It has now been 11 days since our group’s last letter to the Board of Trustees.
To refresh their memory, the full text of the letter can be read here. (We understand the links to the PDF files referenced in the letter in some cases did not work; the documents cited can be read here, here, here and here, if you need help.)
Briefly, we’ve asked the Board to respond to our specific and documented concerns:
- The ongoing lack of public information and visibility about the endowment’s makeup, its performance, and what constitutes a sustainable spend rate;
- The five-year budget repeatedly referenced by the Board (only the vaguest outline has been made public);
- The Board’s apparent unwillingness to address the administration’s increasingly autocratic and heavy-handed management style;
- The report of repeated serious errors on the school’s IRS Form 990s (with regard to Andy’s salary);
- The ongoing lack of response to our requests for the Board to institute NAIS Principles of Good Practice for Trustees (especially publication of the bylaws); and
- Prompt scheduling of an open town hall forum at which the community can receive answers to these and other questions.
We understand that the members of the Board have jobs and they’re busy people. We’re busy, too, and have devoted untold hours outside of our full-time jobs to researching and formulating our concerns about this institution we love. For many of us, the Academy is our lifeblood. For all of us, it’s a wonderful place that has shaped our lives in myriad ways.
We ask, again, for your response. You’ve told us that you value communication and mutual respect. Even if you have answers to only some of these concerns, we would appreciate an update.