If Schools Want To Keep Teachers, Stop Giving Away Assets

A long time ago when I was young and I believed that because Barrington schools were doing wonderful things for my daughter, I was on the Nayatt PTO executive Board as a liaison to the school committee. I supported the school department in everything they did and fought to get them every penny they wanted.

One of the first things that made me question if things were being done in the very best financial interest of the schools was a fundraising proposal brought to the PTO by a member. It was a buy one gets one free dinner plan for a friend or relative of the member that would give a very small amount for each card sold to the PTO.

I knew someone who sold those plans for a living and I knew that the commission on those items was between 5 and 10 times what the PTO would get. The PTO voted in favor anyway.

It should not be unknown to anyone who has lived in town that the best form of advertising in Barrington is not the Times or the Patch or Channel 10 or the Providence Journal. No the Best and most effective advertising vehicle in the town of Barrington is the backpack express.

If you have ever attended a financial town meeting you know how much information goes out through the express. There are hundreds of advertisers who want to use it but unless you circumvent the rules (by using the PTOs which some do) you can’t advertise there. There is a lot of money to be made by in effect selling access to the express or selling the mailing list of names of Barrington families.

To businesses it would be a highly valued list. It represents families with well
above average incomes, high percentage of homeowners, and families with
children, who are camp bound and eventually college bound. It would have great
demographics. It is a very valuable list.

But Barrington does not profit directly from the list. It gives the list away free to insiders. It could be making money to be used for operations in effect reduce our taxes. The list is an asset of the town that is given away all the time.  In my years of being involved, both inside and outside the schools, I came across several
cases of this. I will relate three here for examples.

In late 2003, when I had just been appointed the theatre director at the high school, I was full of ideas on how to make the program better for the kids. One of my ideas was to put the students’ photos into the programs of the plays. I had done this with Barrington Community Theatre. It creates a yearbook-like memento that kids can keep for years to come.

I had a photographer who for a modest fee, did very good work and digitally cleared the acne and blemishes on the kids face. I went to the Principal with my idea. He liked the idea, but told me there was an exclusive arrangement with one
particular photographer, and that no other photographer was allowed to take
pictures in the school. So they sent the photographer in -- a very nice guy.

I asked him how his company got such a sweet deal as exclusive photographer. He told me that the previous owner of the company was friends with someone at the school and they had the concession ever since.

Well, I got my photos, but this company, of course, did not do digital blemish work at the time so they were not as nice. And both of my kids, who graduated from Barrington High School, received a postcard advertising senior pictures from this company.

How much money would that concession be worth if it went out to bid? How many
photographers who want business would like access to wealthy Barrington
students? How many other similar concessions are there?

Lastly I will speak to an issue that I know better than anyone in town, running a theatre program and how much it costs. I have had 10 years’ experience in doing this (ending last year) and in the 35 contracts I signed with the town, there was always a clause that said if the program lost money it came out of my compensation. So, as you can imagine, I watched the numbers very
carefully.

There are hundreds of variables that can change the equation and we
made money and we lost money. But as in all businesses there is a principal
that must be followed: Know your fixed expenses and volume cures everything!

Back in another life 30 years ago I was teaching classes in fast food restaurant management. One lesson in each session I taught was what a success McDonalds had with their breakfast program. I explained to the students that the fixed expenses for their regular business of hamburgers were constant.

They had the same capital building costs, the same rent, taxes, act. By opening
extra hours for breakfast, those fixed expenses did not change. Only the
variable expenses (food cost, utilities, payroll and such) would change. And
McDonalds increased their income so the profit from adding breakfast was at a
higher rate than their regular business because there were no added fixed
costs.

Why did I go into all that? Because Barrington Schools are giving away a huge resource to Arts Alive! 

Years ago I asked the schools that since we were a town program, could we
run a program in the schools? We were told no because (I was told off the
record) that there was an important parent on the PTOs involved with the now
bankrupt All Children’s Theatre (before St. Andrews bought the name) and that they were using the schools to recruit members to pay full price as many of the
people attending All Children’s theatre were from Providence and on
scholarships.

It went so far that when one of our students was directing Alice in Wonderland (performed all by Barrington students) that the schools would not let the kids perform in the elementary schools lest the children would like the
show and want to do the town program. There was a fight among the principals
and we finally performed in two of the four schools. Things have been much better
since by the way. But they was great concern that a town of Barrington Program
might want to recruit Barrington students to do a town program over a favored
not for profit.

And, of course, they were right. That was exactly what I was doing. I wanted to recruit. I admit it. We needed student actors. In 2008 as the economy turned south I was trying everything to keep enrollment up. Money was tight for many of our parents and we had a couple of very lean years. I would have killed to have been able to put a show on in the schools!

I would have paid a hefty price. Had we had that kind of access to the schools it would have been easy to recruit to keep our fall spring and summer programs going. But we made it anyway, the hard way. By doing more plays, getting more kids lead rolls, getting high school students to direct plays which is exciting, scary, and very educational for them. By word of mouth we kept going.  The town program survives and thrives today, some say even better without me.

Now every session I would write a budget. And every session there was a break-even point. That point where the revenues raised by the signups covers expenses (including my substantial pay) and we made 75% of the
revenue of everyone who signed up over that number. Some times the number was 22 students or 25 students or if we did extra plays over the usual 6 or an expensive play with high royalties or had a special instructor it might be 28 and once it was 30. After hitting that number of students the program becomes very
profitable. Getting those last 2 or 3 students was very important to us. But we
were on a mandate to break even so we would limit the students. And we set up a
scholarship fund to handle those who could not pay.

Arts Alive, according to the Patch, had 123 students in their show last weekend. Plus 3 sold-out performances. They did 4 plays in the 4 elementary schools this year. All the shows had high number of attendees. They have written that they, Arts Alive, keep the registration fees and give part of the gate to the PTOs. Well that is nice, but at the risk of being rude, the PTOs and the schools are getting screwed financially.

There is HUGE money; I mean HUGE Money, HUGE profit involved in putting on shows that size. And the money is not in the gate, it is in the fees to do the program!!!

Did this ever go out on a RFP? Did the schools take bids? Did the schools look to see who could do an outstanding program and return some serious money to the schools?

I know that the town program could have done a program in all the schools if we were allowed and be able to give half the fees to the schools -- some $25,000-$40,000 I would guess. But we are not the only game in town.

Trinity Rep has their own expanding very fine program and they go into the schools. Did anyone ask if they were interested in offering the town
something?

Or how about St. Andrews School, they are also a not for profit? They have long realized the money to be made in theatre programs and they have a great facility. They paid $12,500 for the name All Children’s Theatre at bankruptcy auction. They pay $175 per month for the banner ad on the Barrington Patch!

What do you suppose they would pay for access to Barrington students? No, it went exclusively to Arts Alive. If you go to their web page and look at
their board of directors, it will tell you which PTO each board member belongs
to. It is the connection to the PTOs that both got them access to the schools
and such a sweetheart deal where other organization was not allowed to compete.

But the big value is not just the putting on of the shows. The value is to advertise the summer camps which make money. Arts alive has started its own profitable
after school program and summer camp. How can they do this?

Because of having the connections it gained for free by putting on shows at the schools. If St. Andrews, a not for profit, is paying thousands of dollars to advertise their theatre camp, how much would they pay to be in the schools? How much should Arts alive be paying the town to be in the schools?

No Bids. No money to the schools. Just a few bucks given with
maybe 10% to the PTOs. Friends of friends giving work to friends. That is how
it is done at the schools.

It has to stop. How many other programs are out there profiting from the schools that no one knows about?

No one believes more than I do in the importance of theatre in schools. I know that it is great that there is more theatre is in the schools. I know that Arts Alive has a very, very good program. That is not in dispute. I know all the people who run all of these programs listed above, they all run good programs. But times are tough and are going to be tougher and the schools need all the money they can get.

And there is money in running theatre for pay in the schools. The schools need money NOW and in the future will need more. Shouldn’t the schools have an outstanding program AND one that financially benefits the schools the most?  Or maybe we should just keep cutting eachers while giving sweet heart deals to friends of the PTOs.

Access to the schools is an asset. We need to treat it as such. We need to maximize our assets.

Next time I go to the belly of the beast. The place where the real money goes: The teachers' contract. Or call it how to give every teacher at least a 3% raise in every year and save millions of dollars.

You think this was a long article? Wait until next time.