Cambridge Friends School will close its doors permanently after the 2026-27 school year, a result of continued enrollment challenges, according to an email from the school’s Board of Trustees sent to the school’s community on May 19.
The private Quaker school has taught elementary and middle school students in North Cambridge for 65 years. The school’s student body is 52% students of color and 40% of families receive financial aid, according to the website.
“After much careful discernment regarding our ongoing enrollment challenges, the Board has reached the difficult conclusion that Cambridge Friends School, in its current form, will close in June of 2027, at the end of next school year,” Beno Chapman and Jan Nisenbaum, co-clerks of the CFS Board of Trustees, wrote in the email.
The email did not go into more detail about enrollment challenges or reasons for the school’s impending closure. Members of the Cambridge Friends School Board of Trustees contacted by Cambridge Day by email did not immediately reply to requests for comment.
The school’s website emphasizes small class sizes, with a student/teacher ratio of six to one. But enrollment dropped from 145 students in 2023 to 127 students in 2024 and then only 43 students in the most recent cohort, according to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
“Following the end of the next school year, the Board of Trustees will shift its focus to evaluating the future of Quaker-based education in New England,” the email says. “We are dedicated to exploring how we can continue to support and nurture this vital educational philosophy in our region, even if it takes a new shape.”
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