A Bucks County Quaker school’s abrupt closure has left families wondering where their money went

On June 1, Kent Groff wrote two $2,400 checks toward his grandchildren’s tuition this fall at United Friends School, a small Quaker early childhood and elementary school in Quakertown.

The checks were cashed on June 4, Groff said. He was shocked when a little more than a month later, United Friends announced it would be closing — in five days.

In a July 10 letter to families, the school’s board of trustees said it couldn’t open for the fall school year because not enough students were enrolled.’

“Unfortunately, with slow enrollment activity in early summer and unexpected late attrition, it became clear that there was no sustainable path forward,” the board said in the letter, noting that the school had built a “conservative” budget on 80 students, but only 50 had committed to attend.

The news stunned families, who said they were given no warning that the school, which had been open for 42 years, was on the brink of closure.

“I was like, there’s no way this can be true. There has to be something that can be done,” said Kelly Kringe, Groff’s daughter, who had just picked her children up from a camp at United Friends when she got the email announcing the closure.

Kringe, whose two children had attended United Friends last year and who also paid tuition for the coming fall, said there was “never any plea for help” from the school: “Nobody really knew anything.”

The board — which didn’t list individual trustee names in the July 10 letter — said it was preparing answers to questions including “how prepaid tuition will be addressed during the wind-down process.”

It said it would provide additional information “on or before Aug. 1,” and instructed families to send their questions to a board email address.

Some families said they haven’t gotten any answers to their questions.

Groff, for instance, said he got no response to an email he sent the board that read in part: “I’m inquiring on how to get refunded for next year’s tuition that I already paid ... Thanks again for providing 42 years of excellence.”

The board did not respond to a list of questions sent by the Inquirer Friday. United Friends’ head of school, Daena Berdougo Remondelli, did not respond to a request for comment.

The names of the school’s board members are not listed online. One board member, Bob Wirtschafter, said in a brief phone interview Monday that he could not comment on what would happen with prepaid tuition.

“We know we owe them,” Wirtschafter said, adding that “I can’t say anything.”

Wirtschafter, who said he had been on the board for 32 years, said he had “seen all kinds of rumors” about the school’s closure, including that there was financial wrongdoing.

“I can tell you, it was all about tuition,” Wirtschafter said. There were 60 students enrolled for the coming year in April, he said, but by May, “we lost five families because of the economy,” he said. The school charged $20,000 a year in tuition.

Wirtschafter said the school had been “struggling for years.” It closed its middle school and sold its building last year, he said, which “kept us alive for another year.”

County records show United Friends sold several properties for $800,000 in May 2025 to AA Property Holdings LLC.

The l.l.c. is registered to a Sellersville address owned by Mateen Afzal, whose family founded a manufacturing company in Bucks County and who is listed as director of the Afzal Family Foundation. A message sent through the foundation’s website was not returned this week.

With the drop in enrollment headed into the fall, “we just couldn’t make it work,” Wirtschafter said. “We decided we had to close.”

He said United Friends wasn’t alone among small Quaker schools facing similar troubles, citing Cambridge Friends School in Massachusetts.

Cambridge Friends announced in May that it would be closing after the end of the 2026-27 school year.

A week after announcing its closure, United Friends sent another message to families, inviting them to a “voluntary two-day work effort” to clean out the school on July 24 and 25.

“Community members who are unable to participate in person are welcome to support these efforts by making a voluntary contribution to help offset the costs associated with the cleanup,” the board said in the message.

“Can you imagine the sheer anger that hit the teachers and the parents? We just closed your school, we took all your money, can you help us clean up and donate more money?” Groff said.

In his efforts to reclaim his tuition payments, Groff went to his bank and the bank where United Friends had deposited the checks, with no success. He also said he contacted the Quakertown police and Bucks County District Attorney’s Office.

He went to small claims court, but a clerk told him it would be difficult to file a claim because “you won’t be able to serve their papers,” Groff said. “There’s nothing that exists,” given that the school already closed. Groff doesn’t know if the board of trustees has an address.

Groff, who has another daughter who attended United Friends, said the schools and teachers were “absolutely wonderful.”

“That’s why this is just so devastating and shocking,” he said.