Newsletter for A Different Academic Calendar
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Today's Guest Writer is Jeff Wieler, Assistant Head of School and CFO of RDS
May 16, 2008
Everybody’s familiar with the natural rhythms of the school year. An early August trickle of rested teachers bringing in boxes and checking out their rooms turns into a torrent by mid-August, then, right before Labor Day, the parking lot jams every morning as new K parents walk their children into school. Middle school kids have spent he summer training their parents to become invisible, and are mastering the art of the 3-second car evacuation. The air just about crackles with anticipation and nervous energy and, if you’re in the Middle School on a warm day, the aroma of adolescence is…very present shall we say.
The rhythms change as the year progresses. October’s rhythm is a steady beat. The newness has worn off and teachers and kids have found their groove. There’s a burble of Thanksgiving excitement, a crescendo for Winter Concert, then intermission until January.
The seven or eight weeks of February make it the longest month of the year. It’s cold outside, kids are wearing hats and going on weekend sleepovers, and that leads to Lice Patrol memos going out. The first warm days of March bring a little relief, but in mid-April it seems the year will never end. May brings the subtle yet abrupt shift in from “this year is taking forever,” to “how are we going to fit everything into the little time we have left?” Outdoor Ed trips, class trips and parties, Goodbye Assemblies and Thank You Assemblies and picnics and Art & Music Nights and Step-Up and BANG, the year is over.
That’s the familiar rhythm of the school year – except in the Business Office. We hear the orchestral rhythms of teachers and kids, fortissimo and pianissimo, but we march to the beat of a different (and somewhat pixilated) drummer.
Our year begins sometime in mid-October. The adults working on the kid side of the school are just beginning to settle into the current year, and there’s an obnoxious bean-counter asking about the following year. It’s way too early for them, but November is when the Board discusses strategic priorities and the Finance Committee needs to weigh in on a draft budget. We tweak and prune, and try to guess 20 months into the future.
January is a whirlwind of activity in the Business Office. Contracts have to go out at month end, and it takes two Board meetings to dig through the budget and finalize next year’s tuition. Financial Aid decisions need to be made There’s no “one size fits all” magic formula. No matter how hard you try, you know that a few parents will be pleased, and a few others will see their grant and wonder how they’re going to make it work. It would be hard to handle if it weren’t for the constant sense of wonderment you get when you see how much people sacrifice for their children.
February and March are just as intense. There are contracts to process and more financial aid decisions to make. The final tuition payments for the year are due and many families have to be contacted. It’s been a busy six months, but the slow season is coming up. Late March through mid-May is the sweet time of year. Teachers have spent most of their budgets and accounts payable volume is way down. Many years I can even take vacation during this time!
Mid-May starts our time of cognitive dissonance. School’s out in four weeks! Kids and teachers are hurtling towards summer but we’re just getting geared up. Have we figured out our summer projects, lined up contractors, hired our summer crew of kids to paint and weed and scrub? The auditors show up in seven or eight weeks and we need to start preparing.
From my perspective in the Business Office I’ve always felt that a school would be the perfect place to work – if only you could get rid of the parents, the teachers, the students, and most of the other administrators. I speak from experience. There’s but six weeks between the end of school and the arrival of the auditors to wrap up a year’s worth of activity, then tie it off with a pretty bow. It’s possible only because the school is suddenly quiet, but we still don’t get a long 4th of July weekend.
A pair of CPA’s descend in July, and spend seven or eight days looking for nits to pick. (Different than the ones we have during the school year!) Fortunately, our financial house is in good order and in the last ten years they’ve made only one change to our preliminary financials.
By the time the auditors leave, we’re racing the clock on the summer projects, the first teachers have started drifting in, and the cycle is about to begin all over again. There’s new employee orientation, First Aid training, benefit forms are coming in, new employees are asking questions, and purchases for classrooms are in full-force, leading to our busiest time for check production. We’re just about ready to wind down for our summer vacation, but look out our windows and see that the parking lot is suddenly jammed solid….
You’re reading this letter four weeks before your school year ends. Your orchestra is building to a thunderous conclusion, and the Business Office quartet just finished intermission. Let me be the first to wish you a happy summer vacation.
Sincerely,
Jeff Wieler
