February 2025
Waverly Community Members,
Every year at The Waverly School is an opportunity to invest in learning and to strengthen the connections that make us a community. What I’ve seen this year is this: What makes us a community is our willingness to support one another and to cross the boundaries of the differences that we believe separate us.
A significant expression of our willingness to lend support is our willingness to imagine new futures for our school. That work is most readily expressed in Waverly's strategic plan, and I’m excited that you will have the opportunity to take part in shaping it through Strategic Design Day on Sunday, March 9. We look forward to hearing from all members of the Waverly community about what they hope for the future. I’m also excited that we will be thinking more about ways in which we can bolster programs around science, engineering, and technology, and how those programs complement our commitment to the arts of all kinds.
This has also been a year where all community members have stepped forward to give in one way or another, whether through giving of your time, your attention, your effort, your treasure. Waverly community members have stepped forward to help us understand and live out the reality that nobody makes it on their own, no matter how much we think that our success is a product of our individual efforts. Los Angeles’ fires, with the Eaton Fire particular to us at Waverly, have made this all too clear. While no one would wish for such a disaster, it has been a powerful reminder of the grace and care we hold as a community. In-kind and cash contributions were just two of a host of ways we cared for the many members of our community affected by the fires. Though this annual report reflects Waverly Fund gifts made in 2023-2024, we are also taking this opportunity to acknowledge gifts made in 2025 to the Waverly Disaster Relief Fund. They are listed here.
We are very grateful to the Waverly parents, faculty and staff, trustees, and alumni parents who contributed and equally thankful for friends and family of community members who supported the fund at their behest. The Waverly community continues to show that the successes of our children, the successes of our faculty, and the successes of future Waverly students depend on the ways we step up for each other.
When we reflect on how we can continue to bolster our work in teaching, we have to think about the ways in which we come to learn about each other, the ways we come to learn about ourselves, and the ways in which our core values and mission statement should cause us to do this on a daily basis.
My hope is that in looking at the annual report this year, you will see a community that is breathing life into a new future at The Waverly School through thought, action, and generosity.
Clarke Weatherspoon
Head of School
