A gift from The Madeira School’s past will enable it to plan for the future, the head of the private, all-girls’ school in McLean says.
The Madeira School, a college preparatory and boarding school that serves students in grades 9 through 12, announced this week that an anonymous former graduate has donated $60 million — a record amount not only for this 118-year-old school, but for any independent girls’ school in the U.S.
“This gift is a powerful recognition of the impact the School has had on the donor’s life and the lives of countless young women,” Madeira Head of School Christina Kyong said in a press release. “We are deeply moved by her immense confidence in Madeira’s leadership and our vision to educate students for generations to come.”
The donation did come with one condition: the school must put the money in an endowment governed by its board of trustees and wait at least five years to spend it.
The restriction gives school leaders time to figure out the best way to use the funds, Kyong told FFXnow.
Currently in the middle of a five-year strategic plan that will be in place through 2027, Madeira has recently focused on boosting faculty and staff retention, expanding experiential learning programs, and promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, according to Kyong.
Goals in the existing plan include hiring a director of belonging and global education by July, developing new computer science courses, and looking for ways to expand its equestrian programs and a co-curriculum initiative that provides internships to 10th, 11th and 12th-grade students.
Madeira has also renovated its on-site dorms, and in 2023, it opened a STEAM Academic Center with math classrooms, a robotics lab, a ceramics studio and other math, science, technology and art-related facilities.
“We are definitely gonna expand a lot on those existing things, but we’ve been successful so far in meeting a lot of our strategic priorities,” Kyong said.
Boasting a 376-acre campus at 8328 Georgetown Pike, The Madeira School was founded in 1906 by Lucy Madeira with the goal of preparing girls for college. It currently has 338 students who come from 22 states and 43 countries, and tuition costs $55,800 for day students and $71,600 for boarding students.
While the anonymous donation will likely be used to support priorities in the next strategic plan, rather than its existing one, Kyong sees it as a show of support for Madeira’s approach to education, which emphasizes getting students real-world experience.
“We’re just so honored and grateful to this donor who saw her own experience at Madeira as such a life-changing one,” Kyong said. “She wanted to ensure that for the future of our students here today and future students that we will be able to educate, so we’re just so grateful for this wonderful gift.”
