The Loomis Chaffee School is a renowned New England boarding school located on a 300-acre campus in Windsor, Connecticut. Chartered in 1874 by five siblings whose children all died tragically and who then selflessly determined to found a school as a gift to the children of others, Loomis Chaffee provides a superb education for boys and girls regardless of religious or political beliefs, national origin or financial resources. 

Today, the student body comprises approximately 690 students from 19 countries and 29 states. Academically challenging, the school promotes active learning and close faculty-student bonds within a respectful and civil community.

History & Origins

The Loomis Chaffee School was chartered in 1874 by five siblings who had lost all their children and selflessly determined to found a school as a gift to the children of others. Since its opening in 1914, the school has offered educational opportunities for boys and girls regardless of religious or political beliefs, national origin or financial resources. Academically rigorous, the school promotes active learning and close faculty-student bonds within a respectful and civil community.

Overview

The Loomis Family Homestead, built by Joseph Loomis in 1639, sits atop a hill on 300 acres in Windsor, Connecticut, overlooking the confluence of the pastoral Farmington and Connecticut rivers. Directly across the street is an elegant brick Georgian home, the residence of the Head of The Loomis Chaffee School. These two striking homes, nearly 300 hundred years separating their construction, provide a gateway to Founders Hall and the magnificent quadrangle beyond, and they epitomize the essence of the school: a profound respect for tradition and the legacy of the founders, a sustained commitment to fulfill the vision they created, and a shared anticipation of even brighter horizons beyond.

Founding

The founding of The Loomis Institute is a story of vision, generosity and purpose springing from tragedy. Colonel James Loomis and Abigail Sherwood Chaffee, both of Windsor, married in 1805. By the early 1870s, their five remaining children –– four sons and a daughter –– had experienced both the successes and the sadness of life. They had made their fortunes in the world, traveled, married and had children, but all of the children in all five families had died before reaching the age of 21. Their grief found expression through an extraordinary act of trust and selfless generosity in the founding of a school for “all persons of the age of twelve years and upwards to twenty.”  In July of 1874, freshly scribed Connecticut charter in hand, the direct descendants of Mr. Joseph Loomis could pursue in earnest their quest to commemorate and fulfill the promise of their deceased children by educating future generations. Forty years later, the school opened its doors to 39 boys and 13 girls, and it will celebrate its centennial in 2014.  Back to top

Early History

Since its inception, Loomis Chaffee has adhered to and honored its founders’ wishes: to foster a lifelong zeal for learning through a rigorous and diverse curriculum and to instill an abiding respect for others predicated on the egalitarian notion that neither religion, sex, geographical origin nor financial standing will preclude a student from enrolling in the school.

Through its first twelve years, the school educated both boys and girls, but in 1926 the girls moved to the historic Windsor center and the new campus of The Chaffee School to enable the faculty to focus on girls’ educational issues. For more than four decades, both schools enjoyed considerable success, even adhering to the founders’ aspiration to remain tuition-free as long as the seed endowment allowed them to do so. In 1970, social and pedagogical opportunities reunited the two schools and led to the formation of The Loomis Chaffee School. Capitalizing on the larger and coeducational student body, the school initiated significant curricular revisions by augmenting its already demanding core requirements with a broad range of electives in art, music, philosophy, religion and physical education.

Weathering the societal tumult and economic stagnancy of the 1970s, the school realized significant growth from the mid-1980s to today, enjoying a seven-fold growth in its endowment; a similarly exponential growth in the amount of financial aid awarded each year; an expansion of the faculty, now approximately 150 in number; and a doubling of the physical plant through the addition of three new dormitories, a student center, a visual arts center, an admission and communications building, and an athletic center.

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Today's School

Today, the student body comprises approximately 390 boarding students and 300 day students from 20 countries and 29 states, 30 percent of whom receive need-based financial aid. To maintain its fiscal stability, the school relies upon the largesse of its alumni, current parents and other constituencies who this year contributed more than $2.5 million to the unrestricted annual fund in support of the operating budget. Having just concluded a six-year, $115 million comprehensive campaign, Loomis Chaffee has ranked among the top ten secondary schools in the country in total voluntary support for the past two years, receiving more than $34.5 million in 2005 and 2006. Of the noticeably dedicated full-time faculty members, more than one half have been at the school for more than ten years and continue their forebears’ legacy of setting exacting standards for students, fostering in them a willingness to prize excellence in both the processes and the products of learning and community. The school’s diverse collection of teachers has 123 advanced degrees and teaches a rich and expansive array of 200 regular, advanced and Advanced Placement courses. Emblematic of the talents inherent in the student body and the faculty, the Class of 2006 had 73 Advanced Placement Scholars. In 2007, 14 Loomis Chaffee students were recognized as National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists, more than at any other school in Connecticut.

Facts and figures, though, fail to capture the real spirit of this special secondary school. Like the two rivers at whose confluence the school is perched, Loomis Chaffee has a dual mission: to inspire in its students a commitment to both “the best self and the common good.”  Its excellent academic, athletic, artistic and social programs combine to cultivate the spirit, mind and body of each individual, firm in its attachment to the founders’ guiding principles that social equality trumps social standing, fairness conquers favoritism,
academic and physical rigor invigorate and inspire, and a caring and trusting community breeds in the individual an abiding appreciation for the importance — and the means — of contributing to the needs of the community. In the wake of their personal tragedy, the Loomis family members inspired and compelled future generations in the very best of directions. Their story resonates in a remarkably contemporary, even timeless, way.

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