SSFS Closing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why is the coalition messing with ppl like this? Let ppl move on!

It’s hard to sort out what is ineptitude, what is coincidence, and what is deliberate. I will say, though, that if I was trying to do something shady, I’d follow the exact same playbook.

Time the announcement to cause as much chaos as possible. In this case, on Monday afternoon rush hour. (Doing it on a Friday would give people time to organize and process over the weekend and show up bright and early Monday with questions)

Make sure the community is distracted and competing for scarce resources (remaining slots at other schools)

Smear any community members pushing back as conspirators in some “secret club”who are not to be trusted.

Urge the community to move on quickly and not ask any questions.

Ok this is getting silly. This isn’t some James Bond movie with conspiracies and spies.

The school had financial troubles due to several years of mismanagement exacerbated by poor leadership of one or two hos.

The bot didn’t do pay attention and now school is done with some well meaning but naive alums thinking this is another movie where the underdogs save the day. It messes with ppls ability to move on but nothing sinister other than that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The money that people are pledging is with the understanding it will be given only with transparency, governance change, and a sustainable plan.

I hoping that can be accomplished while also understanding that of course people need to be moving ahead with plans as this is far from a done deal. I have more trouble understanding why some people are discouraging others and concern trolling. Completely understandable to not pledge and be skeptical yourself but other (smart and capable people) are willing to see if something can be salvalged-why attack them?

+1

[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.

Not true. He left the BOT once he became a candidate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why is the coalition messing with ppl like this? Let ppl move on!

It’s hard to sort out what is ineptitude, what is coincidence, and what is deliberate. I will say, though, that if I was trying to do something shady, I’d follow the exact same playbook.

Time the announcement to cause as much chaos as possible. In this case, on Monday afternoon rush hour. (Doing it on a Friday would give people time to organize and process over the weekend and show up bright and early Monday with questions)

Make sure the community is distracted and competing for scarce resources (remaining slots at other schools)

Smear any community members pushing back as conspirators in some “secret club”who are not to be trusted.

Urge the community to move on quickly and not ask any questions.

You’re weird, trying to find conspiracy when there isn’t.

[Anonymous]

There is a short story on the situation on MoCo Show (local media):

https://mocoshow.com/2025/04/19/coalition-pledges-15-million-in-effort-to-save-sandy-spring-friends-school-from-closure/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All of my children were SSFS "lifers' (K-12) and we were fortunate to have been a part of the warm and charming quaker community that once was. Even then as a parent, it was curious how their business model could be sustainable. As just one example, to attract good teachers, faculty kids could attend for free and there were lots of them not adding to school's income.

This horrific closure is a culmination of years of mismanagement and poor judgement. A slow burn. Many of the reasons are tied to the attempt to transform the school into a prep school to complete with elite DC schools -- to be another Sidwell Friends School. A gross miscalculation without the competency to create and nurture such a school, much less the stable student base in the remote suburbs, nearly the exurbs.

There's been much negative ado about a recent Head of School and I'm sure that where there's smoke there's fire (and potentially a major law suit) but this debacle falls in the lap of the former Head (make that former Board member, Head for the better part of a decade, and now again a current Board member) who oversaw the campus investments, debt accumulation, hiring decisions, culture change, etc. that brought SSFS to this unfortunate end.

This. They started charging near-elite tuition and built a pricey building, but never quite delivered the education that parents want for those prices. Never the high-level academics of Sidwell. Never the high-level sports. And never the stability that a large endowment would have provided. When parents pay near-elite tuition, they expect a *lot*, and SSFS didn't (couldn't) deliver. And they didn't have enough full-price parents as a proportion of the community to cover costs and also compensate for their FA families. The math just didn't work. And now they're stuck with a costly facility and debt to pay down. I wish this were salvageable but I fear it isn't.

[Anonymous]

The coalition’s efforts to save SSFS show the heart and determination of the community but it’s a fool’s errand.

The die was cast the moment the Board announced the closure. Even the *appearance* (to be kind) of mismanagement and the negative social media threads and news coverage leave them even less able to attract new students than when the ship was silently sinking. The cat is out of the bag and not going back in, unfortunately.

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

Well then if you ask me this makes him highly suspicious as being complicit in the SSFS demise.

[Anonymous]

Independent school admin. If SSFS survives, it must achieve financial sustainability before it thrives. This requires constant and fiscally-responsible leadership. Like many schools regionally and nationally, SSFS has just been keeping up with the Jones’. Philanthropy is SO critical, but when it comes to a building project, if a school can’t afford it, don’t buy it. Simple.

People make a school, not buildings.

Questions:

1) If things work, are best leaders in tact to cover key functions ? This will demand highly capable leaders (= $$) head, div heads, admission dir, marketing, finance, fundraising to leverage positive outcomes. Each of those leaders better be a superhero!

2) Where does current interim sit on this whole thing? A good interim provides feedback, evaluates, and problem-solves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

That, plus it was always painfully obvious that they were using full pay boarding students, mostly from China, to fund the school. I always thought it was an odd environment for East Asian boarding kids - not high powered in terms of academics, no impressive college outcomes, nothing that would traditionally attract Chinese families toward full-pay boarding when there are other options all around the country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What exactly happened with RG? There are a lot of vague posts pointing fingers at him. Is the issue really him, or is it that many white people support diversity only in theory—just as long as it doesn’t challenge their comfort.

It sounds like he walked into a situation that was already fraught and in decline. SSFS is lucky anyone took that on when finances were unstable.

That’s a whole other thread. Go read it. But NO. This is not a race issue. If the ppl of ssfs are one thing it NOT racist. I hate when ppl assume if we didn’t like RG it’s cause we were racist. Why can’t he just be an incompetent and enthical narcissist and that’s why students and faculty alike couldn’t stand him?

I’m pretty sure a school that bit, you can’t vouch for everyone’s character. Everyone would be appalled to be called a racist

+1. Our responsibility for breaking down systemic and intrinsic racism doesn’t end when we join a community that says diversity is a priority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

I wondered about this too.

[Anonymous]

Search committees can be so easily charmed by charisma and lose sight of what’s needed for the school at the time. This is how some unprepared heads manage to land the job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

That, plus it was always painfully obvious that they were using full pay boarding students, mostly from China, to fund the school. I always thought it was an odd environment for East Asian boarding kids - not high powered in terms of academics, no impressive college outcomes, nothing that would traditionally attract Chinese families toward full-pay boarding when there are other options all around the country.

That can work. There are many middle class and upper-class Chinese willing to pay to send their kids to boarding school in the US, even to mediocre schools. It's still bragging rights to say your kid went to school in the US and that they speak fluent English. That gives them a huge leg up on the Chinese job market and marriage market. Remember the Chinese middle class is larger than the entire US population. There's plenty of demand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Independent school admin. If SSFS survives, it must achieve financial sustainability before it thrives. This requires constant and fiscally-responsible leadership. Like many schools regionally and nationally, SSFS has just been keeping up with the Jones’. Philanthropy is SO critical, but when it comes to a building project, if a school can’t afford it, don’t buy it. Simple.

People make a school, not buildings.

Questions:

1) If things work, are best leaders in tact to cover key functions ? This will demand highly capable leaders (= $$) head, div heads, admission dir, marketing, finance, fundraising to leverage positive outcomes. Each of those leaders better be a superhero!

2) Where does current interim sit on this whole thing? A good interim provides feedback, evaluates, and problem-solves.

This. Been asking the same questions.