Page 5 - Priorities #17 2001-October

Promote Each Student’s Strengths Preserve Community Values Provide For The Future
This summary of challenges and solutions explains the heart of the Golden Jubilee campaign, phase one. The five projects support the campaign goals printed above.
Challenge: Foster An Exciting, Dedicated Faculty
We are proud of our dedicated faculty but we are faced with the most difficult competition in memory when it comes to hiring and retaining the best teachers. The Bay Area has a shortage of teachers. The cost of living and housing prices keep teachers out of the market.
Golden Jubilee Solution: Housing and Endowment
We need endowment funds to provide competitive salaries, benefits, and professional development opportunities and to maintain our low student-teacher ratio. We need housing to attract and retain the best teachers and to continue the Priory tradition of an on-campus “core community” of educators.
Alvin Maas, parent of one Priory graduate and one eleventh-grader, expressed the housing situation well:
“When my son Ryan was young, I could see this problem coming. How could the Priory possibly bring the best teachers to Portola Valley unless they could solve the housing problem? This school has a unique advantage because it has land and a history of an on-campus community. I got involved in helping to plan and fund this a few years ago because the need was so obvious.”
Perhaps a picture is the best way to explain the role of endowment in an independent
school’s security.
Tuition Annual Gifts Endowment Income
School’s Annual Budget
A school’s annual budget comes from just three sources: tuition, annual gifts, and endowment income. As times change and the first two sources decline, endowment income is the stabilizing element. Endowment is a form of savings that cushions economic blows.
Clearly, we are at a disadvantage in this area.
Endowment Funds of Local Comparable Schools
School 3 School 4 $9.3 Million $14 Million
Woodside Priory $750,000
School 1 $11.4 Million
School 2 $15 Million
—as of June 30, 2000