St. Francis Capital Campaign Booklet

Mission of St. Francis School St. Francis School cultivates a joyful, compassionate, intellectual community that celebrates individuality and inspires independent thinking for life.

Vision of St. Francis School St. Francis School is the regional center of progressive learning where students grow into mindful, informed young adults.

St. Francis Today

Since our merger in July 2012, the school has exceeded expectations in all areas.

Our Board of Trustees is leading the school forward boldly while faculty, staff and student morale is stronger than ever and student successes keep rolling in.

Enrollment is up sharply with a 26% increase in Junior Kindergarten - 12th grade since the merger. The High School opened the 2014-15 year with its highest-ever enrollment (for the second year in a row) of 152 and the JK - 8th grade enrollment is at 271, its highest since 2004. We intentionally downsized our Preschool to under 50 students and have welcomed the Preschool to the Goshen Campus with three beautiful newly renovated classrooms and their own natural playground, the first of its kind in Kentucky.

Our Annual Giving Campaign also exceeded goals with 99% participation, which, when combined with two successful fundraising events, “Our Good Earth” and Imagine!, provides needed support to the school’s operating budget.

Today, our work as a Progressive school is more important than ever: while maintaining a commitment to independent thinking, the arts, and hands-on learning, the school has established The Learning Center on both campuses; expanded its community service and environmental curriculum, including a food garden and chickens on our Goshen Campus; embraced a comprehensive “peace education” program; and reached out to the wider community in unprecedented ways, all while funding an ambitious need-based financial aid program.

The school has been challenged to better connect and capitalize on the varied experiences across its campuses and to establish facilities that better reflect the dynamic culture of the school.

St. Francis’s Future In 2013, we began a capital campaign that addresses capital and programmatic needs decisively and creates an Abundant Future for St. Francis. Our Chairs, Nina Bonnie, Dace Brown Stubbs and Ginny Frazier, are committed to the success of the campaign and bring the broad perspectives of alumni parent, current grandparent, and current parent, respectively, to the Campaign. This new campaign combines the dreams, the donors and the goals from the two prior campaigns, which together raised $3.1 million. To combine and guide those prior campaign goals, St. Francis School has completed a Master Campus Plan with Lake|Flato Architects. Lake|Flato Architects, the 2004 AIA firm of the year, is a national leader in the design of independent school environments, having collaborated with schools on the programming, planning, fundraising, design and cost control process for a dozen campuses and over 50 new and renovated buildings. This Master Campus Plan will guide growth and serve school leadership for decades to come.

Master Plan

Lake|Flato worked closely with St. Francis in 2010 to define strategic goals and a concept design for the Downtown Campus. In 2013, Lake|Flato and St. Francis have broadened the design scope to develop a school-wide Master Plan for phasing and implementation of new construction and renovations at both the Goshen and Downtown Campuses. We identified the following phases for the Master Plan:

Phase 1A Initial Steps Our merged Board leadership has shown bold determination to immediately improve our students’ experiences and our facilities, and has already completed the following initial steps of the campaign.

• COMPLETED Facility upgrades: (internal entrance, adding new classroom sound baffles, enhanced lighting, paint, new carpet, new exterior doors as needed, classroom furniture, green wall on the Downtown Campus and signage) - $350,000 • COMPLETED Downtown Campus parking: The time had come for the garage adjacent to

the Downtown Campus to come down, and in its place we constructed a flat lot with extensive landscaping. It also had the unforeseen benefit of making the School much more visible from 3rd Street. The lot serves as a placeholder for our future Multi-Purpose Student Life Center. $500,000

Goshen Campus The Goshen Campus plan strengthens the heart of its campus—the central area surrounding the existing school building—while making stronger connections to its beautiful acreage beyond, allowing for more organic interaction with nature and environmental focus in students’ everyday learning. This is achieved by upgrading and opening the buildings, reconsidering walking paths, and introducing more varied landscapes on the campus, all of which serve to connect the diverse spaces of the school. Roads and parking are similarly reimagined to allow for a slower, more landscape-oriented approach to the campus, and the future Preschool building and independent performing arts facility are sited in order to complete the arrival circle, immediately enhancing the identity and character of the school for visitors. Also, importantly, the entry and main amphitheater in the existing building are envisioned as forming a more open and welcoming focus point within the existing school, architecturally opening up the building to the landscapes and community beyond.

Phase 1B Goshen Athletic Center $2.4 million Timeline: Opened Aug 9, 2014.

St. Francis offers life-changing opportunities for dramatic performance, music, movement, as well as a vigorous physical education for every student. An impressive 75% of our Middle School students engage in interscholastic sports, and all take part in a growing outdoor education program before graduating. Our 34-year-old gym was inadequate to accommodate our athletic programs and was in immediate need of a comprehensive renovation. In the timeline of all the planned projects, this was the longest planned, and the campaign for the gym had been underway the longest; therefore, it became the first of all our major building projects.

Existing project architect Doug Pierson, managing partner of (fer)Studios, an award-winning architectural firm from Inglewood, California, brought this building to fruition.

Among (fer)Studios’ completed renovations is the Green Building, an environmentally for ward-thinking and LEED Platinum-certified design located in the rejuvenated NuLu district in downtown Louisville.

In accordance with the school’s commitment to sustainability, construction of the new facility incorporated the latest environmentally responsible practices, and the structure features the most efficient heating, cooling, and lighting systems available to us. The resulting building not only expresses the school’s environmental values but also comprises an important part of our academic program: we are committed to “teaching” the story of the new athletic center in our environmental curriculum.

As part of our fundraising, each class from JK- 8 took part in completing the fundraising for the gym. Students worked with their teachers to choose their contribution to the gym -- whatever they think it must have, from hula hoops to player’s chairs to a cotton candy machine - and then created a way to fund that, be it bake sale, car wash, walkathon, etc.

This is part of bringing philanthropy to life with our students.

Phase 1C Theater and Performing Arts – Goshen $1- $1.5 million Timeline tbd

The fine arts at St. Francis encompass art, music, and drama. The department distinguishes itself through its instructors, who are practicing artists. The faculty provides all students daily opportunities to express their creativity through a multitude of artistic media. The department strives to foster individual and group creativity in a safe and nurturing environment. Students are encouraged to create and display original artwork, write and conduct their own distinct musical compositions, and stage and perform a wide range of dramatic productions.

Student work is showcased and performed annually in a number of ways. Grandparents’ Day presentations include classic and original music and dance performances. Our national award-winning drama program produces shows each year in which students are involved in all aspects of the dramatic process, including acting, technical work (lighting, sound, stage management), costuming, and program design. Our music program features instrumental and vocal instruction. For the last three years, our students have been selected to perform at the annual Kentucky Music Ensemble Association KMEA award show.

Currently, the Goshen Campus theatre and performing arts facilities do not meet our needs.

Therefore, Lake|Flato has completed a renovation of the existing theatre and lobby. This lobby and existing theatre is known as the “Main Amp� to students and faculty and is the true heart of the school building. This renovation will increase the size of the stage/wing area, add a backstage, create a set/prop storage and build area, make extensive sound and lighting enhancements, and provide space for indoor/outdoor performances allowing for larger performances, music concerts, school-wide assemblies, Grandparents’ Day, Class Day, Goshen Graduation, community events, concerts and lectures, and more. Not only does this design provide a facility which supports our performing arts curriculum, it additionally creates a stunning entrance to the school, a welcoming lobby, and is more cost-effective than the prior combined athletic/performing arts design.

The design, renovation and build of the Goshen Theatre and Front Entrance is estimated to cost between $1 and $1.5 million

Phase 2 Downtown Multi-Purpose Student Life Center $7 million Timeline tbd

The Downtown Campus has three major needs that must be addressed for the long-term success of the School. First, there are no substantial on-site athletic facilities; second, the entrance to the School is not visible to the public (one could drive by the building and not notice that a school exists there); and finally additional administrative spaces, as well as classroom spaces, are necessary as we continue to experience enrollment growth. The Downtown Campus plan, like the Goshen one, aims to strengthen the core of the school, in this case by establishing a “one school� feel that stretches between the existing building and the new facility adjacent. The school will better relate and present itself to its urban context with the introduction of a dynamic new entry plaza, a series of steps and sitting courts that spill out from the new entrance lobby; this lobby is the major connector between old and new. Architecturally, the new facility is envisioned as a dynamic play of brick and glass that activate the street edge while expressing the student, community, and athletic activities within. Additionally, renovations to the existing building will continue this activation of the street and even more strongly tie together the experiences of both buildings.

The Courtyard and Exterior Plaza In between the two buildings, we will create a true “green space” via a Courtyard Entry Plaza for the St. Francis community. This area will not only be a place to gather, but a location for outdoor science classrooms, outdoor classroom discussions, and reflection. It will also be the connector between the two buildings. In addition, it will allow for accessibility enhancements to the school.

The Downtown Campus Gymnasium

Lake|Flato Architects have designed a stunning building to meet these needs and also facilitate establishing a “one school” feel by mimicking the amphitheatre feel from the Goshen Campus in the seating for the gymnasium. The Gymnasium provides a regulation high school-sized basketball court, weight lifting facilities, storage and concessions.

Scholarship and Endowment Focusing on the People who make our school what it is... $2 million Our Students

Our commitment to financial aid and scholarships is unlike any other, not only among local Independent Schools, but nationally as well. Our goal in providing financial aid and scholarships is to make a St. Francis education accessible to all who desire it and are academically deserving of it, as well as to have a student body that reflects the population of metro Louisville. We do this because we truly believe that it is only in having a diverse student body that we can deliver on our mission of preparing students for college and life.

Over 50% of our student body receives financial aid to attend St. Francis. The majority of the funds support students who receive the Talented Minority Youth Scholarships (for minority students who demonstrate high potential and have financial need) and the New American Scholarships (for students who are immigrants or the children of immigrants and demonstrate financial need). Additionally, our annual Merit Scholarship competitions for students entering 6th and 9th grades ensure that the most talented applicants become St. Francis students. Currently, 27% of our total operating budget is allocated to financial aid.

In order to continue to offer the level of scholarships that we do each year, we need to significantly increase our scholarship endowment. Our short-term goal is $2 million, which would support scholarships for many students for years to come.

Your Role in Creating an Abundant Future for St. Francis School: Our goal is to create nothing less than a truly abundant future for our School: a future that continues to provide scholarships to deserving students and supports an innovative, engaging curriculum in a nurturing environment that encourages children and adolescents and motivates them to achieve their dreams. To create this future, we need the best people we can attract to the school, facilities that match our education, and a substantially increased endowment to sustain our future.

Our goal is bold.

Your help is needed to Create an Abundant Future for St. Francis School, its families and its students.