Will Whittle be around next year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whittle School took down their faculty and staff directory

https://dc.whittleschool.org/directory1

that is a baaad sign.

They disabled the link from the homepage but you can still find the page - they weren't smart enough to delete it! https://dc.whittleschool.org/directory

By my count, there are 16 faculty members (and perhaps 15 since the recently departed drama teacher is probably one of the happy faces here). At least one of whom is listed as being on the Upper School, Middle School and Lower School faculty I guess they get to count her 3 times? Kind of comical how bloated the "administration" headcount is to "faculty" although it looks like some of the admin are also doing double and triple duty. Stripping out the administrators from the faculty headcount leaves just 13 (and maybe now down to 12) pure teaching staff.

What and how is Whittle teaching our children....? Not much and without many resources it seems...

javascript:void(0);
That is not a recent directory. The recent one was removed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:100%!! Honestly, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Someone who left a job teaching elsewhere to join up at Whittle would make me question their judgement very seriously. I strongly believe that teachers are saints and deserve to be paid well, but if someone was going to Whittle because salaries were an anomaly within the current market, then they took a huge, uninformed risk.

Here is a reflection written by one of Whittle's inaugural year teachers, who had left Sidwell Friends School for Whittle. In spite of her positive end-of-first-year review in June 2020, she moved on to Maret at the end of that summer. Reading this Whittle reflection gives a peek at why some strong teachers took a chance on Whittle and what they valued about teaching there. It is sad that the school's vision was torpedoed by wildly unrealistic finances. But I can understand why some teachers chose to believe at first.

https://dc.whittleschool.org/blog/teacher-perspective-why-i-chose-whittle

[Anonymous]

“Whittle School & Studios seeks to modernize education by building the world’s best physical and connected environment for learning and development. We are constructing more than 30 schools in the world’s most vibrant cities over the next 10 years, designed by architect Renzo Piano and led by education entrepreneur Chris Whittle. Our team is comprised of educators, architects, artists, technologists, and experts in law, real estate, recruitment, human development, and more.”

When the architect who built the building is the first name mentioned as to why you should “believe,” it’s time to run for th exits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“Whittle School & Studios seeks to modernize education by building the world’s best physical and connected environment for learning and development. We are constructing more than 30 schools in the world’s most vibrant cities over the next 10 years, designed by architect Renzo Piano and led by education entrepreneur Chris Whittle. Our team is comprised of educators, architects, artists, technologists, and experts in law, real estate, recruitment, human development, and more.”

When the architect who built the building is the first name mentioned as to why you should “believe,” it’s time to run for th exits.

Intelsat building was famously built by John Andrews. Renzo Piano was the design architect on the interior renovation and did the Shenzhen campus. Your point is otherwise well taken.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes - and 3 of them - SS, VG and MR are also listed as administrators so only 13 pure faculty members.

16, 13 or 10 - any which way, its not what a school that has children from kindergarten through high school should be staffed with.

Who knew the "first modern school" -- also functioning as the "first global school" -- would be staffed like a one-room schoolhouse?

[Anonymous]

Anybody know what happened to the corporate staff in New York? Namely, when CW gave up on paying people to keep planning for the global aspect?

I know that many of them are in other jobs now, but I wonder when CW actually let that operation evaporate.....Would that have been the point when he actually knew the whole thing was a bust....despite what he's kept telling people?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anybody know what happened to the corporate staff in New York? Namely, when CW gave up on paying people to keep planning for the global aspect?

I know that many of them are in other jobs now, but I wonder when CW actually let that operation evaporate.....Would that have been the point when he actually knew the whole thing was a bust....despite what he's kept telling people?

Most of the NY staff was let go in early / mid 2020. As I understand it, the pandemic had a minor role - the bigger issue was the huge underperformance of DC out of the gates where CW had promised initial enrollment that was many multiples of what was ultimately achieved. And DC's underperformance meant that cash that was supposed to be going towards "growth" was instead being used to cover the large operating deficit.

So yes, it seems that ever since then he has been engaging in happy talk with outside constituents while his investors have slowly but steadily shuffled away. Even the China campuses are no longer under his control with the Chinese investors effectively having taken them over

[Anonymous]

So there are just seven Upper School teachers?! Yikes. How many high school students are left at this point? What a train wreck.

[Anonymous]

It is worse. There are only three dedicated upper school faculty and one of those three isn't really faculty but the dean of the residential program. The other four are splitting duties with teaching middle school. Train wreck understates it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes - and 3 of them - SS, VG and MR are also listed as administrators so only 13 pure faculty members.

16, 13 or 10 - any which way, its not what a school that has children from kindergarten through high school should be staffed with.

Who knew the "first modern school" -- also functioning as the "first global school" -- would be staffed like a one-room schoolhouse?

On the contrary, one of the big reasons for the failure is due to initially staffing like a fortune 500 company, with dozens of admin staff spread between DC and NYC. So much wasted capital on bloated salaries for people who ultimately ended up providing zero value to the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anybody know what happened to the corporate staff in New York? Namely, when CW gave up on paying people to keep planning for the global aspect?

I know that many of them are in other jobs now, but I wonder when CW actually let that operation evaporate.....Would that have been the point when he actually knew the whole thing was a bust....despite what he's kept telling people?

Most of the NY staff was let go in early / mid 2020. As I understand it, the pandemic had a minor role - the bigger issue was the huge underperformance of DC out of the gates where CW had promised initial enrollment that was many multiples of what was ultimately achieved. And DC's underperformance meant that cash that was supposed to be going towards "growth" was instead being used to cover the large operating deficit.

So yes, it seems that ever since then he has been engaging in happy talk with outside constituents while his investors have slowly but steadily shuffled away. Even the China campuses are no longer under his control with the Chinese investors effectively having taken them over

DC certainly underperformed, but the real deathblow caused by the pandemic was ceasing/delaying any possibility of boarding Chinese students. That's where the real money to keep this thing going was going to come from, loads of wealthy Chinese kids boarding at full tuition and board.

[Anonymous]

So have any students been admitted to whittle for fall 2022?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anybody know what happened to the corporate staff in New York? Namely, when CW gave up on paying people to keep planning for the global aspect?

I know that many of them are in other jobs now, but I wonder when CW actually let that operation evaporate.....Would that have been the point when he actually knew the whole thing was a bust....despite what he's kept telling people?

Most of the NY staff was let go in early / mid 2020. As I understand it, the pandemic had a minor role - the bigger issue was the huge underperformance of DC out of the gates where CW had promised initial enrollment that was many multiples of what was ultimately achieved. And DC's underperformance meant that cash that was supposed to be going towards "growth" was instead being used to cover the large operating deficit.

So yes, it seems that ever since then he has been engaging in happy talk with outside constituents while his investors have slowly but steadily shuffled away. Even the China campuses are no longer under his control with the Chinese investors effectively having taken them over

DC certainly underperformed, but the real deathblow caused by the pandemic was ceasing/delaying any possibility of boarding Chinese students. That's where the real money to keep this thing going was going to come from, loads of wealthy Chinese kids boarding at full tuition and board.

DC had barely ever had any funds to cover its threadbare operations. The financial woes were ongoing long before that as funding was vaporized, spent on developing campuses in Nanjing, Hangzhou, London, Silicon Valley, Mumbai, Delhi, and of course later Brooklyn (in the case of Brooklyn, the school lost a sizable security deposit I am told) — none of which ever paid off. To say nothing of the multimillion dollar retreat in Burgenstock, Switzerland. Poor enrollment DC was certainly a death knell to the fundraising that was going to prop up the whole operation (and boarding played a big part in that given the inability to sponsor visas).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes - and 3 of them - SS, VG and MR are also listed as administrators so only 13 pure faculty members.

16, 13 or 10 - any which way, its not what a school that has children from kindergarten through high school should be staffed with.

Who knew the "first modern school" -- also functioning as the "first global school" -- would be staffed like a one-room schoolhouse?

On the contrary, one of the big reasons for the failure is due to initially staffing like a fortune 500 company, with dozens of admin staff spread between DC and NYC. So much wasted capital on bloated salaries for people who ultimately ended up providing zero value to the school.

Absolutely.

I was just making a bitter comment on the very thin current teaching staff, which means none of the teachers can actually specialize or spare time to work together on the curriculum....And that's obviously is thin because they have so few students at every grade level.

Didn't mean to be making any larger point!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anybody know what happened to the corporate staff in New York? Namely, when CW gave up on paying people to keep planning for the global aspect?

I know that many of them are in other jobs now, but I wonder when CW actually let that operation evaporate.....Would that have been the point when he actually knew the whole thing was a bust....despite what he's kept telling people?

Most of the NY staff was let go in early / mid 2020. As I understand it, the pandemic had a minor role - the bigger issue was the huge underperformance of DC out of the gates where CW had promised initial enrollment that was many multiples of what was ultimately achieved. And DC's underperformance meant that cash that was supposed to be going towards "growth" was instead being used to cover the large operating deficit.

So yes, it seems that ever since then he has been engaging in happy talk with outside constituents while his investors have slowly but steadily shuffled away. Even the China campuses are no longer under his control with the Chinese investors effectively having taken them over

DC certainly underperformed, but the real deathblow caused by the pandemic was ceasing/delaying any possibility of boarding Chinese students. That's where the real money to keep this thing going was going to come from, loads of wealthy Chinese kids boarding at full tuition and board.

DC had barely ever had any funds to cover its threadbare operations. The financial woes were ongoing long before that as funding was vaporized, spent on developing campuses in Nanjing, Hangzhou, London, Silicon Valley, Mumbai, Delhi, and of course later Brooklyn (in the case of Brooklyn, the school lost a sizable security deposit I am told) — none of which ever paid off. To say nothing of the multimillion dollar retreat in Burgenstock, Switzerland. Poor enrollment DC was certainly a death knell to the fundraising that was going to prop up the whole operation (and boarding played a big part in that given the inability to sponsor visas).

This ^

Mismanagement of funds. COVID. To much focus on branding and expansion. Not enough focus on shoring up the DC Campus and the original main Chinese campus. Chinese nationalized private schools.