ANNUAL FUND

For 70 years, Marymount of Santa Barbara has been dedicated to academic excellence, moral development, and community service. Support from the Marymount community is needed in order to continue providing high-quality education while maintaining our exceptional reputation and tradition. Marymount’s operating budget relies on funds from the Annual Fund.

Your support will assist with bridging the shortfall between tuition and operating expenses while providing essential funds for special school projects, financial assistance (i.e., scholarships), and faculty support and enrichment.

To learn more, download the Case for Support here.

Click here to make a donation to Marymount.

FROM DEBORAH DAVID, HEAD OF SCHOOL

Dear Marymount Community…

In a year that saw so many of us digging down a bit deeper in our pockets and countless people substituting the “stay-cation” for a more exotic odyssey, who would ever have predicted we’d be celebrating our most successful year ever at Marymount. Perhaps a little adversity made us realize at the deepest level how we define ourselves here: we are knowledge, values, and community. We hit true peak performance in each of those areas…and we’re going to do it again this year.

Academically, the children soared. Graphs of our standardized test scores reveal a steep trajectory of rapid and consistent growth in math and reading. Compared to other private school students around the country, almost three-quarters of our graduating class scored in the highest possible categories on the writing portion of the ERB test. Our gifted choir performed all over Santa Barbara and three full-scale musicals trumpeted our school’s growing reputation for drama. The children’s art was everywhere, and never more impressively than in our own spring Japanese art show. Our athletic teams excelled in every sport. Mandarin, guitar, and gymnastics debuted. In classes, small group teaching by multiple adults allowed for more differentiated instruction. Targeted interventions provided the scaffolding many kids needed to find success. And we celebrated all the unique and beautiful learning styles through which our children learned.

Although even last year we felt the pinch of diminished funding, nothing could dull our joy, especially the joy inherent in giving to others. We went global with our values, earning money to support Engineers Without Borders, and investigating the lifestyles of children from different cultures round the world. We gave Christmas gifts to the poor and fed the hungry, visited the sick and held the hands of the elderly. Our Kaleidoscope program grew stronger and richer; and an international conference of religious leaders chose to visit Marymount when they heard about our unique study of the world’s great religions. We made the auspicious decision to open a Junior Kindergarten last year, and by August a dozen little four and five year olds had joined the Marymount family for the first time. And MarymountParentsb.com voted us the top private elementary school in Santa Barbara!

Throughout it all, you were there with us, a community of loving, giving, stalwart friends. You were there with potluck salads at the State of the School meeting; dancing up a storm at the auction; preparing the graduates’ special breakfast; reaching out to fire victims; preserving beloved old traditions and creating new ones like the Lower School Moving Up Day, student newspaper, and Student Council. You traveled to Mexico with the Middle School and cheered on countless little athletes in their tournaments. You are our family, our community, our strength.

But now we turn to you again so we can continue to achieve our goals this year and exceed even your high expectations for a Marymount education. To ease the effects of the recent financial crisis, we resisted a raise in tuition this year; and as a result many of us on faculty are taking cuts or unpaid furlough days to help balance our operating budget. Won’t you do your part now by contributing generously to our Annual Fund Campaign? Together we are an unbeatable team and a community of unparalleled spirit and dedication. One more time; let’s dig down deep… so we can close the budget gap together. And here’s to another memorable year at Marymount!

With hope and promise,

Deborah David, Head of School

FROM CHAIRS CECE and KIRK BORCHARDT

Dear Marymount Parents:

Marymount is on the move, and the pace is fast. Compelled by the ceaseless efforts of our Head of School and faculty and the contagion of our shared purpose, Marymount is beginning to separate itself from other independent schools in both the quality of the education delivered and the depth of the values instilled.

Proof of Marymount’s success is found in the astonishing scores achieved by our students in the most recent ERBs. The year-over-year improvement at every grade level surpasses all expectations – not just our own, but the expectations of the very organization that administers the test. Our Eighth Grade students will graduate this year equipped with writing and composition skills that place them, without exception, in the highest ranking of all independent schools nationwide. The preparedness of our graduates has never been higher, as borne out by the high quality of the universities and colleges to which our graduates have matriculated.

These successes have been achieved at a time of great economic crisis locally and abroad. While the education at public primary institutions throughout all of California is beginning to implode under the weight of severe budget cuts, our Head of School has kept Marymount squarely focused on achievement of the school’s mission. Academic programs have been enriched at all levels, teaching specialists abound throughout the classrooms, the arts and music programs are thriving, and our sports teams are winning. Marymount, too, has been under economic pressure, but we have mustered the resolve and ingenuity to press forward.

In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell describes the tipping point as the moment in time when critical mass turns an idea or trend into an epidemic. Only time will tell whether Marymount has reached or is nearing the tipping point in delivering the finest education possible – not just a high quality education, but the finest. The critical mass necessary to achieve the tipping point or to sustain its effect is embodied in the support of the Marymount community. We are an institution with a rich history of parent volunteerism and financial support. There can be no better time than now to take that financial support to the next level. Help us reach the tipping point in the quality of a Marymount education by making a generous contribution or pledge to the 2009-2010 Annual Fund.

Very truly yours,

CeCe Borchardt Kirk Borchardt
Annual Fund 2009-2010 Co-Chair Annual Fund 2009-2010 Co-Chair