Dear Emery/Weiner Community, At The Emery/Weiner School, there is much to share and celebrate. The vision and commitment shared by the school’s leadership and founding board have come together to ensure Emery/ Weiner’s viability into the foreseeable future. The number and size of many physical spaces need to be increased to address the needs of our students and to be commensurate with other top-notch private secondary institutions.

Student Ambassadors at the Ground Breaking ceremony on December 4, 2007

To ascertain and prioritize the evolving needs of The Emery/Weiner School, the Board of Directors engaged in an internal evaluation and strategic planning process. This process included input from members of our community as well as information from other independent schools in order to learn by comparison. Information was gathered regarding specific data on items such as amount of square footage needed per student, the utility of various academic spaces, different types of arts facilities, and the number of gymnasiums that similar-sized schools have. Finally, there were hours of interviews and meetings with EWS teachers, administrative staff, parents, Board members and outside consultants to distill the various needs.

Highlights of the physical expansion include:

• A new fine arts building with black box theater to allow more diversified theater offerings, and soundproofed music/band rehearsal rooms.
  
• An additional Upper School building with classrooms, computer lab, student lounge, counseling offices, and lecture hall/multi purpose room with flexible seating.
  
• An outdoor covered and lighted sport pavilion.

The new facilities should be ready in fall of the 2009 academic year.

Expanding Horizons: A Campaign for the Emery/Weiner School is underway to raise monies not only for the needed physical space enhancements, but also to address two additional important needs that came out of the strategic planning process: funding for acquisition of additional land to provide means for future expansion, and additional capital for our endowment to continue to generate needed funds for annual scholarships.

Our goal is to raise $10.5 million to cover the anticipated construction costs of $7.5 million, land purchases of $2 million and additions to the endowment of $1 million. We are pleased to announce that during the early phase of fundraising for Expanding Horizons, we have reached $6.7 million in pledges - more than halfway towards our goal! The momentum is building as we take the campaign to the wider community. We look forward to sharing our news as the progress continues.

Sincerely,

Dan Steiner
Fundraising Chair

Joe Kaplan
Board President

Stuart Dow
Head of School