Volunteering Discounts Community Question: Could LFSF offer a discount to families who agree to volunteer a substantial number of hours w/ the school? ● This is an interesting and creative idea as it may generate more community engagement ● Offering a payment in return for giving time to the school could open the school to employment law issues
French Discounts Community Question: Could LFSF offer a discount to French families? ● FAIS uses this approach to, on a case by case basis, align its tuition rates with ours and remain financially competitive. ● LFSF is already the most affordable French US school of the Bay area. ● In a competition against public schools, a discount would never make LFSF as affordable as public schools. It would however, continue to impact our overall budget and may translate into a higher tuition for the families who cannot benefit from such a discount. In conclusion, this is not a strategy that is currently being considered.
Endowment Community Question: Does LFSF have an endowment and how does it work? ● Finance Committee to answer live
Live Community Q&A
Q&A As a reminder: ● At any time during this meeting, please send your questions via the Q&A panel ● A moderator will read your questions in the Q&A session ● All questions will be open for the community to see ● Please be respectful of other community members, administration and board members. We are here to share information and discuss LFSF ● We will answer as many questions as possible until 9:00PM. Any remaining unanswered questions will be answered in writing in coming days
Closing
Key Takeaways ● Record-high inflation combined with the need to compensate our teachers + operating expenses increases drove the record-high tuition increase ● The Private Independent School Market is more competitive than ever, but LFSF has a unique value proposition that delivers best in class outcomes ● LFSF’s tuition is lower than all comparable bilingual schools in the Bay Area ● All three campuses are critical to LFSF’s long-term success. Work will continue to improve each campus’ experience ● AEFE Convention status is an asset for our school and demonstrates our commitment to an authentic French education ● We need to invest in our facilities to keep up to date with the latest pedagogical and educational strategies ● LFSF strives to transparently share data with the community at all times. We will improve our community engagement and welcome your feedback
The Road Ahead ● THANK YOU to each parent for attending and for the great questions ● We heard that these are the top three concerns for the community: better communication, sustainability and predictability, and increased transparency. ● The Administration and Board are committed to improvement and growth, and encourage you to continue asking questions either to the Administration or the Board Directly (through Ask the Board form) ● As part of our effort, we hope that this meeting and others like it going forward have provided each of you with increased awareness ● A key feature of our school is our community, so thank you again for your participation