SSFS Closing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Barrie is doing better than SSFS clearly. There’s also a lot of schools in the 30s in this area running successfully.

When you say there are a lot of schools in the 30s does that mean parochial schools supported by the Catholic Church or whatever? Or what area are you talking about? Because in the DMV upper schools are generally 50 to 60k. I haven’t looked up the 990 for Barrie, and I certainly don’t have boundless insight on the topic, but if Barrie is running annual deficits, they have a problem too.
If a school could be run with 35K tuition, they would have to have an awful lot of students and much bigger classes, which means they would also need to take on the debt of a building large enough to do that. Anyway, yes, I’m skeptical.

If you think only catholic schools are cheaper than ssfs and schools are usually 50-60 (not even in the 40s!) you’re clearly not doing any research. I guess that’s why what the coalition says makes sense to you.

You are correct that I’ve never done a deep comparison of every school in the metro area. I imagine that looking at every school’s tuition/ offerings/ geography/ facilities/ 990 stability would teach all of us a lot.
To all of you trying to save SSFS, my heart is with you and I wish you success. And to those of you that are resolved to move on, I hope the transition and future provides hope and stability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Informational heads-up for those who recently signed up for the Friends of SSFS Coalition and have been concerned or disheartened not to get the email update yesterday. On Slack one of the leaders posted they are having tech issues and put the update there, asking community members to share with others who don’t have access.
A very brief snippets:
1. “we have large goals beyond saving SSFS from the brink of being turned into a golf course or mixed-use development”—plans for the endowment once immediate crisis is addressed
2. Plan to get pledges in writing and clarify the governance changes that will be tied to them
3. they are in ongoing negotiations with the BOT
4. they’ve posted their Overall Purpose, Core Values, and Short-Term Goals (for the week) and asked for patience as they sort out tech issues
This is just my own quick unofficial summary b/c I cannot cut-and-paste from my phone.

The mention of the golf course of mixed use development has me wondering, if SSFS goes under, which specific developer stands to profit? Who has a financial incentive to push through this closure as quickly as possible with minimal public debate or scrutiny? Who is waiting in the wings to swoop in and grab up the land at a discount?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will the coalition start by publishing ssfs’ last 10 years worth of 990s? THAT would be real change.

Entities that are not subject to the 990 filing requirement, like this School, are not going to have a Form 990 to publish.

Okay let me rephrase. Will the coalition publish anything official that answers the first question - What IS the number ssfs is in debt and if we look at the last 10 years can we see how we got here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Barrie is not doing fine. Check their 990 (public online). They are operating at a negative.

An independent school "operating at a negative" is not necessarily an indication of a systemic problem. Check out the 990 for Georgetown Day School (GDS) and it's considered one of the best schools on the area.

When it happens once in a decade (GDS), it’s not an issue. Especially when your brand is so strong in a geographic area with endless customers. When it happens many or most years it’s concerning. There’s lots of narrative and context that a 990 cannot provide so I’m not going to assert any grand conclusions but what I do see after spending five minutes looking at their summaries of Barrie 990s is they do run a lot of annual deficits, but it looks like they got a huge donation a few years ago of several million dollars. And their net assets far exceed their liabilities. Are they in great shape? I honestly don’t know, but the annual deficits have to be concerning at some level. But wishing every school success, I hope they have it well managed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Former HOS Tom Gibian is currently on the board and has an MBA in finance from Wharton. If anyone might be able to shed light on whether there is hope for the coalition, it might be him.

And not only is he on the Board, he is the previous HOS. And was Chair of the Board before that. Hmmm

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Will the coalition start by publishing ssfs’ last 10 years worth of 990s? THAT would be real change.

Entities that are not subject to the 990 filing requirement, like this School, are not going to have a Form 990 to publish.

Okay let me rephrase. Will the coalition publish anything official that answers the first question - What IS the number ssfs is in debt and if we look at the last 10 years can we see how we got here?

Transparency is one of the primary goals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Former HOS Tom Gibian is currently on the board and has an MBA in finance from Wharton. If anyone might be able to shed light on whether there is hope for the coalition, it might be him.

And he was Chair of the Board before he was HOS. And he ran the search committee, selecting himself as HOS. Maybe he didn't dig the hole, but he sure kept on digging.

[Anonymous]

Not if your classes weren’t full bc tuition and FA too high, you could’ve been grossing lower total tuition revenue than with a slightly lower tuition and more seats filled, more full pay students whose families didn’t get FA but couldn’t afford the extra 5-10K.

Tuition often set with magical thinking. One of our “peer” schools raised their tuition this high. So we can, too! Without any research on what their families can and will pay. But wait a couple of years to see the attrition effects.

[Anonymous]

*re lower tuition = lower teacher salary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Former HOS Tom Gibian is currently on the board and has an MBA in finance from Wharton. If anyone might be able to shed light on whether there is hope for the coalition, it might be him.

And he was Chair of the Board before he was HOS. And he ran the search committee, selecting himself as HOS. Maybe he didn't dig the hole, but he sure kept on digging.

He ran the search committee and selected himself as the head of school? That’s crazy. If anyone had information and insight it would be him. But I have to assume he’s trying to stay far away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not if your classes weren’t full bc tuition and FA too high, you could’ve been grossing lower total tuition revenue than with a slightly lower tuition and more seats filled, more full pay students whose families didn’t get FA but couldn’t afford the extra 5-10K.

Tuition often set with magical thinking. One of our “peer” schools raised their tuition this high. So we can, too! Without any research on what their families can and will pay. But wait a couple of years to see the attrition effects.

Omg RG said that all the time. “Why is our tuition going up?” His reply “other schools are doing it”. Every time that was his answer!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I knew multiple families at ssfs who said they came here because other schools did not offer them the financial aid package they were getting here (a couple even told me how much they got and it was 50% “exceeding their expectations”). At the time I thought it was wonderful that ssfs was able to help families this way. Now I wonder if ssfs was handing out aid they couldn’t afford and hiking tuition of the rest of us to fund it.

This was always the case at SSFS. We were deemed to be a “full pay” family there 20 years ago watching aid being used to attract students without much vetting of finances. Meanwhile tuition kept going up and up. Many parents argued for lower tuition and less FA. It felt like a Ponzi scheme. Sounds like that never changed.

[Anonymous]

If you saw the facebook post yesterday, it is clear there is no intention of even considering to keep the school open. The coalition is a waste of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Informational heads-up for those who recently signed up for the Friends of SSFS Coalition and have been concerned or disheartened not to get the email update yesterday. On Slack one of the leaders posted they are having tech issues and put the update there, asking community members to share with others who don’t have access.
A very brief snippets:
1. “we have large goals beyond saving SSFS from the brink of being turned into a golf course or mixed-use development”—plans for the endowment once immediate crisis is addressed
2. Plan to get pledges in writing and clarify the governance changes that will be tied to them
3. they are in ongoing negotiations with the BOT
4. they’ve posted their Overall Purpose, Core Values, and Short-Term Goals (for the week) and asked for patience as they sort out tech issues
This is just my own quick unofficial summary b/c I cannot cut-and-paste from my phone.

The facebook post yesterday makes it clear the BoT isn't considering even trying to keep the school open. Families and teachers need to look for space now, not after a coalition can get going and potentially fail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you saw the facebook post yesterday, it is clear there is no intention of even considering to keep the school open. The coalition is a waste of time.

The post with the bird? I don't think it means much. The Board has already agreed to meet with the coalition twice. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much, but they’re not ignoring them at least.