Building on Strength Campaign Brochure

BUILDING ON STRENGTH The Campaign for Calvert School 2013

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ore than a century ago, a young Harvard graduate named Virgil Hillyer helped establish not just a school, but a tradition of innovation.

As Calvert’s first Head Master, Hillyer introduced methods of education that defied conventional thinking. He also taught us that great institutions like Calvert must be equally bold in looking toward the future. Today, from a position of strength, we are called upon to demonstrate our own bold thinking for Calvert School. Others have laid the groundwork; now we must use our intellect, our creativity, and our resources to ensure that our School will maintain its position as the best elementary and middle school education in Baltimore.

After careful and thorough consideration by the Board of Trustees, Calvert School has embarked on the Building on Strength Campaign for Calvert School. This $20 million endeavor is only the third Capital Campaign in our 116-year history. With this Campaign, we will bolster faculty excellence, make our school more accessible to a more diverse group of families, and expand our facilities in keeping with the demands of the 21st century.

Like Virgil Hillyer, we must always look forward and be fearless in our pursuit of the highest standards. This is the “Calvert Way.�

FACULTY EXCELLENCE Of all the reasons we set out to launch this campaign, none is more important than our desire to offer students the best faculty of any school, anywhere. What has set Calvert apart for more than a century is our excellent and innovative teaching staff. As such, this initiative has four key components, each to be funded through an endowment.

one We plan to recruit and retain the highest quality faculty, staff, and administrators. This is essential to achieving our goal of academic excellence for decades to come.

Additional funding will allow us to broaden our efforts to recruit the best candidates for open positions and ensure that our salary and benefit packages are attractive and competitive. This includes increasing our tuition remission levels for faculty and staff families.

two We plan to strengthen our Professional Development opportunities. If we want to educate students to be the best they can be, we need to ensure our faculty and staff are the best they can be, as well. In addition to classes, conferences, and seminars, a larger budget will allow the School to offer summer projects, technology education, sabbaticals, overseas travel, study grants, and more funding for the pursuit of advanced degrees.

three We also plan to endow a special “Teacher Ladder ” program that challenges faculty to engage in a rigorous, year-long process of reflection and evaluation. Once successful, teachers who participate in this process can achieve the status of “Senior Teacher,” and even the elite status of “Teacher Leader.” Each step up the ladder will encourage and empower our faculty and provide additional compensation as goals are reached. This type of merit-based compensation is unique in the education world and will help motivate our teachers to continually grow and improve, which ultimately benefits our students.

four We plan to create a robust Internship Program to immerse new teachers in the “Calvert Way.” Even the brightest teaching candidate needs an education in what makes Calvert School unique. The program will enable us to identify teaching candidates with strong, diverse backgrounds that meet the needs of the School and evaluate their abilities in the classroom as they grow and advance over the course of one year.

FINANCIAL AID We must acknowledge this reality: Financial Aid has become a critical part of ensuring any school’s long-term viability. There simply are not as many families today who can afford the full tuition charged by independent schools. In the future, it is likely that only schools with a significant Financial Aid endowment will be able to recruit a diverse, talented student body from a wide spectrum of families. Calvert School, while still the most affordable among our peers, must stay on top of this change in order to continue providing the best elementary and middle school education in Baltimore. With increased funding, we would cast a wider net and afford to help more high-performing students who otherwise might not be able to take advantage of a Calvert education.

Our goal is to attract the best, most diverse students, regardless of their family’s ability to pay full tuition.

LOWER SCHOOL ADDITION In the last ten years, Calvert’s enrollment has grown by more than 70%. Space is at a premium. Our enrollment is capped so that we will be able to continue to offer students intimate class sizes and preserve the “small school feel” for which Calvert is known. Nevertheless, there is broad recognition that the current space is not adequate. We must give our teachers the room and facilities they need to teach at the highest level while providing our students space to grow. To this end, the construction of a twostory, state-of-the-art early childhood education wing is currently underway. This addition will offer spacious classrooms for our Fifth Age and Sixth Age students, while making our facility competitive with the best of other Baltimore independent schools. We want to ensure that our Lower School students have what they need today and are prepared for what is coming tomorrow.

Lower School Addition

Middle School Assembly Hall

MIDDLE SCHOOL ASSEMBLY HALL The construction of Francis J. Carey ’38 Hall in 2002 allowed us to expand the Calvert experience to serve students through the Eighth Grade. After ten years, we better understand the spatial needs of our Middle School program. Chief among those needs is a central gathering place for the entire Middle School. As a result, we have completed a 250-seat assembly hall adjacent to the

France-Merrick Atrium that will host a number of Calvert Middle School gatherings, including our twice-weekly assemblies, various fine arts performances, and other School events. It is here that our students will hone their public speaking skills and where we will meet for parent education events. The assembly hall will build a spirit of community within the entire Middle School.

THE ANNUAL FUND While capital expenditures are essential to maintaining a tradition of high standards at Calvert, we also aim to increase the Annual Fund to help offset the costs not met by tuition and balance our operating budget. The lifeblood of the School, it is Calvert’s largest source of unrestricted operating dollars and gives us flexibility to meet new challenges as they arise. The Annual Fund impacts everything that makes a Calvert education so special and will make a profound difference in the daily lives of our students.

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alvert School has never sought the spotlight of public attention. For years, our school maintained such a low profile that we were

virtually unknown in many parts of the Baltimore community. Raising money was not a priority. Today, it is a necessity. If we believe in our mission and in our unique method of promoting curiosity, mastery, and purpose in every student, we must position ourselves to serve those students in the years to come.

JOIN US With humility, we ask for your financial support as we embark on this Campaign. To quote a proverb, “Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.” So let us prepare. Let us place in the children’s hands all the advantages that a modern Calvert School education can offer. For ours is not a mission to raise money so much as hope that the Calvert School of tomorrow will live up to our founding ideals and continue the tradition of innovation begun by Virgil Hillyer.

To learn more about the Building on Strength Campaign for Calvert School, please contact the Development Office at (410) 243-6054 or visit our website at www.buildingonstrength.org.

BUILDING ON STRENGTH The Campaign for Calvert School 2013

105 Tuscany Road • Baltimore, MD 21210 (410) 243-6054 • www.calvertschoolmd.org