GSA head reflects on past year and the work ahead

‘We can get you there from here,’ head tells students

By Tricia Thomas

BLUE HILL—On a busy, late-summer day just before classes were due to start at George Stevens Academy, school head Dan Welch sat down with The Rising Tide to reflect on his first year on the job and what the future holds.

Dan Welch, head of school at George Stevens Academy. Photo by Tricia Thomas.

Welch, a Maine native, has worked in public and private education for nearly 25 years, 20 of which have been in administration. He joined GSA as its new head in 2024, after holding positions of leadership at Washington Academy, Boothbay Region High School and, most recently, Maine Central Institute.

During a candid, hour-long interview that covered a range of topics, Welch discussed what he loves about his job, the challenges the school is facing, its place in the community, and the role that high schools play in creating tomorrow’s leaders. This interview has been edited only for length and clarity.

What do you love about your job?

I love working in high schools, and I truly enjoy working with students. They give me energy, and they give me such exuberance for working in a school. Seeing a student grow, have that “a-ha” moment, and seeing a student find their own definition of success is just a wonderful experience. I feel very lucky to be in the profession that I’m in.

How does GSA, and the Peninsula, compare or contrast to other places you’ve worked?  Are there commonalities?

First, the common denominator is that we’re working with adolescents. Kids in Blue Hill, like elsewhere, are kids. They’re learning. They’re growing. They’re trying things out, and they’re excited to do that.

What has stood out to me is that the students here are very good about advocating for themselves, which I think is a wonderful skill and one that we certainly try to promote. I also find that the students here are very articulate, and have an ability to express themselves in a very authentic way. I’ve also been impressed with how community-minded the students are. They talk a lot about what a wonderful community this is, and how they want to be involved. I think that comes from people really loving the opportunity to live here. This is a special place.

Are there other things that you find unique to the Peninsula?

The size of the community, the “tight-knittedness,” if you will, stands out. Also, for a rural, coastal Maine community, we have a really interesting and varied population here. There’s a strong population of people in the trades and also a large white-collar population. We have a large artisan population. We have people who have been here for generations, along with an influx of people who have moved here from other places. It creates a sort of melting pot.

What role does a high school play in its community?

I see a school, especially a high school, as being a hub—a real, central focal point for the community. I love being a part of that—being a part of an educational institution that is a real source of pride for the community. I also love going to the ballgames, the plays, the art shows, the concerts, and seeing our students in another light that is different from academics.

When you started at GSA, did you have specific things you wanted to accomplish?

For me, it was more of a set of loosely defined ideals that I think are essential for every school. Those include providing programming and an atmosphere that allows for—and celebrates—the concept of individualized success.

What is that concept about?

Whether students and their families have aspirations to go to an Ivy League school, to go to college, to go to community college, to enter the trades, enter the workforce or the military—whatever that definition of success is to them—we, as a school have an obligation to provide the programming, the tutelage and guidance so they can achieve that idea of success. It’s a very personal thing.

To me, the path of the student who wants to be a fifth-generation lobsterman, for example, is just as important, and just as valuable, as the student who wants to go to Bates, Colby, Harvard, et cetera. It’s all about recognizing what the individual definition of success is for that student and their family and then asking, “How do we celebrate that and support that?”

How does GSA support those individualized goals?

There are many people in the community who our students can look to and emulate, whether that’s through [summer immersion programs], mentorships or job shadows. We also want to expand workforce training and hands-on education for those kids that are interested in getting out of high school and entering the workforce directly.

It all boils down to options, and making sure our students have options. However, that does not mean that we don’t promote high standards. We do. But, for me, high standards do not mean making something really hard. There are ways in which students can get a wonderful education without having a huge strain on their mental health. I think that, so often, schools use the word “rigor,” when what they really mean is “hard.” I don’t think that’s what we’re trying to do here.”

Can you provide examples of those standards?

I expect students to conduct themselves like young gentlemen and ladies, and I expect the staff here and the employees to carry themselves as professionals. But, I don’t think that school needs to be this blunt instrument that you hit kids over the head with. So many times, when you do that, what you’re really looking for is compliance—not learning.

For me, it’s really about helping students to learn to fall in love with learning, to find their niche in life. What are they meant to do?  How do we help them learn to be dynamic and nimble and adaptable?  We teach students the foundational skills, yes. But, also, how do we teach them the skills around problem-solving, analysis and synthesis that will allow them to be adaptable in their lives?

Should schools be run like a business?

It really comes down to how you measure success. If we were only worried about profit margins at this school, our model would look very different, because then it would solely be looking at financial efficiency. But we can’t do that, because we’re working with people, not products. We have kids that have a range of different needs.

I am very cognizant of the financial needs of the school, and very cognizant of its need to be a solvent entity, at the end of the day, but it’s not just about your revenues and expenses. These are people. They’re not radios or cars. These are people.

On the topic of solvency, how does the school plan to regain its financial health?

We are at a point right now where enrollment has the largest impact on our revenue, without a doubt. If you look at the ways in which GSA makes money, enrollment is by far the largest bucket. We have philanthropy, and we have our annual fund, which does help fund operations. That’s essential. And then we have our endowment draw, which we draw on annually to help supplement operations. But enrollment is really, really where it’s at, from a revenue-generation standpoint.

How does GSA plan to increase enrollment?

First and foremost, we need to make sure that the students we do have get a really great education and have a really great educational experience. If we focus on making this the best school we can, students will have a great experience here, which will perpetuate more students wanting to come here. I don’t ever want to get to the point where we’re so worried about the future that we’re not paying attention to the kids that are here.

That being said, we certainly are trying to promote the school Peninsula-wide, to make sure that students know what is here, what is available to them. One of our taglines this year is “we can get you there from here,” which is based on the old adage “you can’t get there from here.”  Well, we can. Do you want to go to a high-end college? We can get you there from here. Do you want to enter the workforce?  We can get you there from here.

We also are trying to let prospective students and their families know that we’ve been here for over a hundred years, and we’re going to be here for the foreseeable future as well. We’re not going anywhere. Some of the challenge is battling misperceptions. There are a lot of misperceptions about the school.

What are some of those misperceptions?

I’m very surprised at how polarizing GSA can be. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve spoken to—who may have had an experience here 20 or 30 years ago as students themselves—who still have those same perceptions of the school today, even though a lot of time has passed and the school is very different.

I also hear quite often that people want more transparency from the school. From my vantage, as somebody who has come in “from away,” if you will, I’ve never seen a private or an independent school as transparent with things like current budgets or audited financials. I feel like all that information is very accessible. It’s right on our website.

I’ve heard from some people that GSA is too “woke.”  GSA is not woke, and it’s not anti-woke. It’s neither. We’re an institution. We’re an organization. We have no political beliefs as an organization—no political agenda or social agenda—other than to provide a learning environment for our students in which they feel comfortable, respected and welcome.

Any other misperceptions?

I’ve heard some people say that the academics here aren’t as strong as they used to be. I don’t know what the academics looked like here before. I can tell you we have a very strong academic program. When you look at the list of colleges our students get into, it’s very impressive for a school this size.

We may be taking a different path than the traditional “skill and drill,” where students are expected to have three to four hours of homework every night, take seven AP courses, et cetera. We are trying to infuse what I call “education with a capital E” into our students’ lives, which involves having high-end, quality, authentic internships and mentorships, tying students in with community agencies, learning beyond just that sequential progression.

Does GSA get more scrutiny than other schools in the area?

As Mainers, we like local control. We want to be in control of the things that affect our community. I respect that. I feel that way myself, too. That’s why I really like the independent school model. I feel it allows us to serve as a community school, but still lets us operate as an independent organization that maybe the governmental agencies don’t have quite so much oversight of.

But we do, as Mainers, want local control over our schools, because schools are creating the next generation of leaders and citizens. They’re also expensive, a huge portion of the town budget, and funded through property taxes. So, I get it. Hey, we’re frugal New Englanders, and we want to make sure that our money is being spent sensibly.

Will the pending sale of two GSA properties eliminate the need to ask sending communities for tuition support this year?  If not, how long will GSA be asking for that support?

These are really two separate issues. Although it is a board-level decision, I believe I can say that the intention is to put the funds from the property sales into our endowment. That will help us financially. And, there is still a plan to request supplemental tuition for the coming year. I can’t say exactly what that will look like. Those conversations are still happening at the board level.

Editor’s note: Blue Hill voters approved on Aug. 24 the sale of the school’s former dormitory known as the Hinckley Building, along with the sale of the footprint of the land where Blue Hill Consolidated School now sits. The purchase price is $1.8 million.

Why is that?

The reason is that there’s a real gap between our actual cost per pupil and what we raise through tuition. Right now, if you look at what’s called the ‘maximum allowable tuition,’ which is the rate for tuition that the state tells us what we can charge, the tuition is $14,080. Then, the state allows us to charge [an additional] 10 percent of that for insured value factor, or IVF. That’s meant to help independent schools because they cannot access debt in the same way that a public school can. A public school can take out a bond for work it needs. We’re putting in a $400,000 boiler system right now. We can’t go to the town and say, “Can you help us raise money for this?” We have to fund it ourselves. So, the state lets us charge for the IVF.

So, you have $14,080, and then $1,408 for IVF. When you add supplemental tuition requests of $1,700 per student, that total figure comes to about $17,000 and change. However, our actual cost per pupil is $23,000, because we need to factor in things like debt service, all of our operations, everything. So, we basically need fill that gap, and supplemental tuition helps us do that. Our endowment draw helps us do that. Philanthropy helps us do that, but we’ve got to equate for that gap.

If you look at the difference between funding a public school and a private school, public schools can build their budget and then appeal to the taxpayers for support. And the taxpayers have the right to say yes or no. We’re doing things from the opposite perspective. We look at what we think we’ll be getting in tuition and then develop our budget based on that.

Also, there’s always an economy of scale. Larger schools usually have a smaller per-pupil cost because they have more kids. But, despite our size, we still need to have a diverse program for our students, and need more staff to do that. And, I find that this community still wants those things, even though we’re a smaller school. They want a robust curriculum. They want robust enrichment opportunities. And we want those things. So, it does cost a little bit more.

Why has enrollment at GSA waned over the past several years?

I think part of it is demographic. We’re at about 72 eighth graders on the Peninsula this year. So, even if we got every student on the Peninsula, we would be a school of, say, 280.

People like to say, and I hear it quite often, well, the school used to have 400, 380 or 350 students. Our boarding program, which we no longer have, was a big part of that. But, since then, there’s been a demographic shift here. Coastal Maine can be a really expensive place to live. Housing can be really difficult. Finding year-round employment to support being able to own a home in Coastal Maine is getting harder and harder for families. So, there’s a demographic issue, as fewer families with kids are living here.

And I don’t want to blame it solely on demographics. It’s not just that. I think the school has had some pretty well documented financial issues in the past. There were some years in which the school ran at a pretty significant deficit and lost staffing, which became a very public sort of thing. I think that that really hurt people’s perception of the school, and allowed other schools in the area to get a foothold.

Why do students choose schools other than GSA?

We are “choice towns” on the Peninsula, which means that our students have the choice to attend the high school of their choice. And, more and more public schools are realizing that if they can attract students from this Peninsula to their schools, that will help offset their own budgets and lower taxes for their residents. So, if you have 10 kids from this Peninsula that choose to go to a public high school, that just took $140,000 or $150,000 of Peninsula taxpayer money and put it into a school system in Ellsworth, Bucksport and other places. That, to me, is a real detriment. We’re sending local dollars off the Peninsula.

Also, I do think some of that confidence in the school may have waned. We need to re-establish with our communities that we plan on being here for the long haul. The school has been a pillar of the Blue Hill Peninsula for generations and generations, and our plan is to be a pillar for many generations to come.

In addition, we have some work we need to do on our physical plant, and we are taking steps to do that. I do believe there is a correlation between the aesthetics of a school and how students feel about that learning environment. So, we’re working on that as well as we can within the finances that we have.

Is there a “magic number” in terms where you’d like enrollment to be?

I don’t think there’s a magic number. We have capacity to take on many more students than we have this year. For me, I would say anything in the 250 to 280 range would be a nice size. We can still make it work at 200—don’t get me wrong. We can make it work, but it would be nice to add some more to it.

Is the current enrollment of 200 students sustainable?

There are many, many high schools in the state of Maine that have less than 200 students–the last time I counted, [that] number was 40 to 50. I think a lot of people don’t realize the demographic shift that’s happening, and it’s not unique to Blue Hill or the Peninsula. We just don’t have as many school-age people.

What do you want the community to know about GSA?

This is a really good school, and I feel like I can speak with some experience and authority on the matter. We have really great people here. We have a very, very strong faculty and staff. We are very grateful for the community support that we receive, and we’re going to work really, really, really hard to make sure we give our kids a great education.