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PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? More than 150 years after it was founded to serve disadvantaged students, a noted Philadelphia boarding school plans a dramatic overhaul of its structure, cutting grades nine through 12 and eliminating student housing.
Faced with financial troubles in the wake of the 2008 economic collapse, Girard College announced plans Monday to cut programs and reinvest the savings in its depleted trust.
A school spokesman said Tuesday that Philadelphia?s Board of Directors of City Trusts, which controls Girard College?s funding, had few options when deciding on a restructuring plan.
?It?s not a popular decision, but a decision that had to be made,? said Kevin A. Feeley, himself a Girard College graduate. ?For anybody who cares about Girard, this is extraordinarily difficult to have to hear.?
Feeley said the changes will help ensure the school remains open indefinitely, as banking magnate Stephen Girard wished when he directed the city to use the proceeds of his estate to fund education for the poor.
Under the new plan, students in ninth through 12th grades will be moved to nearby public, charter and private philanthropic schools, and students in grades one through eight will be consolidated into a day school beginning fall 2014.
The school?s Income from the Girard estate has dropped by nearly a third since 2008, according to school officials. Its enrollment has also dropped, from 620 in 2010 to just over 400 today.
Girard College was originally established in 1848 as a boarding school for fatherless white boys. It began accepting minorities in 1968 and female students in 1984, and provided full-time housing to its students until the board cut weekend housing in 2010.
Under the new plan, the board will now eliminate the school?s residential program altogether. The school will no longer provide dinner to the students, according to Feeley, and the after-school programs will end at 6 p.m.
There have been more than 30 layoffs at the school since 2008 and the school president, Clarence Armbrister, has said there will now be as many as 100 more, though a final number has yet to be determined. Feeley said those cuts will include faculty and residential staff across the school. With the elimination of the boarding program, fewer members of the residential staff will be needed.
The restructuring comes just less than a year after a change in leadership. Armbrister became the school?s president after Autumn Adkins Graves stepped down at the end of June 2012. During her three years at the school, Graves added to the curriculum programs in robotics, fitness, science, technology, engineering and math.
Feeley said those new programs will continue for the remaining first- through eighth-grade students.
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