New Capital Campaign to deliver innovation in people, place, program

The Board made a strategic decision to invest funds in Friends Academy today and the future. These vital resources have allowed us to achieve nearly every goal in the strategic plan. We’ve added personnel in faculty and staff positions. We’ve trained, nurtured, and developed our employees, increased salaries, and expanded benefits to retain and attract the best educators to our school. Curriculum and strategic initiative grants opened the door to cross-divisional innovative programming at every level. The Always Friends $30M campaign was launched following the pandemic. While we work to secure donations, a $32M bond issue will allow us to begin construction on the Center for Innovation now. At the same time, Athletic and campus master plans are in development and will serve as a blueprint for future fundraising and campus advancement efforts.

As Former Friends Academy Trustee Thomas Lapham wrote in a 1960s report:

The day will never dawn when the Board of Trustees will look at the school and say, “This is perfection.” In education, there is no standing still; there is going ahead or there is going back. There is no complacent middle ground.

We owe it to our current and future students to “go ahead” together – to design, deliver, and ensure the best possible educational experience, one that reflects their time and place, and fosters the full realization of each person’s amazing promise within.

Together, we articulated the unique characteristics of our school’s present, as we created and executed on the blueprint that will keep us moving toward our desired future. Future generations will continue to ensure Friends Academy continues to embody the best of who we are even as we grow into the best of who we can become.