In partnering with School and Student Services By NAIS (SSS), we’ve taken the regional cost of living adjustments and data used by SSS to calculate estimated family contributions toward tuition and put them into an easy to understand infographic. We present hypothetical financial situations, and possible tuition contribution, of families in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and the National Standard.

The infographic is part of our new free e-book, “Understanding Private School Financial Aid: What it is and How to Apply.”

If you’re contemplating, entering, or already deep into the private school financial aid process, “Understanding Private School Financial Aid: What it is and How to Apply” can help you navigate the waters.

We can give you general picture, but, in the end, every financial aid decision is made individually by each school.

Here’s the important disclaimer:

Keep in mind that all financial numbers we present are only estimates. Every family’s financial situation is unique as is each school’s financial aid program. Each school administers and determines its own financial aid process and awards. Schools do not necessarily use, or apply, metropolitan area Cost of Living Adjustments. Application of any Cost of Living Adjustment comes at the discretion of each school. Your family’s financial aid eligibility could be different at each school to which you apply.

Visualized by AdmissionsQuest, a site for families researching boarding schools. Financial aid data provided by School & Student Services By NAIS (SSS).

Set in the physical plant of the former Millersburg Military Institute, Forest Hill hopes to welcome an initial cadet class of 65 made-up of both boarding and day students. Female day-student cadets will make the school coeducational.

Col. Joseph Land, heads the private group behind the schools founding, the United States Army Cadet Corps Inc.

“We said we’d make it happen in five years, and we’re actually going to be a year ahead of schedule next August…

It took us two years of work before we could even think about opening a school here. We’ve taken very steady steps because we wanted to make sure we did the job right. But now we’re ready to move head. It’s very exciting,” Land told Lexington Herald-Leader reporter Jim Warren. (LH-L)

United States Army Cadet Corps has made $1.5 million in improvements to the campus and has operated the campus as “its national headquarters and training center for its nationwide cadet programs for boys and girls ages 12 to 18.”(LH-L)

Reporter Jim Warren writes:

“in three to five years, the cadet corps hopes to expand the new school into a two-year junior college that would qualify students for an Army commission as a second lieutenant upon graduation. Only seven junior colleges in the country offer that now…”(LH-L)

This brings me to Idylwild Arts Academy president Brian D. Cohen’s response to two recent articles, “Chinese Students Lose as U.S. Schools Exploit Need” and “The China Conundrum,” each of which skeptically calls attention and raises issues about the number of chinese students in American boarding schools.

As Cohen’s title implies, “The Chinese Are Coming: Another Perspective,” he offers a broader, more positive, view with special emphasis on the contributions that Chinese students bring to their schools and the perspectives and adaptations that schools need to make in order to practice international education well.

Liang Wang, an Idyllwild Arts alum and principal oboe of the New York Philharmonic, suggests that American flexibility and creativity might lay behind Chinese pursuit of American secondary education:

“America has the best system overall for music education. Europe is a bit more rigid, but America is the land of imagination and individualism.”(HP)

Specifically of Idylwild, Liang added:

“The environment I felt was extremely friendly and highly individual. The teachers…lead you on how to think, not what to think.”(HP)

Cohen argues that in the end, the addition of variables and perspectives make a diverse education fundamentally stronger.

“We all have much to gain — the influx of Chinese students enhances the diversity of all viewpoints at schools, producing interculturally aware young people, and enhancing the compatibility and appreciation of difference among all students. Cultural fluency – comfort living and working in a diverse community; an understanding of international perspectives and political and economic interdependence; and acquisition of a second language – is an essential element of a strong secondary education.”(HP)

Additional resources:

Idyllwild Arts Academy – www.idyllwildarts.org

Berkshire School doing something about it for their campus.

The school will garner 45% of electric power usage as its recently installed 8 acre solar energy gathering installation comes online. The 8,332 panel system will generate 2 megawatts of electricity on the Berkshire campus.

SolarWorld Americas president, Kevin Kilkelly explained that Berkshire’s project and others around Massachusetts are made possible by Massachusetts policies aimed at increasing the states use of renewable energy sources.

“Berkshire School has made an impressive investment in the goals and education of sustainability…The project heads in the direction that Massachusetts officials had in mind when they enacted ambitious solar legislation last year. Set against the picturesque backdrop of the Berkshire Mountains, the project is emblematic of the Bay State’s embrace of renewable energy,” Kilkelly explained. (BW)

Additional resources:

Berkshire School: www.berkshireschool.org

Boarding schools in MA

Prep School Outstanding In The Solar Field

Photo credit: Spotlight On: Berkshire School Solar Farm

The Neil Building at Fox River Country Day School in Elgin, IL, emulates the prairie style of Frank Lloyd Wright protégé, John Van Bergen.

What happens when a school closes? Cold realities get played out and one such reality is the sale of the campus.

The 62 acre Fox River Country Day School campus is on the market.

Back in June we wrote a brief story on the closing of Fox River Country Day School in Elgin, Illinois. Few knew that Fox River had a small junior boarding program and, as such, this is a turnkey campus.

The Neil Building (2005) has lineage connected to Frank Lloyd Wright. The Neil Building, which housed the school’s assembly hall and kindergarten through-5th grade classrooms, references the hallmarks of famed architect and Frank Lloyd Wright protégé, John Van Bergen, who designed, among others, the school’s administration building (1929).

The campus also includes everything necessary for a school- library, dining hall, arts building, gym, and pool.

Fox River opened with a mission to operate as a working farm and to educate and assist depression-era orphaned children, largely from the Chicago stock yards.

Here’s hoping that this facility, again, finds a noble purpose.

I call attention to their piece in this forum because the demand and influx of Chinese students into American higher education parallels the demand and increase in Chinese students in American boarding schools.

Fischer and Bartlett take an unvarnished look at the current influx of Chinese students into American colleges and universities beginning with the “how’s” and concluding with the “why’s.” The process is akin to learning, or watching, how the sausage is made. The picture is honest- driven by some blunt economic realities.

I posit that American boarding schools may be able to play a role in providing a cleaner, more honest, path for Chinese students into American higher learning institutions.

The collegiate admission process for Chinese students is fraught with graft and fraud. But, the simple truth is that Chinese students seek American higher education/institutions (and boarding school) for all the right reasons.

China doesn’t have enough university seats for its students and, at the other end of the equation, American higher education (and boarding schools) need full-paying customers. Application and admission issues arise out of unclear, and insecure, admission processes for Chinese students coming to America.

“…what seems at first glance a boon for colleges and students alike is, on closer inspection, a tricky fit for both [Chinese students and American universities].”(NYT)

Bartlett and Fischer cover the issues:

• Chinese families (sometimes multiple generations) heavily invested in their child’s achievement
• Cultural and educational fit for each student largely absent from the admission equation
• Unrealistic expectations shaped by status consciousness (too much Harvard, Yale and Princeton)
• Chinese education agents- promising to help families- who over promise, fail to deliver, set unrealistic expectations, prey on the status consciousness of client families, or, are just plain thieves; standardized testing fraud; transcript fraud
• Inflated English proficiency

And, once students arrive, an unfamiliarity with the ways American prep school and collegiate classrooms work presents functional challenges- discussion hallmarked by give and take; premiums placed on creativity; decidedly, un-test centric approaches to learning and achievement; requirements of academic honesty.

American colleges and universities (like Delaware as featured in the article) are choosing an international path to stay viable and offer an international outlook to their students. To be successful in their international growth, the schools must understand the processes and pitfalls of international admission and be ready to adapt and continually work to improve them.

American Boarding Schools Can Have Place in This Equation

Given the economic and geopolitical processes shaping and driving this educational equation, the best question for everyone is how to make it work?

I think American boarding schools have something to contribute to this interconnected world. Boarding schools ofter the opportunity to provide above board admission processes while simultaneously acculturating and preparing Chinese students for the American university experience.

A year or two in an American boarding school can address almost every issue raised by Fisher and Bartlett and their subjects:

• Honest transcripts
• Honest test scores
• Honest English proficiency assessment
• Classroom acculturation
• An understanding of academic honesty
• Cultural acculturation
• All are available through the boarding school experience.

The trick of course will be the boarding schools’ ability to assert and sell their value while inserting themselves into the equation.

Photo credit: rockinpaddy via Creative Commons

We’ve seen three five six seven eight head searches for summer 2012 appointments concluding in the past few weeks and we suspect that we’ll see a few more announcements in the coming month, or, so. Rather than string-out the announcements, we’ve chosen to group these together.

Congratulations to all.

John Palfrey to Become Phillips Academy’s 15th Head

John Palfrey has been named to succeed current Phillips Andover‘s head Barbara Chase upon her retirement at the end of the 2011-2012 school year.

Palfrey comes to Andover from the Harvard Law School where he currently serves as the Henry N. Ess III Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School. Additionally, Palfrey is a co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, having served as its executive director from 2002 to 2008.

Andover trustee and search committee chair Peter L.S. Currie said of Palfrey’s appointment:

“The trustees were captivated by John’s intelligence, warmth, passion and outstanding record of accomplishment…As we got to know him over the last several months, it became clear that he has the essential qualities and characteristics to lead this Academy well. Among them, John is instinctively collegial and has a collaborative leadership style. He has immense intellectual curiosity, works to make himself extremely well-informed, and acts with great care.”(PA)

Timothy Viands Named Grand River Academy Headmaster

Timothy Viands will take his post on July 1, 2012 upon outgoing head Randy Blum’s retirement. Viands comes to Grand River Academy from St. Thomas More School (Oakdale, CT) where he is both Dean of Students and Academic Dean.

Zack Lehman Chosen The Hill School’s 11th Headmaster

Lehman comes to The Hill School from Gould Academy where he is the assistant head of school for advancement- a post he has held for the past six years.

Beyond his administrative work at Gould, Lehman also stays active in all areas of school life teaching filmmaking, coaching boys’ varsity lacrosse , serving as an academic student adviser, and working in the dormitories.

On coming to The Hill Lehman explains:

“I am inspired by the extraordinary opportunity to live, learn, and lead at The Hill School…In addition to the exemplary leadership of David and Kay Dougherty, I admire the School’s strong reputation for excellence in academics, athletics, and the arts. During our visit to The Hill, Amy and I further experienced the tremendous warmth of the community; the School’s pride in its history, traditions, and alumni; and the genuine enthusiasm of a very talented faculty and staff.

The students at The Hill define the School’s true character — they seize opportunities, embrace diversity, champion integrity, and value hard work…I look forward to partnering with the Board of Trustees, collaborating with the faculty and staff, and rallying support from dedicated members of The Hill School’s extended family to ensure the permanence of that distinctive student experience.”(THS)

Margaret Jablonski Named Miss Hall’s Tenth Head

Margaret “Peggy” Jablonski comes to Miss Hall’s from the University of New Haven where she is the vice president for student affairs.

In Jablonski, Miss Hall’s trustees find a kindred spirit who embodies a great combination of administrative experience and success as well as a life-long academic and personal interest in women’s education.

Miss Hall’s trustee president Susan O’Day ’77 writes in her letter announcing Jablonski’s appointment:

“During the course of her career, Dr. Jablonski has demonstrated passion for the education of young women, including the academic and out-of-classroom experiences required for them to become effective leaders. In the process, she has mentored hundreds of women students on academic, career, and personal issues and has been a vocal advocate for education. Throughout her career, Dr. Jablonski has also continued to teach, including graduate courses in higher education policy, women’s issues, leadership theory, and student affairs. Additionally, she has worked closely with boards of trustees, faculty, staff, and students to raise funds and design major campus facilities, and she understands the complexities of leading an academic institution. Furthermore, during the course of our conversations with her, it became clear to us that Dr. Jablonski exemplifies our own values of authenticity, honor, respect, and growth.”(MHS)

Peter Saliba to Head Tilton

Saliba will take over as Tilton’s head of school upon the retirement of Jim Clements this coming summer.

Saliba comes to Tilton from Berwick Academy (ME) where he currently serves as the upper school director. Saliba brings a background of wide experiences to Tilton having served as assistant head at Sage Hill School (CA) where he was invlolved in growing the young school to its present 450 student size. Prior to moving west, Saliba worked in teaching and technology roles at Holderness and Western Reserve.

Tilton trustee chair, Kirk Wheale remarks of Saliba’s appointment:

“The Board of Trustees couldn’t be more enthusiastic about Peter’s appointment and the future of Tilton School. Peter’s background in growing and advancing schools demonstrate his proven leadership capabilities, including his academic leadership, admissions expertise, financial acumen and marketing and development insight. Furthermore, Peter’s experiences speak to his natural ability to forge partnerships with the many constituents responsible for making a school successful.” (TS)

Matthew Ruby to Lead Gould Academy

Ruby will arrive at Gould Academy this coming summer (2012) from his current appointment as the associate head of school at Shattuck-St. Mary’s (MN) where he has also been the director studies. He has also taught at the Breck School (MN) and in the Minneapolis public school system. Before beginning his educational career Ruby worked in the private sector and served as US naval officer.

“Gould has an abundance of assets – healthy tradition, natural beauty, habits of innovation, strong faculty and community, and a humane spirit – that set the stage for great success in the decades ahead. It will be a privilege to lead this school,” Ruby remarked upon his appointment.

Stephen Brotschul to Lead West Nottingham Academy

Brotschul will arrive on the WNA campus this coming summer from The Kiski School where currently serves as the Associate Headmaster.

A Hill School alumnus (’90), Brotschul, has fifteen years of independent school educator experience under his belt in variety of roles including work on the business and academic sides of schools. He has worked in fundraising, strategic planning, program creation and implementation, residential life, school finance, faculty development, school admissions, teaching, and coaching.

“Stephen has the energy, passion and experience it takes to lead West Nottingham through the challenges and opportunities of the Academy’s future,” board president, Paul McIntyre, commented.

Brotschul’s professional stops include The Webb Schools in Claremont, California, CEDU Schools in Running Springs, California, The Leelanau School in Glen Arbor, Michigan, and The Kiski School.

Bud Patel Chosen to Lead Brentwood College School

Bud Patel will succeed the retiring Andrea Pennells, whose thirty years at Brentwood include the final twelve as Head of School.

Patel comes to Brentwood College from St. George’s School, Vancouver BC where he serves as the deputy headmaster and principal of the senior school. In this role he has been involved and played active roles in all phases of school management from daily operations to strategic planning.

A graduate of Shawnigan Lake School (’85), Patel returned to his alma mater to begin his teaching career after earning his BS from the University of Victoria. He also earned his MA from the University of Victoria in 2000.

Becker brings a portfolio of varied experiences to the Washington, CT campus.

He will be coming directly from The Lawrenceville School where he currently serves as a Master of History and Interdisciplinary Studies. Prior to his eight years at Lawrenceville, Becker worked in investment banking and as a venture capital analyst.

Speaking to the Gunnery community of his selection Becker observed:

“I am honored to have been chosen to build on Fredrick Gunn’s remarkable vision that is as compelling today as when first articulated in 1850. It is especially humbling for me to follow on Susan Graham’s twenty one year tenure during which the school earned a well deserved reputation for its academic rigor, college placement, athletics, a growing emphasis on the arts, and as a special place where a student’s individual perspectives and goals are valued. The Gunnery’s emphasis on character is such an integral part of its unique identity – one that fosters respect for individual strengths, perspectives and goals so as to sustain an energetic and thoughtful community.”(TG)

Congratulations to Mr. Becker and The Gunnery.

Additional resources:

The Gunnery is a co-ed boarding school in Washington, CT.

The Gunnery Announces Peter W.E. Becker as its Eleventh Head of School

Boarding schools in CT

Reading “Son of Augusta comes back to lead Kents Hill School,” it’s clear LaCasse brings a great combination of boarding school and Maine roots to his new post. The interview covers expected territory given LaCasse’s biography and experience. He’s a native Mainer with a professional life built in boarding schools.

Of special note are the candor and frankness inherent in LaCasse’s responses to two questions touching how a boarding school head’s job has evolved and the types of students Kents Hill serves well.

LaCasse captures the challenges of a modern boarding school head and paints a clear picture of Kents Hill’s mission:

KJ: How has the role of a head of a boarding school changed?

LaCasse: In the last 30 years, it’s changed hugely. … Schools like Kents Hill shifted from sort of mom-and-pop operations, where the headmaster was literally the lead teacher, to actual, real businesses in the sense of we need to make sure that we’re following all the rules and regulations about employment, to we need to find streams of revenue to maintain and support a sizable infrastructure, and things like that. Fifty years ago, people didn’t have hockey rinks, as an example, or didn’t make snow on the ski hill. And now those are big parts of what we do. …

KJ: What’s going on academically in boarding schools these days? What’s the effect of being outside the accountability and testing trend?

LaCasse: The short answer is that the beauty of an independent school is the fact that we’re largely independent. At its best, what that means is the fact that you’re finding the most effective way to reach each of the kids who is in your classroom. …

When you look at standards and testing and things like that that you’re seeing in the public sector — the public sector has the responsibility to teach a huge swath of the population, which is a daunting task. And they have to get them all over a certain threshold, so they’re going to distribute their resources in that way that best reaches those kids that they need to move the furthest along. And that’s to be expected, and appropriate. But it means that they’re also trying to do it as efficiently as possible, particularly as school boards are realizing funding crunches and things like that.

I think one of the things that boarding schools do particularly well is serving the needs of folks in the middle, the kids who wouldn’t be on anyone’s radar in a public school, either because they’re being exceptional or being unexceptional. And so those kids, I think, get a much richer experience here and develop much further than they could and discover that they can do much more than they would have in a public setting. …”(emphasis added)

The men believe that a boarding environment offers the strongest path to school success for their potential students.

Dr. Judson explained to WVLT:

“The environment you educate in is very important…One of the challenges the students we’re reaching out to have is when they leave school and go back to their living environment – it is not conducive to education.”

Smith added:

“The strongest focus on the school is it’s going to be an environment that teaches two paradigms: one is academics, the other life skills…It’s not just academics that is the skill set needed to equip students, but what speaks to the future are both college ready as well as career ready.” (WVLT)

Parents seem receptive to the safe structured environment. Potential parent Molly Cash told WVLT, “There’s a lot of nights you hear something and you don’t know if it’s fireworks or a gunshot or what.” (WVLT)

Genesis Rock has already secured the University of Tennesse and McCallie School (Chattanooga) as partners.

An older story on the school’s beginnings: Educating Through Entertainment’: Cylk Cozart wants to develop arts charter school

Photo credit: Wysz via Creative Commons