New School Year 2010

The school year started in mid-May. All of the foreign teachers are back - Anna, Harry, Dash and Yuliya (who is temporarily out giving birth) and they have been joined by a Singaporean and Noni, a Thai who was educated abroad is teaching elementary class. Many of the Thai assistant teachers have not returned and the Thai language teacher has also left. Interestingly Oi, the ex-Principal, has also left. Babek was hired as a consultant to assist in curriculum development for the newly formed middle school. At the beginning of the school year he was present but currently he is in Canada taking care of his terminally ill father. So what is the feeling at the school? Babek has certainly made some positive changes. The school looks better and the teachers were enthused about his vision of creating a very high quality school with accountability and transparency. Willem, Champoo and Pattana have been temporarily filling in the void left by Kn. Oi however, being self proclaimed volunteers, it is obvious they can not maintain the role indefinitely and a new Principal will need to be hired. On the 28th of May a group of parents and Noni got together to discuss reforming the PTA since the "subcommittee" idea did not work. The two main concerns raised at the meeting were that the library had been commandeered by the office staff because the office had been turned into a middle school classroom and there was no Principal and no news about the position. Interestingly, on the 1st of June, only 3 days later, the parents received a letter from Pattana stating that the library will be restored by mid-June and that there is a search underway for a Principal. It seems as though the administration is starting to take an interest in the concerns of the parents!

Along those lines, I would like to offer my own recommendations as to how the school can be improved that I believe most parents would agree with:

Board - the Board needs to be a functioning group. Since nearly 50% of the children at the school hold foreign citizenship, the excuse that "the Thai Ministry of Education does not allow foreign board members" just doesn't hold water. Obviously the school has to ask for an exception to that rule or a work-around has to be devised. Secondly, term limits must be enforced. If I am not mistaken, Pattana is on his 11th year even though the charter for the school states no one can be a Board member for longer than 10 years (which even seems excessive.) I propose no one can be a board member for longer than 4 years and elections are held every year. The idea that Board members should be able to select their own friends to board positions is another idea that has had its day. Board members need to be selected from those who sincerely have an interest in improving the school, voted on by the parents, teachers and current board members. There needs to be a Thai teacher and a foreign teacher on the Board. Third, the financial situation of the school is still a closely guarded secret which is at odds with the idea that the school was set up as a non-profit organization. In the charter, the Treasurer needs to provide parents with a financial statement but over the years we have been attending this has NEVER happened. Transparency with the funds is of the utmost importance. Fourth, when the Board meetings do take place, parents need to be advised of what was decided so there should be a monthly newsletter with a summary of the previous month's Board activities. Fifth, set a rule that if a Board member misses a certain number of meetings she is automatically dismissed. If a Board member doesn't have time to attend the Board meetings, she shouldn't be on the Board.

Principal - the role of Principal needs to be clearly defined as well as our expectations of what this person will do for the school. As experience has shown, putting an inexperienced person in that position leads to disaster with parents taking their children out of the school within a year or two.

Thai Teachers - the rate of Thai teacher turnover is still abysmal. It appears that the school does not value them and feels they can be treated like cogs and replaced whenever they are dissatisfied. My recommendation is to hire the best - a Thammasat U or Chula U graduate and pay them an amount they couldn't get elsewhere. Hiring recent grads from Rajapat at terrible salaries hasn't worked because as soon as they get a year or two experience they look for work elsewhere.

Food - the food has gotten better but is still only slightly better than terrible. If the parents are going to have to pay additional money for the food, the quality needs to be improved - a glass of fresh juice, pizza or spaghetti on Friday, organic vegetables, etc.