Dec. 2, 202
Dear Oakridge Family,
Thank you for your generosity in the opening weeks of The Oakridge Fund campaign. I have heard many questions surrounding The Oakridge Fund’s purpose and allocation of funds. I deeply value data and input, and I am grateful for the opportunity to help explain why The Oakridge Fund is important and essential for our school’s success. We budget for this amount annually; with it, our school will have the resources to make for an exceptional experience for our children. Make no mistake, the Oakridge experience is precisely that - exceptional, and I want us to be so much more. The Oakridge Fund is the single most important vehicle to make this happen. Please take the time to read my explanation of The Oakridge Fund because it is an important message, and I apologize in advance for the length.
How do we use The Oakridge Fund?
Independent schools like Oakridge are unique entities when it comes to funding:
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We differ from public schools because we receive little government support.
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We differ from other private and parochial schools in that we are not affiliated with a religious institution and thus do not receive additional support from a church or diocese.
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We differ from for-profit entities because we are a non-profit and have different goals
Our goal is to provide a service with the express intent of delivering a premier educational experience for our students as close to the actual cost of education as possible rather than focusing on shareholder wealth and profit. The Oakridge Fund is how our school can maintain competitive tuition rates, allowing a portion of the cost of educating our children to be tax deductible. In addition, the Oakridge Fund is unrestricted giving that enables me to look at the school annually and make strategic choices on the area of most significant priority for our school.
Where does the money go?
This year, we have identified three priority areas The Oakridge Fund is supporting:
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Securing our Future - Improving campus security is a significant priority while balancing that our campus remains the pristine and pastoral setting it is. Simply put, this is costly. Your gifts to The Oakridge Fund will go to underwriting these crucial upgrades, beginning with the additional staffing you have seen on campus supported by the practice upgrades we have made in our security processes. These improvements have a substantial cost and impact on the student experience. We have only just begun our work in this area, and much more support is needed to accomplish our goals. 100% of our security upgrades, including the addition of essential staffing, are provided through The Oakridge Fund.
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Inspiring Excellence - Creating an environment where students are constantly challenged is at the pinnacle of our mission. The education landscape has shifted dramatically in the past 10 years. Now more than ever, our students must be engrossed in an environment where they are not only taught to master their academic subjects but feel empowered to think ethically, critically, and creatively about a myriad of issues. Our programming must match those needs and exceed them by giving our students the tools to develop the skills to build innovative, coherent and compelling solutions to these problems. Our Strategic Plan calls for us to foster a culture of curiosity, imagination, and wonder. We have addressed these needs through an expansion in our fine arts programming, a dedication to innovation and design thinking in our PreSchool through 6th-grade programming, and an increased focus on social-emotional caretaking. The Oakridge Fund has provided additional staffing in key areas- Fine Arts, Modern Learning, and Counseling.
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Instilling Passions - Professional development is the most important investment we can make into our faculty. Study after study shows that the quality of a teacher is the single most important factor in determining student achievement outcomes. Teachers have three loves- a love of learning, a love of learners, and a love of connecting learners to learning. This passion for learning and leading learners is not easily acquired, nor is it easily maintained. To stay at the cutting edge of pedagogical theory and practice, our faculty must be on a continuous path of development themselves. They thirst for it and need it to be at the top of their game as teachers. The school's impact is directly tied to its faculty's success in teaching and driving knowledge. 100% of our Professional Development budget is provided for through The Oakridge Fund.
Why not just raise tuition?
Our budget is determined annually in the middle of the previous school year. Tuition is determined in advance of the current school year and based on several factors. The actual cost of educating children based on the projected enrollment we expect to see, our expected retention of our faculty, the impacts of inflation on our variable costs, and the cost of maintaining our campus. By far, our largest expense is our faculty salaries, and raises in tuition almost exclusively are meant to recruit and retain the very best teachers we can find. We also attempt to keep our tuition expenses within a margin that values our relationship with you, our parents. By balancing tuition expenses with fundraising goals, we create a financial model that is mutually beneficial. The Oakridge Fund is tax-deductible, and keeps tuition variability within predictable levels.
Does my gift matter?
Every gift matters and I can’t stress this enough. While our dollar amount is essential to raise, we also need 100% parent participation. Why? It sends a message. It sends a message to our faculty that you are willing to invest in their development. It sends a message to the rest of the school that you value the transformational experience that is Oakridge. Above all, it sends a message to the foundations we seek support from outside the Oakridge community. When I go to a corporation or foundation for a grant, the first question is, “What percentage of your faculty, staff, board, parents, and alumni give to your annual giving campaign?” Foundations that will aid in funding our school and specific projects expect us to have a high level of participation from our faculty, staff, Board, and families. When those metrics are not met, we are eliminated from consideration for large grants that can support and enhance our experience.
The national average in independent schools for participation in the annual fund is 85%, and we are well below that average. We must improve this to access larger forms of outside assistance.
We are almost there!
As of today, we have raised over $330,000 toward our $475,000 goal. We are very close, and exceeding that goal can create many more opportunities for us! So please help us finish the campaign by making a gift to The Oakridge Fund today!
Thank you,
Matt Burgy
Head of School
