KENT, Conn.—One hundred and three years old and experiencing a growth spurt.
That is what is happening on the campus of South Kent School, a venerable educational institution that has redefined itself once again and is bursting at the seams with new students and new initiatives.
The press of growth is such that the school will soon approach the Planning and Zoning Commission with plans for a 20-student dormitory and a new fieldhouse—the first major construction projects on campus in the past 20 years.
“We’ve been pretty ‘Yankee’ about finding space for additional students,” said Chief Advancement Officer Sarah Chase. “When you want to add 20 more students you have to be resourceful. The new dorm is part of that growth.”
The configuration of the campus will also change somewhat. The main campus has 650 hillside acres while North Campus currently consists of 138 acres at the end of Hatch Pond. Head of School Brian Sullivan explained that north campus is not owned by the school but by associated property owners who are now selling the tract.
These owners have agreed to gift 12 acres of the land to the school to allow continuation of its farming operation, a program that not only teaches self-reliance but also provides part of the food consumed at the school.
“We are very grateful that we will be given the acreage where the greenhouses are,” Sullivan said. Every educational department at the school seeks to connect to that plot through its hands-on living lab, hub for culinary arts, and sustainable agriculture, environmental impact and climate solutions studies.
The rapid growth at the school can be seen in its numbers. In 2025, Head of School Brian Sullivan reported a 20 percent jump in enrollment and the highest boarding numbers in the school’s history. It was also experiencing a sharp rise in applications.
Tuition has grown 44 percent since 2023 and is up more than $1 million since opening day in 2025. Donor support and bequests are also rising with a 102 percent increase in alumni giving.
At present, the school has a total enrollment of 184 boys, 178 of whom board on campus. That is 40 more than attended in 2020. The student body is international with young scholars coming from 25 states and 24 countries. Despite all this, Chase said the school is intent on remaining small, limiting enrollment to about 200 scholars and retaining its teacher-student ratio of about one instructor for every seven students.
So, what is the reason for this remarkable growth over six short years. According to Sullivan it follows a shift in focus for the school. “There was a time when we had more day students,” he said, “and for a long time, South Kent was viewed as an athletic academy.”
The school shifted its focus toward sports some 20 years ago because enrollment was down and a decision was made to emphasize high-performing teams that won national championships.
“We became a victim of our own athletic success,” he said. “We were good academically, but people only heard about the athletics.”
Several years ago, the emphasis shifted back toward academics and the core values articulated at the very inception of the school more than a century ago: Simplicity of Life, Self-reliance and Directness of Purpose. The trinity of values underlies the belief that education is about more than academic achievement. Rather, the school ethos is that it is there to help young men “define who they are, what they value and how they will contribute to the world around them.”
South Kent has re-embraced its academic mission at a point when students are still recovering from the trauma of the pandemic years and coping with the burgeoning technological landscape.
“We have to meet the kids where they are,” Sullivan said last week, adding that the students vary in their level of preparedness when they come to South Kent.
Nationally, twelfth-grade math scores are at the lowest levels on record and reading proficiency has dropped to levels not seen in three decades. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NEAP) Report Card assessment found just 22 percent of high school seniors were considered at or above the NAEP proficient level in math and 35 percent in reading.
“I tell the teachers that the kids are not responsible for what happened to them before they arrive here and we must understand what their deficits are and help them fill in the gaps,” Sullivan said.
Students today are “living in a world that is so drastically different,” he said, but schools are slow to change. While the pandemic disrupted education for many students, he believes the academic decline really started when cellular phones in school became popular. The growth of AI is now posing challenges that academics are scrambling to meet.
“We are trying to teach the responsible use of technology,” Sullivan reported. “Ninth graders—or third formers as we call them—aren’t allowed to use AI, but later they can move into it. Some schools have strict AI policies, but I don’t believe in that. I want to teach them to use it responsibly, to teach them how to ask the questions it can help with.”
His answer to the problem of students using AI to cheat is to ask for more projects where students must ask and answer questions. And, he asserts, it is necessary for the school’s faculty to develop bonds of trust with the students to control misuse of the rapidly evolving technology.
But schools are slow to change, he observes “When you ask educators to change, they feel you are also questioning the great mentors they had along the way. What we are really doing is questioning how the world has changed and how we will react to it.”
That requires a flexibility in both faculty and students. Sullivan believes that making mistakes is almost as important as getting the right answer. “Kids today don’t know how to fail,” he said. “They want instant gratification and if they don’t know how to manage disappointment, they will crash. We need to prepare them for an unforgiving world.”
Part of that preparation is to perpetuate the curiosity that every young child feels. “A lot of young people are afraid to ask questions for fears of being labeled,” the head of school said. “It is our duty to ask questions. We should be inviting them to engage in conversations.”
“This is an exciting time,” he concluded. “The schools is in a great place and that wouldn’t be possible if our faculty didn’t believe in what they are doing.”
