I have held my tounge during this fiasco over the last week or so, but since I keep seeing posts that are totally inaccurate or misinformed, as well as accusations being thrown ive decided to give my 2 cents worth. A recent post laid claim that “The current Administrator of this page is no longer affiliated with the school and may very well be part of the problem”. I know where that was directed, but since I am the current administrator, not the person this was meant to berate, I would like to assure you that I have not been deleting posts. I have allowed all posts, and read them. Anyones opionion is that, their opinion, and I have not and will not delete them whether I agree with them or not. That is not the purpose of this page. But the time has come for some of the truths to be known, since someone that is very dear to me was brought into this in an unflattering manner. I do have a question to the person that wrote that. Why arent you asking the question as why posts have been deleted from the OFFICIAL Ryan page, when someone posted something the school didn’t like? Parents have come to this page to become more informed of what is going on since those posts with questions and concerns were deleted. Since my fiance was a teacher there during this I kept my mouth shut as I was reading some of the innacurate things being posted, but since a former alumni whose mother still works there decided to sling mud, I had no choice but to reply. For the majority of people that are in this group, we have a place in our hearts for Ryan Academy. We either were former students or current parents of children going to Ryan. We have all had our own experiences, whether good or bad, that have etched in our minds what we feel. I want to make one thing perfectly clear here. The posts that people have shared, whether good or bad, do not change that fact that everyone on here has a love for the school. The problem isnt or never has been the school itself, but with the people since Mrs. Ryan sold the school that have plundered it numerous times into submission, whether due to financial greed and/or stupidity, or the lack of real business skills to keep it afloat. I was in the class of ’83. Ryan had expanded to an upper and lower school, and my senior year, received at least a 30% increase in students due to the closing of Brubaker Academy (forgive me if the spelling of the school Is incorrect). Since I did not go to Brubaker I cannot give the reasons for it closing, but one can only assume there were some hardships that led to the administration not opening the doors for the ’82-’83 school year. Whatever those hardships were, they had the courtesy to not provide a subpar education to the students that were attending and made the choice before the school year started not to open, giving the parents time to make sure the students could make other arraingments for their education. Lets remember for a second here, IT’S THE STUDENTS THAT MATTER. Ryan flourished for a couple of years after I left, but after that, there have been owners of the school that have not had the students best interests at heart but their own financial ones. Now before you want to blurt out “well it is a business and businesses are supposed to make money”, im not arguing that fact in the least. Mrs Ryan had a business, watched it grow, but at the same time had a vision of what education should be for the students attending her school. She was strict, at times downright scary when you are a 11 year old and being called to her office. But rest assured, she had her students best interest at heart and it showed. Unfortunatley this has not been the case since she left. Lets jump to present day. When my fiance, Ms. Albee started 5 years ago, the current administration was into their 2nd year of running the school. The owner of the property is the father of the principles wife. It is a family business. Things were looking up. But over the last 5 years attendance has gone down. Ryan, for what was being offered other than education……sports, music, band, etc, could not compete with other schools, some of which were and still are less expensive. Last summer, a new business plan was implimented with the suggestion and help from teachers and parents. As any business person knows, things don’t happen overnight, it takes a couple of years minimum for that plan to come to fruition……. Advertising, and the most important ad of all, word of mouth. Ryan has only a few teachers but their dedication and expertise in helping these kids learn is well respected amongst the current and past parents. These teachers are not compensated at all in comparison to the work they provided for the school and its students, but did they complain? No because they loved the kids. Most of them called Ms Albee mom. They had and still have a true affection for her and a few others that have taught there over the last few years. Ms Albee has a PHD, had and currently can work making 15 times the amount of money she made at Ryan, which believe me is just a couple thousand above poverty level, but that didn’t matter. Her passion as well as a few other dedicated teachers was doing just that…….teaching the kids, your kids, better than they could get at public school, better than they could get at most private schools. They truly loved their job and your kids. This year started with rumors from the end of last year of possibly not opening, but they did. After Christmas break, it is announced that they are letting go of the art and middle school teacher, Ms Lemay, due to budgetary concerns. Should not the budget have been able to forsee that they could not afford the teacher before the school year started? The principle would take over all of the middle school classes, art classes, and English classes that he currently was teaching which led to the fact that in order to accommodate all those classes, he had to teach the high school english classes with the middle school kids sitting in the same room in the form of a study hall. They also had to combine the entire school to do gym together and did away all together with art history. That’s when the parents asked for a meeting with the board of directors and administration to have their concerns answered, but the adminstration refused and deleted the PTO posts on the official Ryan page several times. Following this, one teacher quit, and parents starting asking for transcripts to take their kids to other schools. Only then did a meeting get called by the administration. Yes tuition went down this year to attract new children, but that was factored in. So where is the money? No students have been lost to my knowledge over the course of this year, so why the need to cut? Any well run business realizes that to grow you need to go through pains at times. Take the hit in the short term but know fully you will reap the benefits if your product is good. How can you provide a good product if you don’t have adequate number of teachers? The parents pay for a product and they expect results. Heck, the teachers were just told they could no longer use the copy machine because of costs. I know Ms Albee, myself, numerous other parents and alumni have poured their own blood sweat and tears, as well as hard earned dollars into helping ryan stay afloat. Heck, last summer there was an end of the year trip to the outer banks…the owner of the property tried to make us pay, and I mean us, Ms Albee and I for the damage he claimed the students caused. Of course Ryan academy did not offer any financial help in helping us defend ourselfs, we paid out of our own pocket for legal protection….. and did we complain? No. we do anything and everything we can for the school, for the love of the school, for the students that go there. Don’t you think the school administrators should show us the same courtesy?? As recently as last week factions at the school have been giving 2 to 3 versions of what is going to happen at the school. The manager of building blocks says the principle wont be back next year and 3 of the current staff will also run the school, the principle said that most likely the upper school will close but 2 staff members can stay next year, then a 3rd version that every thing is fine and the school will continue to be open. It is apparent that there is an internal power struggle, and the losers are the kids. In closing, I hope that one day someone will run with the future vision Marion Ryan had for her.. Im sure there will be a lot of posts after this, im sure a lot will want to disclaim what I have put here. So be it, but sometimes the truth hurts, and this is the truth.
Posted on: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 18:58:40 +0000
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