Darlington School has much to celebrate as we reflect back on the 2023-2024 school year. Several highlights from the year include strong student enrollment, a successful endowment campaign, and a renewed focus on preserving and maintaining our historical campus.
Student enrollment remained strong across all grade levels. We attribute much of our enrollment success to our tuition rebalance initiative. This was our second and final year of the initiative, which lowered or froze tuition in all divisions. Enrollment in our boarding division also continues to be full. We believe the success of our boarding program provides our school with a diverse student population, which enhances our quality programs across all areas of the school.
Through successful endowment fundraising and positive investment returns, our total endowment grew to over $58.2 million by the end of the 2023-2024 fiscal year. These endowment gifts will allow us to provide additional financial aid for worthy students, reward our faculty and staff with more competitive salaries, and continue to support the ongoing needs within our operation budget. We remain ever grateful to our generous and loyal donors who invest in our school each and every year.
Another highlight of the past school year was a renewed focus on the needs of our campus. Thanks to campaign contributions for capital improvements, work has begun to address deferred maintenance needs such as improved HVAC equipment in many of our buildings and classrooms. Darlington also engaged in a new facility partnership with The Budd Group to enhance the beauty of our campus and provide improved security. We are thankful for our board members and other generous donors for their support of this important work.
While we celebrate our many successes and highlights from the past year, we remain vigilant to effectively manage the rising costs of our school. Darlington School is very thankful for everyone in our community - faculty, students, parents, alumni and all supporters of this special place. It takes the gifts and talents of everyone to continue the great work of our school. Thank you all for your support and dedication to Darlington.
For Darlington,
Natalie Ferguson
Chief Financial Officer
