Dear Highland School Families and Friends,

We are delighted to have the opportunity to discuss the vision for Highland School’s future with you. The vision of our founders, set more than 80 years ago, is more relevant than ever. Strong stewardship enables the school to continue to discover the promise in both our children and our institution. We stand at a point today where the need for value-centered leadership is greater than any point in our history.

A thoughtful and thorough process, which began four years ago with the Board’s adoption of the Strategic Plan, has brought us to this inflection point for Highland. Over this period, the school has designed a wide-ranging set of enhancements to our program to provide new opportunities for our students at every level of the school. By any measure, the outcomes for our students are exceptional, and the Highland experience is growing in rich and rewarding ways for students and their families.

The school has also accomplished a number of important administrative objectives, including a change in the compensation structure for our faculty to address long-standing imbalances, and to allow the school to successfully recruit nationally for key teaching and administrative positions. In conjunction with this initiative, the operating costs of the school have been examined and carefully managed. The school stands today in a strong financial position, and is becoming the first-choice option for independent school education in our community, in part because of the unique balance and breadth of the opportunities we afford students.

Highland has always been committed to the potential in each individual and to the families in our community. The Highland education has featured a balance of academics, arts, and athletics.  We are advancing our program to discover that unique potential in all of our students – from providing support for those who have a specific need, to providing challenge for students who have superior gifts and talents.

It is the promise of extending this vision into the future that motivates and informs the plans that are currently in development. The Board, working jointly with the school, developed a Master Plan to identify the facilities and services needed to implement the program, and to maximize the safety, utility and effectiveness of our campus.

A special committee of the Board then examined the financial implications of the plan, and developed a ten-year budgetary model to chart the financial condition of the school under various assumptions regarding the program, enrollment, costs, and tuition and giving. The model is based on a planning and management tool provided by the National Association of Independent Schools and has been calibrated against our historical performance. In effect, the model permits the Board to consider the business case for the plan, and to understand the implications for the school financially over an extended period of time.
Key values paramount in shaping the plan:

1. We must keep the Highland experience one that is nurturing and safe by maintaining small class sizes, and promoting family involvement and close teacher relationships with students. This honors the school’s roots, and is one of the compelling and distinctive traits of the school today.
   
   
2. We must protect the accessibility of Highland to families by moderating tuition increases, controlling non-teaching costs, and extending financial aid on a need-basis. It will be philanthropic efforts that pay for building projects; not tuition.
   
   
3. At the conclusion of the plan, we must leave the school in strong financial condition to ensure that Highland can continue to flourish into the future.

The business case for the plan is compelling, and through the expansion of enrollment, successful fundraising, and sound financing the school emerges from the project in a strong financial condition operating with financial metrics that compare favorably to the finest independent schools in the nation.

We stand at an important inflection point for the Highland of tomorrow. Highland has come to its place today through the vision and commitment of an extraordinary group of families and friends over a long history of forward-thinking leadership in independent education. The opportunity we now consider is to honor that history by preparing a place for the families of tomorrow, a place to discover the promise in every child, and change lives for the better.

Please accept our invitation to be a part of this vision. For your convenience a pledge form is included to assign your gift to The Campaign for Highland School. For further information, and to learn more about the ways you can help, please feel free to contact Gordon Oliver, Assistant Head for Institutional Advancement at Highland School.

Looking forward,

Paul Rice, Chairman, Board of Trustees	Henry D. Berg, Head of School