Will Whittle be around next year?

[Anonymous]

Highest tuition in the city and no one knows who works there, (hint--not who is on the website)who goes there, who will run the place next year and if they will be able to continue to cover long term shortfalls with short term debt-many promises have been broken and parents are disillusioned as are staff.

[Anonymous]

The bigger issue is who will work there next year? The real educators are either gone or are looking for new positions. All will be left are the business and marketing people. Would love to know how their admissions numbers look for the coming year.

I have heard of a lot of students not returning next year - but it is sort of an unspoken rule until decisions come out next month to talk about it.

[Anonymous]

Bigger issue might be how much money has Chris Whittle personally paid or loaned himself from the money raised for the school and from the PPP loans. Where does tuition $ actually go?

WSJ reported yesterday that he is selling his $100M mansion in the Hamptons under pressure to pay $6.7M he owes to Avenues.

[Anonymous]

FWIW we also have friends who are leaving. Their main concern is quality of education compared to what was promised.

[Anonymous]

I know the lower HOS was racist and not deserving of the job from her stint at BVR. She underperformed at BVR. Not surprised at her performance and the poor quality of the education.

[Anonymous]

The lower HOS is fantastic and beloved. That's far from the issue. The bigger problem is that since September they've been telling parents and staff they have $50--$100-$200 million coming and it hasn't. Last week major mid year staff departures were announced. This week they announced a merger with a mid east school operator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The lower HOS is fantastic and beloved. That's far from the issue. The bigger problem is that since September they've been telling parents and staff they have $50--$100-$200 million coming and it hasn't. Last week major mid year staff departures were announced. This week they announced a merger with a mid east school operator.

Who are they merging with? Was this a public announcement? I searched, but didn’t find anything.

[Anonymous]

"Whittle School and Studios and The Varkey Group (Sunny's family office ) are planning to merge portions of our two schooling organizations ..." per letter to entire community.

[Anonymous]

🤔

[Anonymous]

“ Chris Whittle, the one-time media maven turned charter school education champion, is untangling himself from an earlier unrealized educational foray with Dubai-based billionaire Sunny Varkey.

Varkey obtained a judgment against Whittle for a $3.9 million — which has ballooned to $4.25 million with interest and resulted in a lien being placed against Whittle’s East Hampton estate, which is on the block for $140 million.

According to a notice in the East Hampton Star, the liens could be auctioned off to a new bidder at a sherriff’s auction unless the judgment is settled beforehand.

“Our client was very patient, he just wants to be paid,” said Robert Ward, a lawyer representing Varkey, who is chairman of GEMS, for-profit schools in the United Arab Emirates, Great Britain and India.”

[Anonymous]

So is the Varkey group essentially being handed the school and building?

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous]“ Chris Whittle, the one-time media maven turned charter school education champion, is untangling himself from an earlier unrealized educational foray with Dubai-based billionaire Sunny Varkey.

Varkey obtained a judgment against Whittle for a $3.9 million — which has ballooned to $4.25 million with interest and resulted in a lien being placed against Whittle’s East Hampton estate, which is on the block for $140 million.

According to a notice in the East Hampton Star, the liens could be auctioned off to a new bidder at a sherriff’s auction unless the judgment is settled beforehand.

“Our client was very patient, he just wants to be paid,” said Robert Ward, a lawyer representing Varkey, who is chairman of GEMS, for-profit schools in the United Arab Emirates, Great Britain and India.” [/quote]

What about the Communist Chinese connection?

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]“ Chris Whittle, the one-time media maven turned charter school education champion, is untangling himself from an earlier unrealized educational foray with Dubai-based billionaire Sunny Varkey.

Varkey obtained a judgment against Whittle for a $3.9 million — which has ballooned to $4.25 million with interest and resulted in a lien being placed against Whittle’s East Hampton estate, which is on the block for $140 million.

According to a notice in the East Hampton Star, the liens could be auctioned off to a new bidder at a sherriff’s auction unless the judgment is settled beforehand.

“Our client was very patient, he just wants to be paid,” said Robert Ward, a lawyer representing Varkey, who is chairman of GEMS, for-profit schools in the United Arab Emirates, Great Britain and India.” [/quote]

What about the Communist Chinese connection?[/quote]

I am not a parent at the school and I don’t know any of the details of what is going on at Whittle.

A few years back I saw a marketing piece for Whittle. Not sure of the exact date but I know it was before it was open because it was a piece on how this new school was coming. I remember the piece mentioning Chinese investments and reeked of connection with the CCP. My initial reaction was that this school would be a dud. Simply because anything affiliated indirectly with the CCP contains corruption and a lack of quality values.

Also to note, in China the whole elementary school through high school system is very different than in the US. Public schools are the academically competitive schools and actually privates are less academic. Local privates in mainland China are for families whose kids can’t compete in the system but who can afford to pay tuition. They are not considered good schools. International privates are exempt from this because they are basically enclaves for foreign kids to be able to continue in an IB of US program.

[Anonymous]

This is part of the communication that went to parents last night. It looks like Varkey is taking over the school - but leaving Whittle's name and him as CEO to save face. I hope it works out...but my kids will not be sticking around to find out. Hoping for good news March 5th. If not, public school here they come. Also, at the end of the letter, it sounded like there will be a tuition decrease for staying. But frankly, my kids education and future are more important to me then the money.

Sunny and I want to join forces. Whittle School & Studios and The Varkey Group (Sunny’s family office) are planning to merge portions of our two schooling organizations to create a global system of seven top-tier independent schools in the United States, Africa, and another continent to be soon named—with the two Whittle campuses in China having a close affiliation with our new group. Together, they will accommodate nearly 15,000 students. Working long hours last week, a joint Varkey-Whittle team have made great strides on preliminary discussions and we are now moving to documentation stage that will be presented to our Boards for approval. The new group will be called The Varkey-Whittle Education Group and the campuses will all fly under the Whittle School & Studios brand. I will continue as Chief Executive Officer.

Sunny and I actually began working together on the idea of a very high quality, global school system in 2006, but our initial, joint effort was interrupted by the world financial crisis in 2008. Back then, we saw what we see now: that families want their children ready for global life and able to help solve the many global challenges we face. Following the financial crisis, we each pursued the idea on our own and it is poetic that we are now coming together, 15 years later.

This merger, when completed, will bring many benefits to our Washington campus.

First, via this combination, we will add two new continents (Africa being one) to our community, increasing, as COVID-19 comes to an end, study-abroad opportunities for all our students. Today, we’ll mention two of the cities: the GEMS World Academy in Chicago in a beautiful location in “the Loop” and The Hillcrest School in Nairobi, one of Africa’s finest schools. In later communications we will tell you about three additional schools which we plan to include. Almost all of these campuses have existing boarding facilities which, along with our campuses in Shenzhen and Suzhou, will be available to our students immediately for summers, semesters, and full years abroad. From Whittle’s beginning we had planned to expand to countries in Africa and other exciting cities around the world as part of our system, but this combination with Sunny advances by years the ability of our students to study on four continents—and for students from more countries and cities to join us in Washington.

Second, as part of the plan, Whittle and the Varkey Schools will be merging their headquarters teams and distributing that unified team to specific campuses, including Washington and New York. This will bring many of our support systems closer to our campuses and increase our team and staff presence in Washington. We’ll provide some further detail on this in subsequent announcements.

Third, the Varkey Group owns the largest, independent schooling entity in the world and the team there brings enormous experience and resources to our endeavor with particular depth in the Middle East, India, and Africa.

Fourth, upon completion of this planned combination, significant new capital will flow into our system (and I’m happy to discuss that privately for those parents interested). All of this capital will be dedicated to the seven existing schools—not to future development. I know that I don’t have to say to you that this is welcome given the hardships we’ve all experienced in DC during the COVID-19 pandemic. The largest single portion of that new capital ($50mm) will be devoted to Washington, increasing our staff and resources for our current and future students.

We plan to complete the first part of the merger in late March and all of it by May. We will keep you posted on key steps—and I am always here to answer your questions.

And watch for two additional announcements in the next week regarding significant increases in our DC team, and a special package of benefits for our founding families.

[Anonymous]

What’s the school’s connection with the Chinese Communist Party?