Overview

Gunston has always been a school where students are truly seen and known. This commitment—to meet students where they are and to challenge and support them in becoming who they are capable of becoming—is the heart of the Gunston experience, and it must never change. At most schools, the message to students is implicit but unmistakable: get with the program. Adapt. Fit in. At Gunston, the message has always run in the other direction. We push on the program to meet the needs of the individual student. We open doors. We work hard to say yes. This is who we are.

This experience is made possible by teachers who serve as both mentors and content experts. At Gunston, we understand that the best learning happens through relationships: in classrooms and labs, in studios and on the waterfront, on the athletic field, and in advising conversations. Consistent with our school's philosophy, our teachers climb into the messiness and "fallibility of adolescence" alongside students and their families, sustaining a culture of high expectations while offering steady guidance, encouragement, and care. Our program coheres with the best of brain science: every learner is unique, and strong teaching is responsive to how students grow, struggle, and succeed over time. We are at our best when we support students in doing rigorous work, in developing confidence and independence, and in leaving Gunston prepared to thrive in college and beyond.

Our physical campus reinforces this ethos. Set amidst water, woods, and open agricultural space, it creates room to breathe, explore, and reflect. At the same time, our interior spaces foster something equally powerful: daily human connection. Hallways are busy. Encounters are frequent. Students and adults cross paths constantly, and in that kinetic proximity, relationships form and culture is built. This combination of natural splendor and productive closeness strengthens the community and gives Gunston our distinctive feel.

Over time, Gunston has evolved thoughtfully and courageously. We have transitioned from day to boarding and back to day, and from all-girls to all-gender. We have expanded academic and co-curricular opportunities, expanded our campus footprint, built signature programs like the Chesapeake Watershed Semester, and strengthened athletics and extracurricular offerings that complement our college-preparatory mission. We've enhanced our reputation across the region and state. Through it all, a single instinct has guided us: when a student is ready for something — ready for more, ready for something different, ready to follow a passion that doesn't fit neatly into a schedule — we find a way to make it happen.

Gunston is thriving. Enrollment is strong, community confidence is high, and momentum is real. With that strength comes responsibility. The very qualities that define us — small classes, individualized attention, broad opportunity, deeply invested teachers — deserve spaces and resources that match the quality of our people and program. Each student who walks through our doors deserves a path that is genuinely theirs: one shaped by their interests, their pace, and their potential. To ensure that promise not only endures but deepens over the next hundred years, we must invest now, with intention and foresight, in our facilities, our faculty, and our financial foundation.

Our next growth horizon also calls for clarity about how learning itself is changing. Powerful forces, including dramatic advances in technology and artificial intelligence, will shape our students' futures. While we need not chase every new tool, we need to remain relentlessly attentive and responsive to the educational and social impacts of emerging technologies. We are committed to balance: using technology thoughtfully while equally prioritizing unplugged experiences. Mentorship, judgment, curiosity, and care remain irreplaceable. Our students will need both fluency with new tools and the wisdom to use them well, and our role is to help them develop both on a path that is distinctly their own.

Looking ahead means embracing intergenerational responsibility: the understanding that we are stewards of something larger than ourselves. We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, benefiting from their courageous decisions and meaningful investments that created the thriving school we have today. Now it is our turn to make similar commitments for those who will come after us. Building financial strength and flexibility isn't just about weathering uncertainty. It's about opening possibilities like the ability to better support our teachers, invest in our students, improve our spaces, and act on opportunities whenever and wherever they appear. This is how we ensure that students fifty years from now inherit a Gunston equal to or greater than the one we know today.

Our vision for the future is centered on becoming more fully ourselves: a school that opens doors, creates opportunity, and believes deeply in young people. A school that says yes. A school worth the drive, worth the investment, and worthy of the trust families place in us. The work ahead is clear: carrying forward the relationships, values, and culture that define Gunston while building the foundations that will sustain them for generations to come.
 

Adele Showalter, P'25'27
Kate Larrimore '16
Brad Hirsh
Mike Hardesty
Ildi Watkins, P'26'28
Ryan Asprion
Christie Grabis
Jim Shifrin, P'21'21
Henry Parkhurst '19
John Lewis, P'29
Catherine Lawson
Joe Janney, P'21
David Henry, P'20'23
Melissa Haber
Justin Nonemaker, P'27'29
Tom Hipp
Patrick Shoemaker '03

Our People and the Community: Cultivating Connection and Capacity

We will:
Advance our professional learning culture through strategic coordination and multi-year planning that takes our strong foundation to new levels of intentionality. We aim to create a coordinated one, three, and five-year professional development calendar that identifies strategic priorities for school-wide learning, brings expert practitioners to campus for full-faculty sessions, and supports individual teachers in pursuing both personal professional interests and school-recommended growth opportunities. As the workforce continues to evolve, this work also includes ongoing review of our workforce policies to ensure Gunston remains a school that attracts and retains the people who make our program possible.

Build intentional structures for connection across our geographically diverse community by designing new ways to link families from our varied sending areas. Gunston draws students from across a wide geographic footprint, creating natural diversity but also distance. This work would explore how to bridge those distances and help families connect across communities, whether through regional programming, affinity-based opportunities, or other approaches that honor where our families live while strengthening the bonds that tie them to Gunston and to one another. 

Deepen lifelong alumni engagement through expanded programming and sustained connection that leverages recent investments in alumni relations staffing. This work would build on growing capacity to create ongoing programming, establish pathways for graduates to contribute as mentors and resources, and sustain meaningful connections across generations of Gunston students. 
 

Program and the Student Experience: Strengthening What Makes Gunston Distinctive

The heart of Gunston has always been the relationships between students and teachers—the mentorship that happens in classrooms and labs, in studios and on the waterfront, on the athletic field, and in advising conversations. 

We will:
Lead with intention in preparing students for a technology-shaped future by deepening faculty expertise in thoughtfully integrating emerging technologies across all disciplines. This work would build educator fluency so teachers can help students develop both technical skills and the wisdom to use new tools well, ensuring Gunston students are prepared for the future without losing the human mentorship and unplugged experiences that make our approach distinctive. 

Deepen our commitment to personalized learning pathways by building more intentional and visible structures that enable students to accelerate, explore, and receive support in ways that align with their individual goals. Gunston's relationship-centered culture has always made it possible to open doors that larger schools cannot, finding creative ways to say yes when a student is ready for more, or needs something different. This work would map those options more clearly across a student's years at Gunston, ensure families can see and understand what is available, and explore how summer programming and other flexible structures can further expand what students are able to pursue.

Expand opportunities for students to pursue excellence with others by broadening the range of teams, programs, and experiences through which students can compete, create, and contribute in community. At Gunston, these opportunities have always been open to everyone—no prior experience required, just a willingness to try something new, take a risk, and discover what you're capable of alongside peers. We want to cultivate even more of that spirit. This work would identify and develop new opportunities across athletics, academic competitions, the performing and literary arts, and other arenas where students can reach, stretch, and do it together.

Evaluate and strengthen the sequence and scope of our academic course offerings to ensure they reflect the full ambition of what Gunston students are capable of. This work would bring together department chairs and faculty to examine course progressions across disciplines, assess where honors opportunities might be thoughtfully extended to younger grades, and explore where new or redesigned courses could better serve student interests and post-secondary goals.  We will ensure that Gunston's program continues to set us apart in a changing landscape.

Deepen and extend our position as a regional and national leader in environmental teaching and learning by continuing to grow the signature programs and immersive experiences that have made this work central to Gunston's identity. The Chesapeake Watershed Semester, Bay Studies, and our expanding portfolio of environmental science offerings are among the most distinctive work happening in independent schools. This work would build on that foundation — strengthening faculty capacity, expanding field-based learning, and exploring new partnerships that deepen student engagement.
 

Learning Spaces: Creating Environments Worthy of Our Program

Gunston's physical campus has always been one of our greatest assets with the natural beauty of the waterfront setting, the productive collisions created by our interior spaces, and the sense of being in a place set apart for learning and growth. Yet there remains a gap between the quality of teaching and learning happening in our spaces and the quality of the spaces themselves. 

We will:
Transform the AB Building through a comprehensive renovation that refreshes interior finishes, updates lighting and environmental systems, and strategically reconfigures spaces to better serve contemporary teaching and learning. For our science program, this means reimagining existing lab spaces to create additional capacity, enable more concurrent sections, and provide the flexibility teachers need to offer diverse electives and hands-on experiences. 

Elevate the quality and welcoming nature of our interior common spaces throughout campus. This work would include thoughtful improvements to entry points, hallways, and gathering areas with updated finishes, improved wayfinding, and attention to lighting and flow that make daily life more pleasant and first impressions more compelling. 

Leverage our outdoor spaces and waterfront location as distinctive assets that few schools can match. Set amidst water, woods, and open agricultural land, Gunston's physical setting creates unique opportunities for learning, recreation, and community connection. 

Study and design comprehensive approaches to campus safety and security that reflect current best practices and community needs. This work would examine our physical security infrastructure, emergency protocols, and systems to ensure that Gunston provides a safe and accessible environment for learning and growth. 

Build long-term strength through proactive facilities planning that addresses deferred needs and prevents future backlog. This work would involve strategic, multi-year planning for facility care across campus. 
 

Investing in the Future: An Invitation to Partnership

Gunston stands today as a school transformed—thriving enrollment, expanding reach, strengthened reputation, and tangible momentum. This success creates both opportunity and responsibility. This priority invites our community to join us in securing Gunston's next century through philanthropic investment that builds enduring strength and opens new possibilities. Together, we can ensure that Gunston flourishes for another hundred years.

We will:
Build operational reserves and endowment to new levels by focusing philanthropic energy on unrestricted or lightly restricted funds that contribute to annual operations. Rather than creating numerous restricted funds for narrow purposes, this work would provide the school with resilience against enrollment fluctuations and market volatility while enabling sustainable faculty compensation and investment in emerging opportunities as they arise. 

Establish dedicated resources for sustained facility excellence through reserves that allow the school to address building needs systematically rather than reactively. 

Design and launch the next phase of our comprehensive campaign that pairs the tangible appeal of the AB building renovation with equally critical investments in reserves and endowment. 

Explore mission-aligned revenue opportunities that complement our core educational work. This work would examine what additional revenue streams exist that serve Gunston's mission—from strategic use of our unique physical assets to partnerships that align with our values.