Though our school does currently bridge the gap between tuition revenue and operating expense through our Annual Giving and fundraisers, we must have a "nest egg," allowing the school to augment its operating budget. Our desire is to create an Endowment Fund.  Continuing to build the corpus means that the school will have access to greater interest income, serving as an insurance policy, ensuring financial stability in times of less robust economic growth or extreme circumstances.

If the gap between tuition revenue and operating expenses becomes so large, why don't we simply raise tuition? 

The Villa Cecilia Academy of Arts and Technology makes a deliberate, philosophical commitment to keep tuition rates as low as possible.  As a new school, we are studying ways to provide a tuition assistance as a percentage of our gross tuition revenue to encourage as diverse a community as possible. Offering the finest in basic education to as many as possible at an affordable rate has always been part of our school's mission.

By comparison with other private schools and montessori schools of a similar size and in the same geographic region, our current tuition is what the market will bear. Raising tuition and therefore excluding a significant portion of families who would like to attend is not consistent with who we are and what we are all about. We have always maintained that it takes more than writing a tuition check to live meaningfully in this community.