“Who is your primary competition and how do you compare?”

This is a question that is posed to me multiple times per week by parents seeking to find a school for their child that is not only the best fit but also the best value. It is a perfectly reasonable and straightforward question with a perfectly complicated and hard to articulate answer.

When asked this question I first point out that all I can accurately articulate is what Wakefield does well as I am not intimately familiar with our competition and hence to pass judgment would be akin to spreading gossip. I then expound upon our areas of excellence such as our commitment to the development of critical thinking skills; the development of capable, ethical, and articulate citizens; the environment that allows students to feel comfortable taking intellectual risk; etc. I also generally point out that our main “competition” is the public school system. Yes, we draw students from a number of private primary schools and a portion of our applicant pool crosses over with the pool of other local private schools and boarding schools but, the majority of our applicants are choosing between Wakefield and public school.

It is quite clear what the public schools have going for them – we all have already been paying “tuition” in the form of our tax payments to the county. As a result, it is no small task to demonstrate to a family how their child’s educational experience will be enhanced by attending Wakefield to the tune of $18,000 in additional education expenses. However, the recent economic times have resulted in budget cuts which make that explanation easier. Some of the proposed cuts include :

1. Cutting foreign language in the primary grades; Wakefield students learn French and Spanish beginning in pre-school and continuing through high school.  
2. Requiring a fee, of up to $300 per athletic season has been suggested, that is $900 you don’t have to spend at Wakefield. Cutting assistant athletic directors has also been proposed. That would leave the job of scheduling and overseeing games, transportation, etc. for all teams to the athletic director alone which they acknowledge will have a negative impact on the quality of the athletic program and their ability to offer interscholastic athletics to students at the sub-varsity level.  
3. The ratios of counselors to students is being increased so that in the high school each counselor is responsible for 313 students, at Wakefield a dedicated college counselor is working with 150 students. To pay for private college counseling services akin to those Wakefield students receive would cost between $3,000 - $5,000 per year. In addition to the college counselor each Wakefield student has a faculty advisor who meets with the student each day; each advisor is responsible for no more than 10 students. Further, there is a counselor who works with students struggling with social or emotional issues.  
4. Class sizes are set to increase in most local counties. Presently, Wakefield caps its classes at 18 students in all grades 1-12, the number is even smaller in the pre-elementary grades). Public school classes sizes in the surrounding counties are between 5 – 15 students larger than that.

Wakefield too has been impacted by the economy and has had to make difficult decisions about where to save money during these lean times. However, the difference between Wakefield and the public schools is that we have committed to refraining from making any cuts that will impact the quality of our program. That means that the faculty and staff have signed on, willingly, to work for less pay and to hold non-critical budgets steady so that the quality of the program we are able to offer is not diminished. The reason the faculty have been willing to make such personal sacrifice for the betterment of our school’s students and program is that they believe strongly in the Wakefield mission to “…develop capable, ethical, and articulate citizens who seek the challenge, make a difference, and live an extraordinary life.”

So, how we compare to the competition? We are fortunate in hard economic times to be able to adjust our income and expenses in a way that has not resulted in programmatic changes or larger classes. In terms of dollar value, families will now have to pay for services at public school that are a central component of the Wakefield experience such as foreign language, gifted and talented classes, individual college counseling, interscholastic athletics, learning support, and more. That is not to mention the cuts that public schools have had to make in support areas that will undoubtedly impact the quality of the program that they can deliver to all students. In order for parents to create an experience similar in scope to that which Wakefield students receive on a daily basis they could easily spend upwards of $8000 - $10,000 year on tutors, sports teams, music lessons, mentoring/coaching, and more. What does the other $8000 pay for? It pays for the opportunity to receive these “services” in an environment that has small classes, a clear and ambitious mission that connects the curricular with the extra-curricular, and student development is the concern of all members of the faculty. Providing your child with the opportunity to learn to think critically and communicate those thoughts in an articulate manner is a gift that not only has no price tag but will also last a lifetime.

1  Information is based on proposed cuts to the Loudoun County public school budget
Note:  When this blog entry was originally written, the school budget for Loudoun County public schools had not been approved.