2 Private City Schools Get Diversity Grants

Two private schools in Chestnut Hill have been awarded grants totaling nearly $800,000 over the next three years to increase the number of minority students and faculty members and to promote diversity on their campuses.

The Springside School and Chestnut Hill Academy announced yesterday that they had received the grants from the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund.

Springside, a school for girls, was awarded $387,101 while Chestnut Hill Academy, a school for boys, was awarded $382,080. The schools, which have adjacent campuses, operate a coordinate program with coed classes in the upper grades.

The schools will use the grants to fund scholarships for new students and to hire faculty. Among other things, they also will hire a consultant to work with faculty at both schools and to collaborate on a summer program.

The grants come from the New York-based fund's Independent School Opportunity Program, which supports programs for youth across the country.

In December, the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund announced grants totaling $1.59 million from the same program to four other independent schools in the area: the William Penn Charter School, East Falls; Germantown Friends School, Germantown; the Baldwin School, Bryn Mawr, and the George School, Newtown, Bucks County.