SEQUIM – After 25 years as a privately-owned-and-operated school, Five Acre School in Sequim this month became a non- profit organization.
Founders Bill and Juanita Jevne retired six years ago and sold the school to Autumn and Brian Walsh, who decided early on that forming a non-profit would be a better business model in their case.
With that goal accomplished this month, the school is now run by school Director Lauren Denton and a Board consisting of, Jason Cline, Susan Craig, Heidi VanDenberg, and Allison Mahaney and Kristin Smith.
We asked Smith what advantages she sees in becoming a non-profit, and to talk a little about their goals.
“Yeah, being a non-profit opens up a lot more broad income streams for us. We can do individual donations that are tax deductible. We’re creating a corporate sponsorship program, and we can apply for grants now that we couldn’t before. And we have two big goals that we’d like to meet in the near-term future, to out to five years. The first big goal is to just really make our tuition assistance program robust so that when a family wants to choose Five Acre School for their children, that cost isn’t a factor. That were able to meet the financial needs. And our second major goal is to own the property that were on. We currently rent from the founding family, which is amazing and great and we have a close relationship with them, and long-term we would we would like to own the property.”
The school is located in a beautiful setting on Lotzgesell Road next to the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge. It teaches about 60 pre-school through 6th grade students, and Smith says there is certainly room to expand on that number. We asked Smith what she thinks sets 5 Acre School apart from other grade schools.
“I think the school is unique. The first thing that people notice is the low student-to-teacher ratios and that attracts a lot of people to our program. The kids spend a ton of time outdoors. We have a real focus on the social and emotional growth of the student and we meet each child where they’re at, in terms of their abilities. And everyone’s moving forward, but not everybody moves forward at the same pace, and we have the flexibility to allow for that.”
The School’s founding family are kicking off a new William R. Jevne Memorial Tuition Assistance Fund in honor of the late Bill Jevne, who founded the school along with his wife, Juanita Ramsey-Jevne.
To learn more, visit the website at fiveacreschool.org/
PHOTO: Brian Walsh, Autumn Piontek-Walsh, Kristen Smith, Susan Craig, Jason Cline, Lauren Denton, Heidi VanDenberg and Allison Mahaney.