November 2000

State of the School Report 

I have been at PDS for almost ten years now – and in many ways the school is a different place than it was in July of 1991. We are bigger, with more than twice the number of students, parents and faculty members. We have an attractive 35-acre campus with a gym, library and theater.  Our new soccer field will be ready to play on in the spring, with plans for a baseball field and tennis courts not far behind. All classrooms are wired for high-speed Internet access, and we are working towards a plan to integrate up-do-date technology into our classroom teaching. All this and more were beyond anyone’s imagination a decade ago.

Being in the middle of all this, I sometimes forget that most parents and students – and many of our faculty members – were not here to see the beginning of this transformation.  The reasons, for those of us who were part of it, seemed obvious. But I was reminded at my first “Tea With Tony” session that we can sometimes take this awareness for granted. This is an attempt to put the recent changes into perspective.

To begin with, though much has changed, we have worked hard to keep the heart and soul of PDS intact.  As some of you have heard me say, one of my proudest moments was the last visit of our founding director Elizabeth Gilkeson, the year we moved into Kenyon House. She marveled at the facilities, but most importantly, she marveled at the continuity of her vision. Through two changes of location, meteoric growth, the addition of the high school and more than sixty years of social change, Poughkeepsie Day School remains true to its mission and to its commitment to the progressive education of young children. For me, keeping that flame alive is the most important part of my job. 

What has not always been fun is trying to find the resources to keep this vision alive. We may forget – or not even know – that six years ago our middle and upper school students met their teachers in “temporary” trailers. Quaint, perhaps, in good weather. But not much fun in the rain, snow and cold winter weather. Our library was in the center of the “Big Room” – which also served as a theater and gymnasium. Classrooms were crowded, and there simply were not enough of them. But what turned out to be our greatest liability was a tenuous lease with Vassar College. And it was their decision not to renew our lease that led to our search for a new home. In short, we had no choice. 

We made a decision then to raise the money for the move with minimal affect on tuition – and we were successful. Tuition increases were used to increase faculty salaries and benefits, to add programs and for student services. But that meant that our development efforts had to increase substantially. Today, our auction, golf tournament and spring benefit raise $100,000 each year. Our annual fund is nearing $150,000. This $250,000 means that everyone’s tuition is at least $800 less than it would otherwise be.

The long-range plan developed by the school before I arrived called for the school to grow to our current size. This growth also added tuition dollars that have helped to keep tuition rates at PDS among the lowest of area independent schools. At Oakwood Friends School, day students in high school pay two-thousand dollars more in basic tuition than they would at PDS.  Additional fees can add another four-thousand dollars to a family’s annual expenses there. At Millbrook School day-student tuition and fees approach $20,000 for the current year.

Today, we maintain a commitment to keep the school at its current size. I am also pleased to report that individual class size and student teacher ratios are actually lower than they were in 1991. That’s important for a number of reasons, most importantly to our commitment to individual attention for each student. Our largest class this year is 17. Classes with twice that number are not uncommon in other area independent schools. Limiting our enrollment and maintaining our commitment to small, seminar-style classrooms is our greatest single expense. But we remain committed to these bedrock, PDS principles.

Since 1991 we have dramatically increased educational opportunities for our students. When I arrived, foreign language instruction began in 5th grade. Now
even our youngest four-year-olds have language classes several times each week. Two years ago, we added Russian, Spanish and French – and a unique linguistics class for our sixth graders.

Recognizing the growing interest in sports, we added middle school interscholastic teams. In 1991 we had one soccer team, one basketball team and one baseball team. All were co-ed and all played at the high school level. Today we have two levels of middle school soccer, two levels of middle school basketball, a girls’ basketball team and a girls’ softball team. Plans are afoot to add a girls’ soccer team as well.

In a time when art and music are under funding pressures throughout our area, we more than doubled the size of our music and art faculty. And theater is an integral part of the lower, middle and upper schools – with each division mounting at least one major production each year.

But there is still much of great importance to be done.  The median PDS faculty salary is more than 10% below that of peers, and far below that of teachers in public schools. The highest paid independent school teacher in New York earns more than $50,000 more than our highest paid teacher. To that end, we have established a Faculty Development Fund as an integral part (40%) of our Campaign for Poughkeepsie Day School capital campaign. We simply cannot fund the kind of salary increases that we need with tuition increases. The only alternative is to build an endowed fund that will generate enough income to help.

Our financial assistance budget is now more than $500,000. One of the key principles of PDS has always been to ensure that no child will be turned away from PDS simply because of an inability to afford the tuition. Recognizing that willingness to pay is not the same as ability to pay, we have developed a thorough screening of all financial-aid applicants. But even with $500,000 in the budget for financial assistance, we cannot meet the full financial need of several of our students. For many in the mid-Hudson valley, the benefits we enjoy remain out of reach.

Again, we have made financial assistance an integral part of our Campaign for Poughkeepsie Day School. Scholarship funds have been established and our goal is to raise $2,000,000 to support this effort.

As we enter the public phase of the Campaign, I am pleased to announce that we have raised nearly $2,000,000 towards our $5,000,000 goal. Most of this has come from trustees, with some from foundations and long-time friends of PDS. Their generosity has given us bedrock upon which to build the financial stability necessary to take PDS into the 21st century. We will now turn to parents to do their part.  Most immediately, we must raise $400,000 this year to match leadership gifts made to the Faculty Development Fund.

PDS has always risen to the occasion when the school was in need. We raised over $1,000,000 to purchase Kenyon House just a few years back. We borrowed (via tax-exempt Industrial Development Authority bonds) more than $3,000,000 to purchase and renovate Gilkeson Center, thereby reuniting all of our pre-kindergarten through grade twelve students and faculty members. We must now repay that debt. 

These efforts were in response to a very visible and immediate crisis. Though we are not in the middle of a crisis, the current Campaign is meant to avoid one.  More importantly, it is meant to provide the resources that will allow us to maintain our current program, keep class sizes small and maintain our commitment to enrollment targets – all without raising tuition levels to that of other independent schools here in the mid-Hudson valley. It is meant to provide fair compensation to our teachers. It is meant to help us practice what we preach when we speak of equity, justice and citizenship as part of our curriculum.  And it is meant to fund the repayment of the debt without corresponding tuition increases.

So, the state of the school is quite good. We now have the facility within which our faculty can work their magic with our children.  We have met long-term goals, and are now working on a new plan for the next decade. I am pleased to tell you that by next year, we will have vision statements that will help guide and explain the direction of our educational program in all areas of the curriculum.

Last June in my graduation talk I spoke of the school’s heart and soul. I reminded folks that the success of our graduates lies not in the outstanding academic achievement and college placement record that they enjoy. Academic achievement is not the sole purview of Poughkeepsie Day School. But we do seek to graduate academic achievers who are also good people, capable of making sound moral judgements. We must nurture that if those who follow us are to remember and respect us as fondly as we remember and respect those who have come before us. 

I believe that everyone at PDS shares a commitment to our mission and to ensuring that the PDS heart continues to beat strongly and the soul of our history continues to nourish our children. Ours is a journey that never ends. As with all long and arduous journeys it is filled with potential pitfalls and wrong turns. We must continue to work to find ways to put our heads together to ensure that the path remains lit and that PDS is a beacon of light in the often sterile debate about good educational practices that surrounds us.

Sincerely,

Tony Buccelli