Will Whittle be around next year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are the banks foreclosing on the building itself? Does Whittle own that? (I thought it was a lease.)

A large construction loan was secured to fund all the expensive Renzo Piano renovations. That is secured against the property which is leased to Whittle.

This is going to be really ugly for all parties concerned. I feel sorry for the parents who, if we believe some of the information on this thread, gave this crook and his organization $800k just a few weeks ago pretty much for naught. Perhaps their one solace is that at least some of that money went to the teachers... It is remarkable that the school has not disseminated any of this information to parents and staff.. Remarkable but not surprising.

How can the loan be secured against the building if Whittle does not own the building and the building owner is not a creditor?

The lease itself is considered both an asset and liability on Whittle’s balance sheet. If the loan is secured by the lease asset it’s not the same as the building and the value could be negligible.

In summary, even if this debt is foreclosed I am not sure it means what you think it means. Most likely it results in a default and auction of the debt itself for pennies in the dollar to anyone brave enough to believe that they can recuperate some of the debt.

It is common for landlords to take out commercial loans to fund TI expenses agreed to in a lease. As for the PP's question, typically the LL agrees to fund the TI in exchange for a higher base rent. Which Whittle, with his grand promises of 2500 full fee paying students, made them believe was a slam dunk

Is the landlord a named party in the litigation? That will tell you all you need to know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just feel horrible for the kids and teachers. Everyone is remote this week and are supposed to be in person next week. My child is still friendly with a few of the kids including a boarder who is freaking out. My child was there last year. It was a horrible choice.

Is Whittle trying to help the families? Do you know if they're being upfront with them about the situation?

How can they have school...or boarders ...or insurance....or faculty who feel safe in the building, without a renewed certificate of occupancy? The CO expired 1/5 and there are probably fees associated with renewing it...and their bank accounts are garnished ..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just feel horrible for the kids and teachers. Everyone is remote this week and are supposed to be in person next week. My child is still friendly with a few of the kids including a boarder who is freaking out. My child was there last year. It was a horrible choice.

Is Whittle trying to help the families? Do you know if they're being upfront with them about the situation?

Well, when the families and his associates at the previous school, Avenues, feared they might go down this same road and found a new investor to help them edge Whittle out, they had to lend him about $10 million to get him to go away. And six years later, he still hadn't fully paid them back. So it doesn't seem that helping anybody except maybe his tiny inner circle is ever on his mind when he runs organizations into this kind of mess (as he's done over and over again).

I'd hope he's trying to help the families and the faculty who don't make million-dollar salaries like his buddy Benno Schmidt and the like. But I've never seen evidence that when a business tanks he does anything but shove as much cash into his own pockets as he can, keep pulling wool over everybody else's eyes as long as possible, and run onward to the next 'vision" he plans to sell.

Maybe this time it'll be different. He'll try harder to save his reputation or something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are the banks foreclosing on the building itself? Does Whittle own that? (I thought it was a lease.)

A large construction loan was secured to fund all the expensive Renzo Piano renovations. That is secured against the property which is leased to Whittle.

This is going to be really ugly for all parties concerned. I feel sorry for the parents who, if we believe some of the information on this thread, gave this crook and his organization $800k just a few weeks ago pretty much for naught. Perhaps their one solace is that at least some of that money went to the teachers... It is remarkable that the school has not disseminated any of this information to parents and staff.. Remarkable but not surprising.

Renao Piano -- also suing Whittle for non-payment. Geez.

[Anonymous]

Are these 77 pages of comments basically a bilateral conversation? Or is there genuinely that interest level in it? I’d never heard of it before seeing it in dcum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are these 77 pages of comments basically a bilateral conversation? Or is there genuinely that interest level in it? I’d never heard of it before seeing it in dcum.

Everyone loves to watch a train wreck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just feel horrible for the kids and teachers. Everyone is remote this week and are supposed to be in person next week. My child is still friendly with a few of the kids including a boarder who is freaking out. My child was there last year. It was a horrible choice.

Is Whittle trying to help the families? Do you know if they're being upfront with them about the situation?

How can they have school...or boarders ...or insurance....or faculty who feel safe in the building, without a renewed certificate of occupancy? The CO expired 1/5 and there are probably fees associated with renewing it...and their bank accounts are garnished ..

What’s your source for the CO expiring on 1/5? Aren’t those charter schools still using some of the space?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just feel horrible for the kids and teachers. Everyone is remote this week and are supposed to be in person next week. My child is still friendly with a few of the kids including a boarder who is freaking out. My child was there last year. It was a horrible choice.

Is Whittle trying to help the families? Do you know if they're being upfront with them about the situation?

How can they have school...or boarders ...or insurance....or faculty who feel safe in the building, without a renewed certificate of occupancy? The CO expired 1/5 and there are probably fees associated with renewing it...and their bank accounts are garnished ..

What’s your source for the CO expiring on 1/5? Aren’t those charter schools still using some of the space?

What charter schools are using the space? I didn't think there were any charter schools in ward 3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just feel horrible for the kids and teachers. Everyone is remote this week and are supposed to be in person next week. My child is still friendly with a few of the kids including a boarder who is freaking out. My child was there last year. It was a horrible choice.

Is Whittle trying to help the families? Do you know if they're being upfront with them about the situation?

How can they have school...or boarders ...or insurance....or faculty who feel safe in the building, without a renewed certificate of occupancy? The CO expired 1/5 and there are probably fees associated with renewing it...and their bank accounts are garnished ..

What’s your source for the CO expiring on 1/5? Aren’t those charter schools still using some of the space?

What charter schools are using the space? I didn't think there were any charter schools in ward 3.

As I understood it, Whittle is on the board of Friendship Public Charter Schools and he offered them administrative space in the building. Not space for schools or students, but some for the management offices. Never heard whether they took him up on it or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are these 77 pages of comments basically a bilateral conversation? Or is there genuinely that interest level in it? I’d never heard of it before seeing it in dcum.

In my case, I remember how appalled I felt when: I learned about Channel One using cash-strapped schools to create a mandatory “market” for advertising to students; I heard about the Edison/Tesseract schools that used tax payer money to “educate” students who lacked educational options in their high risk communities; and learned that he and Benno Schmidt were offering a very different model of education to wealthier communities. I attended one of the marketing meetings for the Whittle school and found whole new reasons to feel appalled. I’m genuinely interested, and genuinely terrified about the impact that people like Whittle have had on how some students in this country get educated. None of the kids who were ill-served by Whittle in various ways in multiple settings will ever get those years back. I wish he had stuck with magazines instead of playing out his megalomania with other people’s money and other people’s kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are these 77 pages of comments basically a bilateral conversation? Or is there genuinely that interest level in it? I’d never heard of it before seeing it in dcum.

Everyone loves to watch a train wreck.

It’s also just a few highly interested parties going back and forth.

[Anonymous]

a few interested parties? The thread has over 121,000 views...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:a few interested parties? The thread has over 121,000 views...

Yeah. I have no direct knowledge or particular association with this story, so I'm not posting because I don't have anything particularly valuable to contribute to the discussion. I do find it interesting, thought, so I'm one of those people contributing to the high number of views.

[Anonymous]

I'm the PP who was a new teacher that had Whittle's Channel One crap forced on my classroom during homeroom. I've been following his various ventures ever since as I work in education and care deeply about it.

I see the Whittle School as the Theranos of private school education. A lot of flash, a lot of hubris, a lot of press and attention and an incredible amount of money raised from seemingly smart people. And completely unable to deliver on the promises while lying about it to everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm the PP who was a new teacher that had Whittle's Channel One crap forced on my classroom during homeroom. I've been following his various ventures ever since as I work in education and care deeply about it.

I see the Whittle School as the Theranos of private school education. A lot of flash, a lot of hubris, a lot of press and attention and an incredible amount of money raised from seemingly smart people. And completely unable to deliver on the promises while lying about it to everyone.

Arguably, any school's main product is the quality of education and outcomes for students. It sounds like Whittle School & Studios wasn't educating students well based on the complaints from parents on this thread. If teachers don't stay or get paid when they stay, how can you give a good education? If students don't get a good education, how can you have good student outcomes? All in all, if you don't have a product and you lie about it, you are a Theranos. It would be interesting to see if those who were defrauded (Parents, contractors, investors, etc.) decide to take legal action.