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October 09, 2005

A challenge and an answer - running a school

Hrubec (s/he of many names) in the comment section here rails in perfect Mrs. Lovejoy fashion "But what about the children!" against anyone at any time trying to hold the Education Establishment responsible for their failures. S/he took particular exception to my statement:

Most in the trenches teachers just want to teach. I give kudos to the fine ones I've met and worked with all these years. But the bad ones, the incompetent ones, are coddled and protected AND their effect on children lasts for years.
S/he went on a rant about the poor, underpaid teachers. I pointed out a few fiscal facts about LAUSD ($13.3 BILLION budget with 746,000 students) and said I could easily run a school with a budget of $17,800/student and have money left over. His/her reply
So DO IT, fool
Well, a cursory run about the internet, a few major points addressed and I present a working budget just over the jump.

Let's do the property first. If I decided to lease space, it would be considerably less, but I'd have to spend time vetting on whether or not it was appropriate for k-6 and getting stuck on arguing that point with Hrubec. So, for today's example let's say I'm going to have 100 students, 25 to a classroom, 8 teachers with Master's Degrees. My budget is $1.78 million for the traditional school year. Here is a school for sale in Los Angeles. Fully school permitted, fully furnished and kitchen equipped for $2,250,000. Let's assume a 30 y/r mortgage at 5% = $12,000/mo pmts.


Budget-----------------------------($1,780,000)
Expenditures:
Mortgage-----------------$144,000
8 Teachers @ $80,000-----$640,000
1 Principal--------------$100,000
1 Secretary---------------$40,000
1 Office clerk------------$28,000
1 Janitor-----------------$40,000
2 Cafeteria personnel-----$56,000
Textbooks $200/student----$20,000
Office/Classroom supplies-$20,000
Building maintenance
(repair, replace, etc) $178,000

TOTAL-------------------$1,226,000
--------------------------------------($ 554,000)

I have over $500,000 to cover utilities and insurance and other expenses I haven't covered.

Easily? Yes, easily.

Posted by Darleen at October 9, 2005 02:09 PM

Comments

But you forgot the dozen or so "other administrators" who serve no apparent purpose other than to give somebody's cousin a job.

Posted by: J Rob at October 10, 2005 04:02 AM

What you're forgetting is that you, under the set of circumstances you set forth, would decide who gets into your establishment and who does not.

Public schools do not have that option.

Then there's the question of tuition. Just exactly how many students now attending LA city public schools could afford $18000/year?

Not many, I'd guess.

Pipe dream.....

Posted by: Carl W. Goss at October 10, 2005 08:27 AM

Goss

I merely made the statement that given the LAUSD budget, which works out to $17,800/student, and still is doing a DISMAL job, I could easily do better.

And I bet, with 8 MA degreed teachers I could take 100 of the "worst case" students, still hire a few extra Special Ed assistants and do a much better job than LAUSD.

Most private schools do better than public warehouse schools on less than $17,800/student.

Make no mistake... LAUSD claims a ada revenue of over $9,000/student, out of which are direct education expenses - teachers, maintenance, janitorial -- WHERE DOES THE OTHER $8000 GO?

You also might be interested to know that several years ago a well-known auditing firm was called into to audit LAUSD. They spent a whole year, then threw up their hands and walked away, declaring LAUSD "unauditable." No one could figure out what blackholes all that money was disappearing into.

Posted by: Darleen at October 10, 2005 10:37 AM

Well, I give you credit for coming up with that, in any case. It makes the case that you could surely get more for your money than schools are currently getting, especially considering you've got a 12.5:1 student teacher ratio. I'm not a school administrator, so I can't vouch for what you're not considering, in terms of transportation, health insurance for employees, costs of insurance for the school, costs of state test compliance, etc.,nor how realistic your estimates are for equipment and such. But it's a good simple example.

So I'm assuming you're part of the solution, rather than part of the problem in your community. Assuming you're not just a whiney kvetcher. You're on the school board, right? You're putting your theories into action in the real world.

Posted by: Snck at October 11, 2005 04:40 AM

Snick

Been there did that for most of the years my kids were in public school. Did there done that when my kids were in private school (k-3).

Youngest in college, I've taken the road.

BTW you will notice if you had clicked on the link to the school for sale..it was fully furnished and equipped, even with a computer lab and kitchen. The ONLY things I didn't have figures for were liability/property insurance, group health insurance. For 1/2 mil I could cover it.

easily

Posted by: Darleen at October 11, 2005 06:24 AM