When the School Your Employees Rely On Closes or Changes
When the school a community of relocated families depends on closes or changes, the company needs two things: an honest, independent view of the alternative, and a plan that helps families make the move. Bringing in a third party early can do both, and can give the company more say in what the next school offers.
In many assignment locations, a company’s employees end up concentrated in one school. It may be the only international school in town, or simply the one families recommend to each other. That works well until something changes. The school announces it will close. It’s sold to a new owner. It loses its accreditation, changes its curriculum or can no longer take the number of students the company expects to send.
For HR and Global Mobility teams, the practical problem arrives quickly. Families need somewhere for their children to go, and often there’s only one realistic alternative. The emotional problem arrives as fast.
The Rumor Mill Starts Early
When families learn that they’ll have to move to a school they didn’t choose, a story about that school usually forms before anyone has looked at it closely. “The other school isn’t good.” “Nobody we know sends their children there.” Some of it may be true. Much of it is usually secondhand.
Companies sometimes describe this stage as change management, and that’s a fair description. The writing may be on the wall about where the children will go, but how families arrive at the new school matters a great deal, both for the children and for how employees feel about their assignment.
Responding to rumor with reassurance from the company rarely settles it. Families reasonably assume the company has a budget interest in the outcome. What tends to help is an independent assessment by people who know schools, shared openly with the families.
What an Assessment Does in This Situation
We’ve been asked to assess the school a company community was about to move to, at the moment the school they loved was closing. The work had three parts.
First, a genuine assessment of the school: its curriculum, teaching, facilities, support services and how it would serve these particular children. A third party can say plainly where a school is strong and where it falls short, and families can see that the company is taking their concerns seriously.
Second, a list of what would make the transition easier. In that case, one of the things the families valued most at their old school was a counselor the children trusted and visited regularly. The new school didn’t have one. That’s the kind of gap an assessment can identify before the first day, rather than after.
Third, presenting the findings to the families directly: what will be different, what the new school does particularly well, and what the company is doing to help with the transition.
You May Have More Bargaining Power Than You Think
When a company is about to bring a significant number of students to a school, that’s a meaningful share of the school’s enrollment and income. Particularly where the school is a for-profit institution, the company is in a position to ask for things.
In practice, that can mean agreeing on what the school will put in place before the students arrive: a counselor, additional teaching staff, stronger hiring standards for teachers, English language support, or learning support for students who need it. Knowing what to ask for depends on knowing the school, which is where an assessment comes first. Our earlier piece on for-profit international schools explains why ownership matters when you’re weighing a school.
Questions Worth Asking Early
If the school your employees rely on is changing, these questions are a good starting point:
- How many children are affected, at what ages, and when does the change take effect?
- What are the realistic alternatives, including local schools and online options, and do they have places at each grade?
- What do families value most about the current school, and does the alternative offer it?
- Are any of the children receiving additional support, and can the alternative provide it?
- What could the company reasonably ask the receiving school to put in place?
- Who will explain the decision to families, and when?
How Bennett Helps
Bennett assesses schools, school systems and individual students for companies when a decision about schooling carries real cost or real consequences for families. In a school transition, that can include visiting the school, recommending what to negotiate for and presenting findings to employees. You can read more about our independent school assessments for employers. If the problem is a location where good options are scarce to begin with, our group move consulting covers remote and hard-to-staff locations, and What Is International School, Anyway? is useful background on what the label does and doesn’t tell you.
Bennett is never paid by schools, so our assessment of a school is never influenced by referral fees.
Facing a School Change?
Tell us what’s happening and how many families are affected, and we’ll talk through how an assessment and transition plan could work.
Talk to us about a school assessment →
Bennett International Education Consultancy works directly with hundreds of families each year across the globe. We support families by helping them make informed decisions about the best-fit schools for their children; with our guidance, they secure placement in preschools, private day schools, public/state schools, boarding schools, colleges and universities, including schools with particular programs, such as special needs support.
