Head of School Community Report - January, 2026

From the Head of School

January 2026

Dear Members of the George Stevens Academy Community,

If you have been following us in the news, you’ll know there is a lot happening right now. Everywhere I stop on the Peninsula people have questions and want to talk, which makes this a particularly good time to write this letter.

You may have seen the positive stories and wonderful pictures of all the great things happening at GSA. And, you may also have seen news about an anticipated reduction in force that is happening next year.

I’ll cover all of this, starting with the positive!

Our students are excelling, the college acceptances are rolling in, and our sports teams are playing hard and representing our school admirably. The Arts and Music programs continue to thrive, with sophomore Cody Chattin being named to the Maine All-State Jazz program! GSA just inducted its first chapter of the National Honor Society in many years, and we recently received generous financial support that will allow our Workforce Training/Trades Education program to grow.

On the philanthropy side, we’re seeing similarly great momentum in both our Annual Fund and the Gateway Project. The Annual Fund is used to supplement our operational revenues, covering the gap between tuition and the cost per student. The Gateway Project is our capital campaign, raising money toward major campus renovations and renewal.

And yet: none of this will matter if we do not take steps to ensure our financial viability. The overall success of the school, its very future, requires us to act in as fiscally responsible a manner as we can without jeopardizing our student experience. We’ll pursue financial stability via two pathways- one via stabilizing our budget for next year and years to come, and two, revising the scope of our Gateway Project to reduce cost, which we will be sharing more about in an upcoming communication.

Now for the not-so-positive part.

We recently informed our employees that we plan to implement a reduction in force for the next school year. Even though I do not know exactly how many positions this will entail, we are making this announcement now because our staff deserves substantial advance notice. We are looking for all efficiencies possible, such as combining positions or adjusting existing positions. This takes some time and we are committed to having as little impact on our students as possible.

We are devastated to be in this position. We have wonderful, hardworking faculty and staff  here who are truly invested in our students' success. However, we have crunched the numbers and have determined that a reduction of $325,000 in our salary expenses is crucial for GSA to get to a place where it is financially stable. Specifically, we need the health of our budget not to be determined by whether an additional student or two chooses GSA.

We believe that this reduction, combined with several other initiatives, will put GSA in a much healthier financial situation and thus ensure the school remains as the high school option for the students and families of the Blue Hill peninsula.

I thank you for taking the time to read this report and a Happy New Year to you all.

Sincerely,

Dan Welch                                    
Head of School