9 Days: Saving A Quaker School

April 14th, 2025,

With heavy hearts, we write to share that the Board of Trustees has made the extremely difficult but necessary determination that Sandy Spring Friends School will close following completion of the 2024–2025 school year.

Friend: I saw an important Board of Trustees notification just dropped in email. I read the first few lines, and I feel like my heart kind of dropped. The way that my grief manifested was through a lot of anger. I was taking my homework downstairs, and I threw the books down the stairs. And then I called my mom and like, I just couldn’t stop yelling because I was just so mad about a decision like this.

Friend: I come around to the track and field area and find out that my sixth grader, who is about to run, had found out on the field with her friends that her school was closing and they were just huddling and crying. I was shedding tears. I cried myself to sleep at 6:00. I was devastated. It’s like, not something that you really expect.

Friend: I texted my husband right away. Oh. I’m sad. I just lost my job, I think.

Friend: I’ve been going here since second grade. The school is my whole life. And I’ve just been dreaming about walking across the stage at graduation here for literally a decade and sort of feel that sort of get ripped away from me. It was just devastating.

Friend: I’m a really fast walker, and recently I’ve like stopped and like where I should like, walk a bit slower because this might be the last time I’m walking through here.

Friend: One, two. Wake up video. Quick video. Nah nah nah nah. Abby.

Friend: My mother started teaching at Sandy Spring Friends School when I was in second grade.

Friend: I describe the place to other people as magical because it has something very special at its core.

Friend: They fully celebrate each child with the way that they are, like that their light is just as important as everyone else, since that’s the central tenet of Quakerism, right? And that no matter where we’ve been or what we’ve done, we are special and important and also part of the community. It’s another family. It’s a chosen family. And I would not be the person that I am now if it weren’t for those people who saw me for who I was and for the gifts that I bring to the table.

Friend: I’m heartbroken that they won’t get to have this place as their home and their safe space. I’m also like in denial that it’s over, right? Like it’s not over. Like we we have opportunities to try to fix this. Like, let’s organize and figure out how we can convince the board that we can get this to work.

Friend: Oh. Okay, so it’s an email from the coalition. We have a strong movement building and currently 2.5 million in pledges without casting a huge net, but we don’t have much time to turn the ship around.

Friend: In Quaker love and light Heather Jackson—let’s see what the FAQ says.

Friend: What is the coalition?

Friend: It’s a small group of Sandy Spring Friends School alumni, parents of students, parents of alumni, students, and faculty who are working together to determine if we can save the beloved place that changed our lives.

Friend: I think the coalition teaches us all how you step in when your community needs you. And the shared history of having been a student at Sandy Spring allows us to understand why that place needs to exist.

Friend: The spirit of the school comes from the spirit of the meeting, the gift of the land, the hands of people at the meeting building the school that now still stands. It’s that spiritual component that comes back through the land, from the day it was dedicated. And what Esther said about the land and what she wanted for the students there.

Friend: Yeah. This is your locker, your brother—I know. Yeah. You were in the same class as Marina. No, no, no, she’s younger. She’s a year younger than me, right?

Friend: What did in eighth grade—that’s—there’s so much—

Friend: Here’s Heather. Here I am in a suit and tie.

Friend: I think I spoke with you on Monday night, right? Like, okay, who do you know? Who do you know? All right, let’s just take phone calls and see what we can do about this. And my first call was on my own, just like, okay, we’ve got to do work. Right? Then I basically called TJ and Josh and it was like, okay, well we’ve got to get, you know, class captains and we just we just need to get organized.

Friend: I was like messaging people in individual grades saying, get this in your grade level group chat. And people were saying, oh, there’s already a group that a small group has gone to the board. They have a small offer, they’re trying to negotiate. And I just remember seeing like, friends, the way forward is together. It’s the way forward is all of us. The community is what’s going to be the saving force.

Friend: You felt like with throw in like the cartoon when they throw like a single arrow and everybody cries, well, let’s just create all the different arrows and then go up one.

Friend: And the board said that too. They said we had to unite, right, right.

Friend: I think it was around 10 a.m. on Tuesday morning. I had to sit my kids down and my husband like, I am going to be unavailable. Like, I just knew that that was it.

Friend: And then the whole time, every single minute, you know, we two hours of sleep that first week. My body. I would wake up shaking.

Friend: Pulled my kids out of school on Friday and drove up here. Then I had to also then pull over on the side of the road so that I could sign the NDA so that we could negotiate, negotiate with the—

Friend: And so we were negotiating with them and we said, you have to put out a letter and let the community know where things stand now. You can’t just, like, leave this silence, which is what the board always kind of deferred to. What we needed was transparency, which is kind of goes back to the Quaker values.

Friend: We’ve been together at the school since he was little. I used to be able to look out my window, my classroom window, and see him walking by with the second grade class to go to lunch. And you don’t necessarily know what you have until you’re about to lose it.

Friend: Friends at Sandy Spring. We are not a perfect people. We complain a lot. Another meeting. Too much homework. My parents spent 40 K for me to learn about simplicity.

Friend: The kids joke around. That’s not Quaker friend.

Friend: And also, there was that kid who was seven feet tall, giving the ball to the crying little guy, and the kid who always held the door open for everyone to come in to meeting for worship. And the way the whole board—hopeful, antsy, sleepy, sad, enamored, quirky, restless crowd of teenagers—collectively sink into silence.

Friend: And the best mulberry tree by the pond. And the sheep on duty.

Friend: And the kid who pops off and then says, I’m sorry, I know I’m sorry. Because he has finally come to understand how much he is loved.

Friend: And continuing revelation means that we are all revealed imperfect, inconsistent, restless, quirky, loved.

Friend: Wow. 15 million. It says we have 15 million. 15 period. Million. Period. One. 5 million. $15 million are pledged back in three days. Wow.

April 19th, 2025.

The Board of Trustees of Sandy Spring Friends School is grateful for the outpouring of love and commitment to CFS. We are hopeful that a path can be found. We are working tirelessly with the Friends of Sandy Spring Friends School and hope to have concrete details very soon.

Friend: Easter Sunday, and we all asked for people to gather with us at the Sandy Spring meeting.

Friend: The craziest thing for me was walking up and seeing Doug Smith, my biology teacher, and for us to be able to tell them that the closing had paused and we then we thought that we were going to be able to do this, to be able to keep the school open.

Friend: Our money goals are out of this world.

Friend: How did people donate? Yeah.

Friend: If you want to give your pledge and get updates then you just need to fill out the Google form. There you go.

Friend: It’s so wonderful to see the next generation, your generation taking this.

Friend: Oh yeah. That’s what Sandy Spring—

Friend: I mean, you remember me. Go ahead, say it.

Friend: You did not hold back. You were out there. You know, you were brave. You. Yeah, you you spoke out. You spoke you truth always.

Friend: Heather. But there’s a lot of adults that don’t like kids who do that. Yeah, yeah.

Friend: Now more than ever, we need Quakerism and we need a generation of children who speak their truth and a generation of adults that know how to help them, speak them through their truths.

Friend: And now it’s time. Thanks for all your work. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. It is a lot.

Friend: My son is a sophomore. I grew up in Sandy Spring. And I witnessed them moving the meeting house on to the campus. It’s just been a part of my life my entire life. And I hope it continues to be.

Friend: The coalition kicked off and that gave me a mission and something to focus on that was positive and not just, you know, finding a new place for my kid where he doesn’t want to be.

Friend: You know, it’s still a roller coaster. We’re still like, we still don’t know what’s going to happen. I really want something concrete soon.

Friend: The email on a Monday, and then the next email we get is this might be turning around, and what I felt this past week is I was fearful of hope.

Friend: I felt like it was a race to try and find a place for my child next year. And you’re racing against your friends.

Friend: I’m scared that it’s going to fall apart. But it’s moving so fast. I almost didn’t believe it was true. Like, how can a community like come together in such a short amount of time?

Friend: I just feel really like seen that people want this school to keep going.

Friend: Driving on campus and seeing all the signs and stuff, I think it does give me hope. And that, like, really shows when a community comes together, like anything is possible.

April 23rd, 2025.

The Sandy Spring Friends School Board of Trustees is thrilled to announce that based on substantial and meaningful funding, guarantees and support of the Coalition of Friends of the Sandy Spring Friends School, a path forward for the school has been secured. We are deeply heartened by the generous and passionate responses from across the community, which reflect the deep love and care for the school—its Quaker values and mission, and the lasting impact the school has had for many.

Friend: Wow, we just got chills.

Friend: My phone’s been exploding with text messages of people—well, we all got the email that we’re staying open.

Friend: This place is magical. You know, it’s just got a feel to it. And there’s so much love and respect amongst people here.

Friend: I came here, I was able to just be Joel.

Friend: This is my found family. And the fact that we get to stay with each other is even better.

Friend: David told us at the very end of meeting for worship and it like it got quite loud. We celebrated, like crazy. I jumped like everybody. High five.

Friend: Now? I’m really happy. I really did want to go to another school. I really love Sandy Spring. It’s a great campus. I love the people and teachers here.

Friend: Being here for ten years, it’s just great to know that I’ll be able to finish it all, have a last year and do all the things I’ve been meaning to do.

Friend: I think it was a sign of not just like relief, but also like, okay, it doesn’t feel surreal, but more like a validation of all the hard work.

Friend: That’s what the space values. That’s what the school values—just sticking together, community. And I feel like we didn’t realize how big our community was until all these people came in with support.

Friend: It is a celebration. I mean, it’s been like a movie. The past—closing, not closing. Hope. Not hope. Emails—feel like it’s been like a movie.

Friend: Because it’s a very good thing. Like, one person would need, like, a lot, a lot, a lot of money to help save the school.

Friend: And I love how everybody worked together. And that’s the culture of our school.

Friend: I’m not a particularly religious human, but Quakerism has always spoken to me in that way, and I feel very much like this was that moment of we had to really hit rock bottom for us to all come together and move forward, and the reopening in that really feels significant.

Friend: I’m thrilled that there’s a school to come back to next year for my kids, but also that there’s a future that Sandy Spring provides for many more generations of kids to walk out of there and make a change in the world and be the light that society really needs at this point.