FYinSK - May 2013

May 2013

Context:

NGLOW was build in the building of a former daycare called KINDERSCHULE and when my boss bought the school, the kids did not all stay, as expected, so merging with the school upstairs was a good solution to fill in the holes.

GLENVIEW Academy, the school upstairs had changed name 5 times over the years (Dongtan only exists since some 7 years ago, so that’s a lot of quick changes) and most of the patient mothers had stayed in even throughout those changes. There were some 40 kids left that had planned to stay until their graduation from kindergarten. Buying the school seemed a good deal for my boss, as it would add 40 kids.

What really happened: 

Glenview had already received the money from all the kids for the semester until September (some 5 months worth of money that NGLOW would not get, but that the boss of Glenview already had swallowed up). Furthermore, as we merged, only some 26 kids came down. That’s like 14 kids that not only did not come down, but asked to be reimbursed by NGLOW for the months they had paid in advance. As NGLOW had bought the school, the debts came back to the school in full.

The change was NOT smooth. The principal of the school upstairs didn’t tell the employees that she was selling the school, they just came to school on a Monday, and then by the end of the week they figured that the school was closing down. No one was prepared. The teacher of the class I took over was fired so I could teach it, two teachers came down. The kids of Glenview were used to just yell and run around everywhere and had no manners at all. My class was the « dumb » class no one expected anything from, from what I heard. 

NGLOW had a branch director and a manager, and so did Glenview. Well instead of keeping our managers, as the school was NGLOW anyways, they made the bad decision of keeping it in plan for a few months, and have the four of them stay. Because of that, from that point on, we had conflicting information from everywhere and no consistency. Glenview teachers, as their superiors were still there, were not doing the clean cut between the old school and the new one, they were using material we did not use and did not adapt well to NGLOW. The managers were always trying to keep Glenview as it was, and our managers were working hard to conciliate everything. Money wise, that was a stupid idea too. Why pay 4 managers?? Was the school rich enough to spend?

Anyways.

It was a very noisy and straining transition.

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