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SSFS Closing
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Anonymous
| The BOT did meet with the coalition, some teachers, alums, and donors this evening. Another meeting is scheduled for tomorrow. Keep hope alive and be patient. Like a pp noted these are closed door meetings. |
Anonymous
|
Looking just at hard numbers, it takes $20M+ annually to run a private school of this size (with this many students and staff). If 550ish full-pay students attend SSFS, the school might meet that minimum annual revenue to cover only operating expenses. Even with $20M of annual revenue, after expenses there would be no $ left over to pay down debts, offer scholarships or aid. Diversity and sports recruiting would suffer, causing the appeal of the school (enrollment) to suffer. And, the school would still default on any loans. $15M in pledges sounds like a lot of money only because the BOT’s initial announcement mentions a $16M loan coming due. IMHO, this number has mislead the public (community?) on the true financials/annual $ needed to run a private school of this size.
In my opinion, the coalition would need a $2M pledge/fundraise each year forthcoming for debt payments. And, I am guessing that this regular dependable and annual type of coalition fundraising is what the former HOS and current BOT say fell short. |
Anonymous
| Well said. The "coalition" is misleading people. For what purpose? Who knows. But it's a shame |
Anonymous
| I read in one of the earlier messages that was posted from the school that the school is still moving forward with their AIMS accreditation process. I have some questions about that. First of all-- why are they finishing their accreditation renewal if they are closing? When the accreditation team came, did they look at the financials and say that the school wasn't viable (could that be why they closed do abruptly?). And even if this coalition comes through with needed funding-- can the school even get their accreditation renewed at this point given the turmoil of the past week? |
Anonymous
I don't have a ton of details but I can confirm the coalition is considering the accreditation process in all this, and has directly reached out to faculty members who are part of that. |
Anonymous
| I know nothing about how to run a school, so forgive me if this is a dumb question. But couldn’t the school lower cost on everything to get enrollment up? I was surprised tuition went up with everything going on. That pushed even more families away. |
Anonymous
| Like law of supply and demand? Lower tuition a little and fill the classrooms a lot? And get families priced out of other schools who could pay $35k |
Anonymous
If you could successfully run a school at $35,000 tuition you would see that happening elsewhere. SSFS couldn’t successfully run a school at $45,000 tuition. The other thing is the toothpaste is out of the tube. Meaning, the trust is broken. Nobody in their right mind is going to give tens of thousands of dollars in tuition, hoping things turn out OK. |
Anonymous
The faculty doesn’t run the accreditation process. |
Anonymous
I didn't say that. But there are faculty members on the board/committee that work together with the accreditors (sorry I don't know all the correct terminology here). And those people got calls from the fundraising coalition. |
Anonymous
There are definitely schools in the 30s that are running successfully. We left ssfs to go to one last year. It’s why we left. |
Anonymous
Barrie seems to be doing quite fine. Maybe SSFS should take notes. Seems they will be getting a lot of SSFS families as well. |
Anonymous
| Barrie is not doing fine. Check their 990 (public online). They are operating at a negative. |
Anonymous
| Barrie is doing better than SSFS clearly. There’s also a lot of schools in the 30s in this area running successfully. |
Anonymous
The point is that they aren’t closing and will definitely benefit from SSFS closing. |