million in philanthropic gifts will fund: Endowment • Faculty Compensation •
Tuition Assistance
Completion of Phase II of the Landscape Master Plan • Playground • South Campus
“ACDS stands at the threshold of a great future. With the fuel of an extraordinary gift, a focused and forward-looking strategic plan, an innovative and ambitious staff, and a uncommonly supportive community, we are providing our students with an unparalleled education in a beautiful and dynamic facility. This campaign will ensure that we maintain our momentum and continue to provide the ACDS experience for generations of students to come. When our founders launched our School 32 years ago, they dreamed that their collective endeavor would last. With this effort our community will fulfill the dream that is Always ACDS.” - SCOTT BAYTOSH, HEAD OF SCHOOL
An endowment is a fund where the principal remains protected to ensure a secure financial future for ACDS. The School will spend the interest income each year to help ease operating costs and support specific, essential purposes.
ENDOWMENT: Sustaining our future with an investment of $2 million The School’s endowment is the best way to ensure financial sustainability and competitiveness in our market for many generations to come. This is why ACDS’ Strategic Plan makes endowment growth a priority. An endowment gift is a permanent investment in ACDS’ future that generates income in perpetuity. Each year, ACDS will be able to spend the endowment’s earnings, targeted at 5% of the fund’s value, and the principal will remain untouched. Growing this income source allows us to build on our success while keeping tuition increases modest. By investing in endowment now, we not only build the foundation for long-term stability and financial strength for ACDS, but we also realize financial gains that will benefit our students in the near term. Thanks to the recent anonymous gift and generous past gifts to ACDS, we have a $1 million endowment in place. With this foundation, we are poised to build the endowment through Always ACDS by an additional $2 million. Achieving this goal will generate substantial revenue that will continuously provide more competitive compensation and professional support for outstanding teachers, and continue to strengthen our ability to enroll exceptional students.
Funds generated through Always ACDS will be allocated to two priority areas designated by this campaign to satisfy goals in the Strategic Plan: faculty compensation and tuition assistance.
“What always strikes me is how forward-thinking and nimble the faculty is. Our teachers never shy away from trying new methods, and they will do anything to move our students forward.” - RYAN WOODS, HEAD OF MIDDLE SCHOOL
ENDOWMENT FOR FACULTY COMPENSATION To support our strategic priority of attracting and retaining exceptional teachers, we seek to establish an Endowment for Faculty Compensation. Teachers are the bedrock of ACDS, and our strength as a school is determined by the strength of our faculty. From STEM projects with Mrs. Laha and Ms. Carew, to P.E. with Mr. Baroody and writing with Mrs. Mosier, every teacher at ACDS invests fully in the lives of each ACDS student, ensuring that our students are continually learning, growing, and challenging themselves. The individualized attention and support that students receive from our faculty ensure their long-term success inside and outside of the classroom. The Endowment for Faculty Compensation will provide continuous income to support and sustain necessary increases in compensation, and the flexibility to be more competitive in hiring and training the very best teachers for our children. Current and future generations of ACDS students and teachers deserve nothing less.
“A lot of schools say they put the students first, but at ACDS it is an authentic, thoughtful approach that is evident in everything our teachers do.� - MELISSA DAVIS, HEAD OF LOWER SCHOOL
ENDOWMENT FOR TUITION ASSISTANCE Each one of our students enriches our community, brings talent to our classes, and broadens the perspectives of his or her peers. Having students who are capable, motivated, and kind, and whose families embrace the community we seek to nurture is essential to the mission and long-term success of ACDS. Intelligence, creativity, and eagerness to learn, however, are not determined by a family’s ability to pay full tuition. Furthermore, the availability of tuition assistance is a key competitive factor among schools in our area. In our region, the median percentage of students receiving need-based assistance in schools of our size is 21.5%. That figure is 24% for all schools in the region, and nearly 60% of schools in our area reported seeing an increase in the number of applications for tuition assistance from families who had never applied before. At ACDS, 19% of our students receive need-based tuition assistance, with grants ranging from as little as $4,000 to nearly full tuition.
Strengthening our already-effective tuition assistance program enables us to continue to bring outstanding families to our community and allows us to remain competitive in the market.
Regional SimilarSchools Sized Schools
ACDS
LANDSCAPE MASTER PLAN: continuing to enhance our campus with an investment of $1 million At ACDS, we believe play and exercise are crucial elements of a child’s educational experience and essential components of community-building. Setting aside time for play lets students of every age exercise, enjoy the fresh air, and reinvigorate their bodies and minds so they are prepared to meet the challenges of the academic program. These activities are also opportunities for students to engage in meaningful social interactions with their peers, which is a key component of social and emotional development and of the ACDS experience. Research affirms that the effects of creative and unstructured play on brain development, social growth, and learning are dramatic and profound.
Outdoor spaces that are both engaging and beautiful are essential to our students’ learning experience at ACDS. To address this goal, ACDS commissioned a comprehensive Landscape Master Plan that accentuates our dramatic location, frames our historic and attractive building, and maximizes the usability of our campus for learning, play, and community building. Thanks to the generous support from our anonymous $3 million donor, several components of the Landscape Master Plan are already underway. Through the Always ACDS campaign, we seek $1 million in additional capital support to complete two key areas of our Landscape Master Plan: the South Campus and the Playground. Once funds are raised, ACDS anticipates that work on these exciting new areas could begin as early as Summer 2016.
SOUTH CAMPUS
FRONT LAWN STREETSCAPE
LANDSCAPE MASTER PLAN PLAYGROUND
“At any age, play acts to retain and enhance meaningful context, and optimizes the learning process...by its nature [play] is uniquely and intrinsically rewarding. It generates optimism, seeks out novelty, makes perseverance fun, leads to mastery, gives the immune system a bounce, fosters empathy and promotes a sense of belonging and community.” NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR PLAY
ATHLETIC FIELD PARKING ENTRANCE
PHASE I: Funded by anonymous gift. PHASE II: Funded by $1 million from the Always ACDS campaign.
SOUTH CAMPUS One of the most notable aspects of our Landscape Master Plan is a dramatic redesign of the South Campus to enhance outdoor learning and community building. Located on the hillside at the south end of campus, this space in its current form is large and underutilized. The enhanced South Campus will not only provide students with a true outdoor classroom, but also an exciting and engaging place to play. This dramatic and distinctive area will elevate our students’ educational opportunities and appeal to prospective new families considering ACDS.
wetland for play and ecological study
terraced gathering area for socializing and presentations
CURRENT SPACE
natural play area for climbing and exploring 50-foot slide
PLAYGROUND Building on the work of dedicated parents who made the playground a reality several years ago, ACDS plans to take this space to the next level and maximize our use of the hillside surrounding the playground. The proposed design creates new places for climbing, crawling, swinging, and sliding, using ropes, climbing walls, a crow’s nest, and other creative ways to move and explore. A new sandbox and water pump will maximize the functionality of this much-loved playground space and insert a dynamic natural component. The playground enhancement will offer students more variety in their play options, a truly multisensory experience, and an even more effective use of the wonderful space we already have. Further, it will serve as yet another attractive and compelling component of our campus for prospective ACDS families with young children.
CURRENT SPACE
look out/ crow’s nest turf with sand safety surface
climbing elements existing play structure
SPEAKING TO THE ACDS FACULTY IN NOVEMBER 2014.
“...With each milestone, each new experience, I’ve thought, ‘I’m here because of this School, these teachers. I really hope they know that.’ Well today I get the chance to say it out loud. Thank you. Thank you to this School, to its creators, and to those that keep it alive today. Thank you for the shape you gave my life and my learning. Thank you for teaching me to ask the question, ‘What might be possible?’” – DANA FRANTZ BENTLEY, ACDS ’94
AN ACCOMPLISHED EDUCATOR AND AUTHOR, DR. BENTLEY IS NOW A PRE-K TEACHER AND RESEARCHER AT BUCKINGHAM BROWNE AND NICHOLS, ONE OF THE PREMIER INDEPENDENT DAY SCHOOLS IN NEW ENGLAND.
CONTINUING THE LEGACY Each wave of ACDS families that passes through our doors has the opportunity to build upon the work of previous families and to show gratitude for all that the School has provided. More than just students, teachers, and administrators, ACDS is a community, rooted in the lives of current and past students, parents, grandparents, and friends. Our School has come a long way from its humble beginnings to become a sought-after K–8 school providing a high quality education, dedicated teachers and staff, individualized attention to our students, and a true sense of community. But our work is not finished. We are now poised to take a major leap forward as an institution, and we invite you to join us in realizing the promise of ACDS and leaving a lasting impact on the future of our School.
Alexandria Country Day School is a dynamic, K-8 independent school community that values academic excellence, character, independent thinking, citizenship, and respect for others. We inspire in our students creativity, enthusiasm for learning, and confidence through a stimulating academic program, athletics, the arts, and community service. ACDS MISSION
FOR MORE INFORMATION
MATTHEW SAHLIN Director of Development 2400 Russell Road Alexandria, VA 22301 703.548.4804 www.acdsnet.org