Dear Parents,

This is addressing the concerns of parents regarding the charges for Mindspark (Interactive Math program), the Arts Specialization (AS) Classes and some other concerns. We have met a few parents regarding this and we have received emails and comments from others (which I have used verbatim where necessary). We know there are many parents who have concerns but haven’t necessarily expressed them.

While the original note was sent only to Grades 2-9, we are choosing to send this to all the parents, so that they also understand our values and views on this matter (being a rather important note, this is also being sent in print with the students – as it is a long one, some of you may prefer reading in detail there).

The issue

The basic issue is that we are charging extra money for Mindspark (and for some AS classes) as well as that Mindspark being optional will create issues.

Our short answer

We have decided NOT to implement Mindspark this year. We will continue to offer the AS classes as in the current year (circulars for the new year have been sent).

Our explanation for this decision

When we sent the circular for Mindspark, we didn’t realize that it would be such a big decision for parents. We believed that knowing the school values and trusting our intentions, the majority of parents would be happy to adopt an innovative program that’s likely to enhance learning in Math (based on our research and recommendations after the pilot project).

What we did not anticipate was the significant resistance and misgivings that many parents have. There are a range of reasons for the same. The one that was most important for us was this:

As some parents believe that paying for Mindspark outside of the fees structure is not right, it would mean that some parents would opt for it and some would not. This will lead to unnecessary differences in learning quality and method of the students in the same class and over a long run, this is not good for our students or the school culture.

Since we expected the large majority to take it up, we hadn’t given this issue much importance. We expected the remaining few to also take it up in 1-2 years. But given the reaction and views of quite a few parents, we have decided that going ahead with Mindspark is the not right thing to do.

What follows now is a detailed response to concerns which have been explicitly raised by some of the parents. I strongly recommend that you take out the time to read and understand what follows, as we believe that it is a very important communication on our part.

Our much longer explanation for this decision – where we address specific concerns / suggestions

A. Some parents’ concern:

• “Kindly avoid extra charges for Mindspark and other AS activities (as it has been noticed that the hidden charges are being increased day by day under some or the other heading).”
• “The language reader should also be included under the stationery heading itself.”
• “Earlier FS was affordable for even middle class people, but all such actions are creating differentiation b/w higher class and middle class. It may have a negative impact on tender minds.”

Our understanding of what Parents are saying:

“We are seeing this trend of the school charging extra sums of money for things which were not charged earlier for – such as imprest deposit (for readers etc), AS classes last year, and Mindspark this year onwards. We are worried that the school will continue to charge for such additional services over the coming years, and this is not what the school had promised (whether we can afford it or not is not the issue here).”

Our response:

We understand your apprehensions on this matter. As a school with a vision (given as a footnote here) to deliver an innovative curriculum, we continue researching and learning and implementing new ideas. Readers (which clearly is not stationery) were something that we realized were needed only after we attended a few workshops and did some internal training. We then started using readers 3 years back. Parents were gracious enough in recognizing that this wasn’t promised in the fees at any point of time and were willing to pay for the same apart from the fees (which is now charged through the imprest deposit).

All other parts of the Imprest Deposit are clearly out of scope of the fees – Nature Camps, out of town Field Trips, Late Fees / Library book or Diary replacement fee, all external competitive, diagnostic & board tests & examinations such as Checkpoint, ASSET, Olympiads, IGCSE, etc.

Coming back to Mindspark, while I wouldn’t say that Mindspark is equally important for Math, as the readers are for English language, but we thought it would be a significant value addition. What we are clear about in this matter, is that there is no way that we can absorb the cost as significant as the Mindspark cost within the current fee structure.

Therefore, as a value call, we will from now on, be very careful when offering any extra services which are both a core part of the curriculum and within school hours.

B. Some parents’ concern:

“The school seems to be moving into a make maximum profits mode now by profiting by charging for such additional tools / services, and by doing this is moving away from the original philosophy of offering good quality education.”

Our response:

This is not the case. For Mindspark, we were going to pay Rs. 2000 + taxes to  Educational Initiatives (the company which owns this software) out of Rs. 3200. The remaining Rs. 1200 would barely cover the cost of extra computing devices, networking and internet bandwidth and extra manpower dedicated to this program. And in this too, the costs of the hardware devices are covered over 3 years – which is the maximum life of netbooks when they are going to be used 7-8 hours a day. We welcome any parent to cross check our calculations for this.

The same holds true for all our other “extra charges”: all readers, nature camps, field trip expenses, Olympiads, ASSET, AS charges etc are as per actual expenses – which are paid to various vendors. In fact we don’t account for any overheads (our manpower costs, booking cancellations costs for students who don’t come, infrastructure required etc.) when we charge for all this and we have made some marginal losses in things such as cancellation of trips and travel bookings.

In fact, wherever possible, we try to pass on discounts to the parents. To give an example – let me mention the way our book fairs are conducted. Vendors are more than happy to pass on a percentage of the sales to the school as commission – but the school has consistently asked the vendors to pass on the maximum possible discounts to the parents. Most of you have already experienced that.

Therefore, all of these extra services that we are offering are purely to enhance the quality of education that we can give to our students.

C. Some parents’ concern:

“The mindspark programme should not be optional but compulsory for all the children across all grades. If any program in optional then it should not be kept during school hours thus cutting down the academic hours of the children not opting for it.”

Our response:

We partly agree – as explained in the first page itself, we now agree that something as fundamental as Maths teaching should not have an optional component within school hours. And that’s the primary reason for the decision to not implemented Mindspark. However, we don’t agree that this should be the case with all programs. The school’s philosophy behind longer working hours is to be able to give a wide-variety and good quality exposure to a range of things to students. This is explained with some examples in Point F below.

D. Some parents’ suggestions:

“Offer Mindspark within the fees already charged. Similarly, anything that the school feels is important should be brought within the fees.”

Our response:

The school cannot afford to bring such a significant sum into the school budget. As mentioned above, all (or almost all) of the suggested charges for Mindspark are actually expenses. The school fees and the increment is planned for towards higher HR costs and infrastructure additions (building, furniture, IT, grounds, better equipment etc.). Our fees are still on the lower side compared to IB/CIE schools across India – in fact it is the bottom 10 percentile of the IB schools in India (most of the IB schools charge 2-5 times of what we charge, and even more). And what we offer, and I am sticking my neck out here, is at/above par with some of the better schools in India. Therefore, we don’t unfortunately have the luxury to offer additional components within the school fees. In fact, often schools charging much more than ours, yet charge separately even for basic services as transport, food, stationery.

Coming to other things that the school might find useful – let’s take another example. Given the pace of technological changes and it’s relevance in our lives and education, it is likely that very soon we will require every student to have a personal computing device. This will not happen for all grades at one time, and it may never be a 1:1 program for the Early Years, however, clearly even if this is compulsory, there’s no way that this can be a part of the regular fees. Clearly, parents will be expected to pay separately for the same – and my understanding is that this is also something that most parents will understand that this is the logical and reasonable way – if needed the school believes that personal computing devices will add value to the education of their kids.

E. Some parent’s concern:

“Adopting Mindspark means that the school wants to limit the role of teachers or save on that cost.”

Our response:

Technology can only complement teachers and not replace them (at least for the foreseeable future). Technology enables teachers to deliver more & better in lesser time and focus on the issues that only human beings can deal with. With Mindspark or other such tools, the teacher’s role is that of a facilitator – who guides and encourages the students after choosing & setting topics for them as per the need of the class. As Mindspark is an adaptive software, it lets students choose the level at which they want to work and gives them easier or more difficult problems based on their current performance. Then the teacher monitors the efforts through reports at the back end and talks to students about their performance. The teacher can focus on individuals who are facing some conceptual issues as the technology helps identify that easily. Clearly, the teacher’s role was not diminishing in any way – it was only going to become more valuable.

F. Some parents’ suggestion:

“Don’t charge for AS options such as Guitar, Keyboard, Percussion / Tabla.”

Our response:

Given the school’s philosophy of maximizing high-quality exposure for each student, we want each student to learn one art form to a reasonable skill-level. Therefore while we offer some paid options for the AS within the school hours, the issue is not the same as the Mindspark one. Arts Specialization (AS) classes are very much extra-curricular activities where there are a range of choices available to students. This is apart from the Arts that we offer in the PYP or in the Middle Years (Art & Design) which is the same for all the students. Therefore we are under no obligation whatsoever to provide any of these paid options. By choosing to provide these options, we are incurring extra expenses for the high-quality teachers.

Further, our stand on this issue is very clear – we are charging only for those options where we have visiting faculty coming in – all options offered by our teachers are not being charged for. For us the choice therefore is to either offer these options at an extra cost for those who want to take it up, or else not offer it at all.

We choose to offer it at an extra cost to those who want to take it up.

Further, we are considering options such as Robotics (through Lego / other options), Aeromodelling / Science Club, also as AS options for students – especially beyond Grade 4/5 as there are some students who have very limited interest in Arts beyond a point. These options will require expensive kits and trained faculty all of which will again be at a price.

If the school is expected to provide all of this free, then we just would not even think about it. Doesn’t it make a lot of sense for us to offer it as an option for those who want to take it up?. Others still have other exciting options.

G. Some parents’ concern

• “Programmes like Mindspark and LEAP are drawing a line between children opting for it or not opting which is working against the FS ideology.”
• “LEAP program / differentiation labels can be demotivating for some students’ and may even border on discrimination.”

Our response:

We have already addressed the Mindspark issue. Regarding LEAP (Learning Enrichment and Advancement Program), a program that we started this year to offer challenging learning tasks for advanced students, we partly agree with the parents’ concern. Initially, based on certain criteria, we selected some students to be a part of the program and then offered some extra training and challenging tasks to these students. However, this led to some other students feeling that they were not good enough. As we realized the same, we modified the program. In the last two months, the LEAP workbook has been offered to each student from Sr Kg to Grade 6. What this does is to offer the chance to every student to LEAP ahead if s/he is willing to make the effort. Next year, we intend to further modify the program to make it more accessible to all the students and yet offer students who are truly motivated and capable to keep working on challenging tasks.

Regarding differentiation in the classroom, or through workbooks / worksheets, also there’s the same risk and it has affected some students this year. Differentiation is for the benefit of all the students – but what we intend to do is to again ensure that no student feels left out or that s/he didn’t get a chance to move ahead if s/he is interested and capable enough. We will work on this aspect strongly in the coming year.

H. Some parent’s concern:

“Any programme initiated should be concluded and not discontinued mid-way.”

Our response:

Since this comment does not refer to any particular issue, we can not comment on the same. However, our general philosophy is as follows:

We research into the quality and effectiveness of the hundreds of educational tools that we adopt, and where possible we also do pilot programs, however we don’t necessarily know if it will be fully effective or not in the long run. Therefore we may not continue to run it after reviewing it. Of course if it is useful and does well, then we shall continue to run it. There may also be problems in executing a particular initiative – but again that does not mean that the idea itself is not useful. In such cases, we will improve upon the management of the initiative and take it forward.

So while we start initiatives with the hope that they will work out well and sustain themselves, at times they won’t – and in such cases, the right thing to do is to not continue them for the sake of it!

I. Finally: a possible response to this letter of some parents:

“We are fine paying extra for Mindspark and would not like our children to lose the opportunity to enhance their learning because of the issues mentioned in this letter. We don’t have such issues.”

Our response:

Why we are not adopting the tool as a school should now be clear enough to you. However, this does not eliminate the option of you using the tool at home. You will have the option of taking up Mindspark in retail and give access to your children to such tools. We will provide details for the same shortly through the blog. However, do keep in mind that doing this at home may not be as effective because the feedback loop (teacher knowing where each student stands and working on those areas) remains incomplete.

Further, even with Math tools, we will continue looking for options which can be adopted at no / very low costs (where the school won’t charge anything to the parents), as we shall do for all other areas as well.

We can’t possibly pay for everything from within the fees – but we are not going to stop looking for ways to make learning more joyful and challenging for our children. “Scaling newer heights in terms of curriculum innovation and teaching methodologies” is part of the school’s vision (quoted earlier) and we intend to live up to it! We need to adapt/change with new technology and educational methodologies. What we can implement on our own, we will. What we can not, we will recommend to the parents.

What I can ensure you is that we won’t take the safest way out. When something is important enough to do, we will stick our necks out and take the challenge of convincing you all!

What we have realized is that we need to still work harder to be trustworthy enough so that each parent will trust us on all our future endeavours especially where money is involved. Parents need to trust and understand our values as educating and nurturing a child is all about a strong partnership between the school and the parents. A strong bond of trust between us will ensure the best results for our children. And the onus is upon us to strengthen it and we will work hard to strengthen it.

Regards,

Vardan Kabra

On behalf of Fountainhead School

P.S. There are some other suggestions which were sent to us along with this letter, but which aren’t related to the above issues. I have addressed them separately and very briefly in Appendix A, which follows after the school vision statement.

The Fountainhead School Vision (the school values are also given in the link): Fountainhead believes that learning is a life long process and we therefore seek to inculcate in students, parents, teachers & the society at large, the sheer sense of the joy of learning. We will provide a happy, purposeful, safe and nurturing environment to help our learners develop skills, attitudes & character to achieve sustainable success in life. We aim to scale newer heights in terms of curriculum innovation and teaching methodologies and build an institute of excellence. 

Appendix A

Concerns about Teachers

• We have heard that higher standards don not have sufficient teachers.
• Kindly look into the matter pertaining to teachers as it is now become a well-known fact that FS is facing an insufficiency of the same.

Our response

In the academic year 2012-13, we faced an issue with only one particular teacher in the Middle Years, and that too on health grounds. While there was a period in between when the subjects that this teacher was taking was behind schedule, later in the year, competent teachers made up for the lost time and ensured quality. Other than that during the last year, we did not face any issues with lack of teachers. A very small number of teachers (less than 4 out of a total of more than 100), did leave during the year – but they were all for personal reasons; and we were prepared for backups in all cases but one of these.

Yes, in general, getting good teachers is a challenge. It is not easy to find good teachers – because there is a huge shortage all over India & Gujarat. But our attrition rate has been much lower to industry standards consistently for the last 5 years, despite our longer working hours and really really hard work. And we continue to attract good teachers. Apart from better than market pay scales, we offer superior working environment and a lot of opportunities for personal and professional growth.

If the parents who have raised the above queries would still like the above issues to be addressed in greater detail, I would request the respective parents who have raised these issues to email in greater detail the issues to me so that we can address them better as well.

–

For those of you who’ve got to the bottom of this (literally and figuratively), thank you!