Many local private schools are in the midst of fundraising for or have recently completed a major construction project, though the private school officials have said they are not in an “arms race” when it comes to building new facilities.

“We are not going to engage in some sort of competition to build the biggest and the best but we are going to put resources where they belong,” said Jean Erstling, director of communications at Landon School, which costs $28,826 per year in tuition for the high school program in Bethesda, Md.

Many local private school administrators insist the quality of teaching, curriculum and overall mentality of the school are much more important to perspective students and families than the campus or physical plant.

“I don’t know if our facilities give us an advantage over any other school because it is usually a matter of which school is the right fit for the student. This area is fortunate to have some of the best independent and public schools in the country and it is about where you feel comfortable. There are many schools with terrific facilities,” said Rev. William George, president of Georgetown Preparatory School, which costs $25,650 to attend as day student and $44,000 to attend as a boarding student in North Bethesda, Md.

Still, many of the elite schools are competing for the same group of students, children who are not only high-achievers but also have families with the means to volunteer and financially contribute to the school above and beyond tuition rates that frequently exceed $25,000 per year.

Shortly after Georgetown Prep opened its new athletic center in 2007, Landon launched a fundraising effort for major renovations to their sports complex. The two all-boys schools with campuses only a few miles apart from each other have a heated sports rivalry.



GEORGETOWN PREP’S $23 million athletic center includes an 11-lane indoor pool, Montgomery County’s only regulation-size 200-meter indoor track and a 950-seat basketball arena.

“There are other schools that have nice, new facilities but, when it comes to athletics, I don’t think anyone can top what we have,” said Brian Gnatt, a Georgetown Prep spokesperson.

This winter, Prep will also open a student center and new library facility that cost approximately $30 million to build. The facility includes study areas, a café with a wood-burning oven that can cook five pizzas at one time, a projection television, and a recording studio for student musicians.

“I want Prep to be a weekend destination for day students. They could come work out or play some music, eat a meal and then watch the Redskins or Nationals on the television,” said George, Georgetown Prep’s president.

The school also spent about $14 million installing artificial turf, redesigning their golf course and upgrading their road and parking system on campus, for a total of a $70 million capital campaign overall.

Now, Landon is pursuing similar types of projects, though on a more modest scale than Georgetown Prep.

The school installed its own turf field in 2007 and opened a new $2.5 million strength and conditioning room at the beginning of last year. They are currently raising money to undergo a much more significant renovation of the first floor of their athletic facility that would include more meeting space for students and a new concession stand, said Erstling.

“We looked at the majority of student facilities on campus and what needed to be done to improve them,” she said.



THROUGH A $50 MILLION fund-raising campaign, the Potomac School in McLean was able to upgrade its upper school in 2008 and to build a new lower school that opened this September, the latest addition to the sprawling 90-acre education campus.

Tuition at the upper school costs $28,925 annually; tuition at the lower school is $24,765.

Originally constructed in 1959, the lower school building was outdated and had high operating costs. The upper school facility, which houses students in ninth through 12th grades, was too small, said Dabney Schmitt, Potomac’s director of development.

“We are so fortunate as an independent school to have a community that understands that because we are an independent school, we have to rely on ourselves for funding. Whatever we do here depends on everyone working together,” said Schmitt.

In addition to a soccer field, sledding hill, basketball court and flagstone patio, the new lower school’s state-of-the-art playground has an artificial turf pad where students can build structures out of oversized blocks and a wooden apparatus called “the big toy,” which is similar to a traditional jungle gym.

Potomac’s youngest students can also play in a large sandbox that has a water feature and seating areas where they can build mud pies. Children can also climb a spinning, cone-like structure covered with loose netting.

There is a playhouse surrounded by a community garden and a few tricycles with a cement-riding path.

But by far, the most popular part of the playground during the first week of school are the “cloud nine” swings. The large saucers suspended in the air can fit four students in one at a time, said Donna Lewis, head of Potomac’s lower school.

“The children will stand in line for more than half of their recess just to use these swings,” said Lewis.

Eventually, Potomac’s lower school playground will also include a climbing wall, though Lewis said the school will hold off on its installation since the students still trying to cope with the all current options at recess.

“The goal is to try and inspire kids with different interests. The different areas will appeal to different children and there is a wide range of ability level between the ages of five and nine,” said Lewis, whose division of the school enrolled 214 students this year.

Potomac did see a jump in the number of families seeking information about their academic program once the new upper school was completed, said spokesperson Jill Lucas.



ALL of these facilities are expensive and most schools only have their immediate community of parents, grandparents and alumni to draw from for financial support.

“Independent schools typically have to engage in a capital campaign to raise money for new facilities and typically the socio-economics of the student body determine how much can be raised,” said Judy Marks, director of the National Clearinghouse of Educational Facilities.

There area a few special cases where schools do not have to rely entirely on fundraising efforts to raise money for construction projects.

Jesuit priests bought Georgetown Prep’s campus over in 1916 and the value of prep’s land skyrocketed in the late 20th century, with a Metro station opening directly across the street from the school’s front entrance, and land values appreciating in the area in general.

Georgetown Prep approached Montgomery County about getting one corner of their campus near the Metro rezoned for high-density residential development, since it was near a major transit hub. Once approved, Prep then signed a 99-year lease with a local builder that is expected to yield about $800 million for the school over its lifetime.

Money earned from the lease covered about $37.5 million of Georgetown Prep’s $70 million in recent capital projects, including the entire cost of the new athletic center. As a result, the school only had to raise money from donors to cover the costs of the student center.

“There is no way we could have built both buildings without the apartment project. That just brought in a tremendous source of revenue. We might have been able to do one or the other but not both,” said Gnatt.

“I consider that the terrific legacy that the Jesuits left us when they bought our property. It adds terrific financial security to the school,” said George.



SOME SCHOOLS are also engaging in building projects not just to renovate or update facilities but to add completely new features to the school and curriculum.

The Langley School, which runs from preschool to eighth grade and costs approximately $25,000, opened its first ever arts center on its McLean campus last year.

“We actually did not have an arts center before. We split our time between our athletic center and what used to be field house for our school assemblies and performances,” said Langley’s spokesperson Sharon Ifft.

The new building has an auditorium that includes professional lighting and sound equipment as well as a stage that is slightly lower to the ground for Langley’s younger students. There is also a band room designed to provide good acoustics for music.

“It really gives the students a more professional learning experience. They get to learn how to use the lighting equipment and do backstage work. I think it is very sophisticated, especially for school that only goes from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade,” said Ifft.



FOR SCHOOL COMMUNITIES, their location and natural landscape are more of a draw for families and add more value than any new facility could.

Burgundy Farm Country Day School in the Mount Vernon area, which costs between $20,000 and $22,000 per year to attend, employs a lot of experiential learning and their students are outside, rather than in a classroom, for much of the day.

“We have a pond and a stream. The school is fairly rural setting in the middle of an urban area,” said Connie Rue, head of the school’s lower school program.

Rue added that she thinks the physical setting, a converted dairy farm only a few minutes away from the City of Alexandria, is what attracts some families to Burgundy Farm.

“Parents have said that what they were seeking for their children is a chance to enjoy the outdoors while they are at school, to enjoy the physical setting as part of the classroom,” she said.

Burgundy Farm also owns a property in West Virginia that all students in grades first-through-eight use for a three-day overnight learning experience twice per year.

In some cases, students learning about colonial America will go camping on the West Virginia property, with only those resources early settlers would have available to them. Students also do an exercise where they pretend to be on the Underground Railroad that transported slaves from southern states to northern states before the American Civil War, said Rue.