Massachusetts’ only Quaker grade school said in an email to community members that it closes forever on Tuesday, ending a 65-year history. Only last month, the Cambridge Friends School expected to run for another full year and close in June 2027.
Enrollment at the school has dropped to just 43 this year from 127 students in 2024, according to data from the state’s Department of Education.
“When we wrote to you last month, our hope was to keep the school open for one final year. Since then, enrollment has continued to decline. The board has had to face the reality that we can no longer provide the education, care and community experience that students and families rightly expect,” the school’s board wrote in a June 22 email.
An event to honor the important role CFS has played in so many lives will be planned over the coming months, said the letter signed by Beno Chapman and Jan Nisenbaum, identified as co-clerks of the school’s board of trustees and on its behalf.
Online, discussion about the causes for that decline includes speculation about workplace issues and problematic leaders, an unwillingness to address cultural issues and financial mismanagement of the 5 Cadbury Road, Neighborhood 9, campus. Beyond its school role, the 4-acre property with an estimated worth of $29.6 million serves as one of two local Quaker meetinghouses.
It remains unclear what will happen to the space and where the remaining students will end up for the following school year.
School officials declined requests for an interview.
The private Quaker school opened in 1961 with admission for “students of all races and religions” from kindergarten through fourth grade. It now serves students ages 4 to 14, integrating the Quaker values of “simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality and stewardship” into its curriculum.
Cambridge Friends is accredited through the Association of Independent Schools in New England and runs as a private nonprofit.
Its specialized education and 6-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio comes with a steep price tag of between $28,967 and $38,253 a year depending on grade level, according to the school, though 40 percent of students get financial aid that make it more accessible to families of varying socioeconomic backgrounds.
School values extend beyond just education, said Al Pirani, who attended the school from prekindergarten to fourth grade, noting that Cambridge Friends School was “ahead of their time” in terms of social change and inclusivity. While other schools had an annual “grandparents day,” Cambridge Friends had a Significant Elders Day to which students brought babysitters, cousins, aunts and uncles, parents or grandparents, making it more inclusive, Pirani said.
Author Sam Wachman, who attended Cambridge Friends from 2004-2014, agreed CFS was “a stellar place to be a kid … it was and is extremely progressive.”
Enrollment began to decline after his graduation, Wachman said, as a mismanaged school encountered financial troubles.
Wachman pointing to an unaffordable expansion of the campus in the 1990s led by a head of school who was, many years later, arrested in California on drug charges.
A statement released by the school did not get into details about its struggles or the board’s plans.
“We are grateful to all the members of our community over the years,” the school said. “We will continue to support and nurture the vital educational philosophy of Quaker-based education beyond the bounds of the school into the wider community.”
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