These may seem like tough times for private schools, but according to one headmaster with 30 years experience in private education, if you provide a quality education, students will come.
Robert W. Billings who in July became Headmaster of the Melrose School in Brewster, with 100 students enrolled in grades from pre-Kindergarten to the eighth grade, said enrollment has slipped a bit in recent years, when the tiny school had a peak of 120 students.
“The snap answer is the recession, but my experience teaches me different,” Billings said. “Parents have to tighten their belt, obviously. But private schools are here, whether at the elementary level, high school or college. And people will make their adjustments to allow their children to attend private schools. They will often find a way to pay for what they feel is quality.”
But even established religious institutions with long standing private schools are facing problems making ends meet in the current economic climate. Joseph Zwilling, spokesman for the New York Catholic Archdiocese, which includes parishes as far north as Kingston, acknowledged that schools will be closed in the most financially strapped parishes. Roughly 30 schools could be slated to close or merge, due to financial pressures and declining enrollment.
“It”™s not as simple as saying when a private school goes out of business its because of the tuition of roughly $15,000 depending on the grade and that tuition has stayed largely consistent.?But he said parents make the payments knowing that it is an investment in their future. “I talk about investments a lot,” said Billings, who has been in private education for 30 years, went to private schools as a youth and has sent his own three children to private schools.
“The parents are making investments in their children”™s education and I talk about the teachers making investments in the children”™s future,” Billings said.?But meanwhile, the school must make wise financial decisions, he said, which involve finding savings that don”™t impact the academic areas of excellence the school touts. “Basically like everyone else, we are looking for ways to economize without touching the instructional program,” Billings said.
“There is always money to be saved on the administrative end.”?He said another way to help the school is to generate revenue, especially by bringing in students attracted to what private education has to offer. He said for example, Melrose is upgrading its web presence, a relatively low cost way to tout their educational offerings. “I treat the parents as consumers and I know if we can”™t provide a quality product they will go someplace else,” Billings said. “They choose us, we don”™t choose them.”
