Academy signs deal for schools in China Lee facility also eyes venture in S. Korea

LEE – Agreements have been signed for three more Lee Academy satellite schools in China, and plans are in the works for possibly five in South Korea, Headmaster Bruce Lindberg said Wednesday. He added that the ventures in Asia will help the academy fund a $2 million renovation of the local campus.

Lindberg signed agreements last month with Chinese authorities to create high school campuses in Shenzhen, a subtropical port city of 12 million in southern China just north of Hong Kong; Shijiazhuang, a northern city of 9 million southwest of Beijing; and Chengdu, a city of 11 million just south of the center of China. The schools will open in September 2009.

The private academy’s contract to create the first American high school on the Chinese mainland in Wuhan, a city of 9.1 million 500 miles north of Hong Kong and 600 miles south of Beijing, was signed in April. That school will open in February.

Symptomatic of China’s efforts to become an economic world power and Lee Academy’s desires to grow – at a time when most Maine public schools are shrinking in budget and population – the four schools are each expected to have populations of 400 to 600 Chinese students within three years, Lindberg said.

“They want to have American schools in their cities as an opportunity for their students,” Lindberg said Wednesday of the Chinese officials with whom he has dealt.

“It’s not something that we even have to try to sell,” Lindberg added. “We didn’t approach the Koreans. They approached us because they heard about what we intend to do in China.”

No agreements have been signed with South Korean officials yet, but plans are advancing to develop schools in Seoul, Pusan, Kimpo, Kentek and Taegu, Lindberg said Wednesday. Some of those schools could open as soon as the fall of 2009, he 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.

And thanks mostly to the academy’s Asian recruiting, the number of national and international students living in dorms has increased to 85 enrolled for the 2008-09 school year, which begins Aug. 26. That’s 10 more than last year’s dorm population and considerably higher than the 20 students housed four years ago.

Tuition, room and board is approximately $26,000 per year for seven-day boarding students, which currently include students from China and South Korea.

The school has a total of 280 students enrolled this year.

The Chinese ventures will make the academy a gateway to Maine for students from across China, Lindberg said, but the reverse also will be true. Lee Academy will host a student trip to China in March that is expected to draw as many as 45 students from Maine.

American teachers hired by Lee Academy will teach classes at the Chinese satellite schools in English, Lindberg said. Offerings, which will duplicate what is taught at Lee Academy, will include math, English, science and social studies, he said. No teacher has been hired yet for the Chinese satellite schools.

The burgeoning international interest will increase the number of international students at the Lee campus and will help add to the Lincoln Lakes region’s economic vitality, said Bob Potts, the school’s new director of advancement.

“The saying I keep coming back to is, ‘A rising tide lifts all ships.’ When you are seeing that kind of rise in revenues, the students, faculty and entire region benefit,” Potts said.

Exactly how much additional money the Asian interest will draw to Lee is difficult to say, Lindberg said. Student enrollment projections at the Chinese schools increase almost daily.

“We get a percentage of the gross tuition receipts,” Lindberg said. “As the number of students on campus goes up, so do our earnings.”

Foreign tuition is likely to play a big part in the renovation of Lee Academy’s main building and its baseball field, which will start over the next year, Potts said. New lights, heating system, windows, electrical wiring and air systems will be installed, he said.

Potts’ position is one of three or four new administrative jobs created to help handle the increase in student and administrative duties, Lindberg said. Similarly, five new teaching positions have been created on the Lee campus since 2004.

Another five teaching positions, plus three or four administrative jobs, could be added in Lee by 2012, Lindberg said.

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