During the past four months, the Board of Trustees has been actively engaged in managing the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for our school. Through one-on-one interactions with staff, teachers, parents, students, and from attendance at the town halls, committee and staff meetings, we realize that there are many outstanding questions and concerns regarding the Board and how it makes the decisions that guide this school. In response to these concerns, the Board takes the opportunity to provide this statement to our VIMSIA community.
We would like to begin by addressing the decision to not offer tuition refunds for the latter half of the second semester of the 2019-2020 school year. As a Board of Trustees, we are entrusted with safeguarding the institution not only for any given school year, but for generations to come. We are also mindful of the legacy we inherited from decades of Trustees before us who worked hard to make the school what it is today. It is important for everyone to understand that VIMSIA did not arrive at its current institutional stature overnight, but through generations of sacrifice and dedication of countless community members before us. As per our charter, the Board needed to take into consideration not only the year 2020, but the years 1990, 2030, 2050, and beyond.
All teachers and staff are hired under one-year contracts that VIMSIA would need to honor even if tuition refunds were given. VIMSIA has always made an effort to make its education affordable for the entire community, and because of this, even full tuition is less than the actual cost incurred by the school for educating each child. Furthermore, nearly 70% of the student body receives some financial accommodation against tuition. VIMSIA always makes up this shortfall in income through fundraising, something that has been significantly hindered because of the pandemic. Therefore, if the Board had offered tuition refunds to parents it would have necessitated layoffs in staff and teachers, caused disruption in the continuity of VIMSIA’s educational program for students, unsettled VIMSIA’s strategic planning and budget, and set the school back in its progress many years, if not decades, all for a crisis, that while epic in scope, will be temporary. This was not a tradeoff the Board felt would have been responsible to take as stewards of this institution.
The Board recognizes the hardships experienced with the distance learning program, and that some parents felt the value received from the distance learning program was not equal to the value of the tuition paid. However, it is important to understand that the transition to the distance learning system required staff and teachers to quickly learn and adopt new technologies to provide continuity of learning. Our entire community gave more time, and exerted more effort, than if school had just continued normal on-campus learning. Asking our entire faculty of staff and teachers to give more and do more, while experiencing layoffs and pay cuts was not the fair way to handle this situation. We are extremely grateful to our VIMSIA Head of School, administrative and staff teams for their dedication and commitment to the school. As they did after Hurricanes Irma and Maria, they rose admirably to the challenge and went way beyond the call of duty to provide an element of stability and educational continuance to our student population, in extraordinarily trying circumstances.
We understand that distance learning was difficult for young children, but the Board must also balance that recognition against the fact that no school anywhere in the world had the perfect distance learning program. The reality is that the perfect distance learning program is not something that is achievable anywhere because distant learning is not as beneficial as on-campus education for younger children. Nevertheless, in recognition that distance learning for younger students does not work for every family, the Board decided to offer a refund program for the 2020-2021 school year for La Casa and Primary. The refund policy in 2020-2021 was made possible with the aid of forward planning, but will still create a significant financial hardship on the school if it has to be implemented.
Please keep in mind that VIMSIA always works with families that need financial assistance. These financial accommodations are always done on a one-on-one basis in a confidential and dignified manner.
The Board understands the difficulty the pandemic has caused VIMSIA’s families and community, not only financially, but emotionally as well. For this reason, we did not arrive at our decision lightly, but only after much research, internal debate, and thoughtful consideration.
The Board also takes this opportunity to discuss some of the developments that we have been working on prior to and even during this crisis, namely the continued development of our academic leadership team at the school. VIMSIA made some phenomenally talented strategic hires and promotions in both Montessori and in the PGIA. In Montessori, we welcomed Ms. Heather McCabe to lead our Montessori program in 2019, and she will continue to grow in her leadership role in the coming years. Over at PGIA, we promoted Alex Silva to head of MYP and Matthew Stocking to head of DP to strengthen the PGIA program led so aptly by Gloria Arpasi for the last decade. In the coming years, we expect to continue developing our education leadership positions at the school, and we remain actively recruiting and looking for talent to fill those roles.
Our next focus of growth opportunity is going to be in the improvement of the Montessori Skills Assessment. The Board understands that the nature of the Montessori program does create a feeling of risk for some parents because the educational development cycle of students is different, and the payoff in unmatched educational achievement and results is sometimes not understood until later. This different cycle, coupled with the fact that Montessori does not give grades, makes the End-of-the-Year Assessment particularly important for parents. The Board plans on working with Ms. McCabe this coming school year to make substantive improvements to the End-of-the-Year Assessments, understanding that this year will be unique and challenging because of the continuing pandemic.
In addition to improvements in education, the Board intends to improve on its community outreach and transparency with concerted efforts to create better communication with parents, teachers, staff, and students. The Board agrees that greater transparency about school finances would be beneficial for the entire community. The Board is currently vetting several options, including Finance Committee newsletters, an annual Open Board Meeting for parents to attend, Finance Presentations at PTA meetings, and changes to student contracts to inform parents about the value of education and how the tuition money is spent.
Recently, some have questioned whether Board Meetings should be open or whether Board minutes should be public. The Board disagrees that open Board meetings and public minutes are healthy ways to address Board transparency. The school is a private non-profit, under no legal obligation to publicize its Board minutes or finances. The Board of Trustees is an all-volunteer board, and there is not a single person on the Board that receives remuneration of any kind in exchange for dozens of hours of work per month. Board members are nominated, recruited and retained for the professional experience (fiscal, insurance, legal, medical, mental health, academic, entrepreneurial, organizational development and human resources) they bring to the table, so that VIMSIA does not have to spend its limited fiscal resources paying for these services. For the Board of Trustees to function, it is imperative that each member be able to voice concerns in strict confidence. Having open Board meetings would hinder frank discussions and make finding quality members for our all-volunteer Board more difficult. That being said, in an effort to improve transparency, the Board will implement one annual “open” board meeting for parents to attend, and a Board member will be present at the end-of-the-year PTA meeting going forward.
While this statement does not address each and every concern, the Board is here to make the school better and for that reason, we are always happy to hear the suggestions and feedback from every stakeholder in our community. We attach a separate brief on our roles and responsibilities as a Board of Trustees of a non- profit educational institution. Our individual profiles are listed on the school’s website. We remain open to discussing and addressing valid concerns (understanding that the school also has a well-documented grievance policy and competent academic and administrative teams as first points of call for individual issues) while always staying mindful of our obligations to the institution and community as a whole.
We look forward to many more generations of educational excellence and community development.
Most Sincerely,
Greg J, Ferguson, President
on behalf of your VIMSIA Board of Trustees
