Lee plans school in China Goal is to keep academy ‘afloat’

LEE – In what would be a historic example of the globalization of China, Lee Academy is poised to open the first American high school on the Chinese mainland, its headmaster said Friday.

Academy officials are awaiting a signed contract from a high school in Wuhan, a city of 9.1 million people about 500 miles north of Hong Kong and 600 miles south of Beijing, that would, if all goes well, open the satellite school in September, Headmaster Bruce Lindberg said.

As many as 1,000 Chinese students would be taught an American curriculum at the Wuhan Lee Academy, and six Wuhan students would be tuition students at Lee in September, said Lindberg, who returned Monday from a weeklong trip to China.

Eventually, the school’s Lee staff and current student population of about 275 could increase by a third, Lindberg said.

“We could easily end up with 350 students,” he said Friday. “My goal is to have this generate $300,000 to $500,000 annually [for Lee Academy]. It’s not going to happen the first year, obviously, but that’s what I would like to eventually see.”

The idea behind the satellite campus, said Gail Rae of Lee, a director of the school’s board of trustees, is to help the private institution survive.

A steady and increased stream of international students would help maintain the school’s diverse environment, Rae said. About 75 Lee students already come from other countries, including 10 from China. The foreign students as well as others from around the U.S. live in dorms on campus in this community of 800 located about 15 miles east of Lincoln in Penobscot County.

“The rural Maine student population is drying up,” Rae said Friday. “We just don’t have the numbers we had in the past. We went to international students some time ago, but we have emphasized it more over the last five years.

“In order for us to continue as a private school in Maine,” Rae said, “we had to find a source of income to keep us afloat.”

The students will also have money enough to make a significant impact on the town’s economy, Rae said.

As part of the deal, the Lee Academy program in China would be folded within Wuhan High School Number 4 – Chinese secondary schools are numbered instead of named – much the way that universities often have several schools within them.

Wuhan High School No. 4 currently has about 4,000 students, Lindberg said.

The Wuhan Lee Academy classes would be taught in English and duplicate what is taught at Lee. Offerings would include math, English, science and social studies, Lindberg said. If the contract is signed, Lee will start hiring eight to 10 teachers and administrators, including an associate headmaster, to oversee the school in Wuhan.

The Chinese school will make the academy a gateway to Maine for students from across China, Lindberg said, but the reverse will also be true. Lee hopes to host a student trip to China next fall that would draw as many as 45 students from Maine.

Except for air fare, the trip would be free to the participating students, Lindberg said.

Lee Academy is working with the state’s 10 other academies, helping them to broaden their international student populations and also possibly launch satellite schools, Rae said.

A private academy founded in 1845, Lee has contracts with local school boards to educate students from SAD 30, which serves Lee, Springfield, Webster and Winn. The school also serves students from Greenbush, Kingman, Topsfield, Vanceboro and the Passamaquoddy Tribe of Maine. Tuition, room and board is approximately $26,000 per year for seven-day boarding students.

This long history of diversity, particularly with the Passamaquoddys, has made it easy for residents to accept international students, Lee First Selectman Kirk Ritchie said.

“Having the kids come from different parts of this country and other countries is just a bonus,” Ritchie said. “It helps our kids to see a little bit of the world in a setting that’s comfortable for them. They are exposed to a different set of cultures. It just looks like a win-win for me.”

“It’s given [students] a vision of the world that is sitting right in their classroom – world economics, world history and conflicts – all of that sitting right next to them in the classroom,” Rae said. “It’s a first-person view.”

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