Chairman’s Letter

To the LKS Community,

The theme of this year’s annual report is resilience. Never has resilience been more crucial for our school than during this year’s COVID-19 pandemic. Resilience resides not in policies or curriculum but in our people. In these pages you will read amazing stories of students’ triumphs over adversity and the adults who make this special place possible, even when limited to teaching and supporting our students online.

I would like to share some insight into a kind of LKS resilience that many do not see. We all know how indispensable the leadership team has been to the success of LKS over the years and that these individuals are the main architects of our positive and supportive school culture today. Their work is well evident in the strong admissions office they have built and, now, in the success of our fundraising and development initiatives. Thanks to the school’s outstanding fundraising efforts in our first years as a non-profit and to the generous response of LKS friends like you, we have an exciting story to tell–even in a challenging year like this one.

We must also call attention to the excellent financial management of the school. We faced much uncertainty as COVID19 forced the school to close temporarily last spring, but the leadership team worked tirelessly to manage our cash, so we could continue to pay our employees. Keeping together our most important asset—the professionals who make the LKS community possible–was the school’s number one priority. The administration worked with donors to authorize the removal of restrictions on endowment gifts should we need the cash to sustain the school’s operations. They also worked with our bank to secure an additional line of credit and applied for the federal Paycheck Protection Program funding as soon as it came available. Every current family was contacted to discuss the refunding of an appropriate amount of room and board fees since students had to be educated from home for three months in the spring. This was done while simultaneously planning for all the COVID-19 cleaning and distancing precautions needed immediately to protect our staff and then for our students once they returned.

While the school has yet to need any of the additional sources of operating funds, the team’s work gave the Board the confidence it needed to support the reopening of the school as soon as it was possible. Despite the ongoing challenges our school faces, the Board has confidence that Marc Columbus and his leadership team will continue to guide us well through whatever additional COVID-19 related trials might come. We count it a privilege to help families and young boys when they need us most, and we continue to be confident that, with your help, we will be ready to welcome new students for generations to come. Thank you!

With appreciation,

Tom Albro, Chairman LKEC Board of Trustees