The Leelanau School – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
I am ’81 Graduate of the
Over the last year we have learned that the school is in severe danger of closing due to declining enrollment and general deterioration in the school’s financial condition.
Those of us who have attended Leelanau are well-aware that the school has preached much of great value – and yet has continually come up short. As we have grown, we have had to consider whether our children should follow us at Leelanau. Increasingly, alumni are choosing “no”. The multi-generational legacies that once marked Leelanau has given way to more and more “new blood”. At the same time alumni giving has all but evaporated – a certain sign of discomfort and discontent.
I do not pretend to have all the answers to what faces Leelanau today. However, I believe it is appropriate to examine both the current path that the school has been placed on by the Board of Trustees, as well as the structural challenges facing the school – both in a historical and current context.
Let us begin with the course of action that the Board as adopted in “realigning” the school.
There are those who will argue that the current focus – that of catering to “those who learn differently” – may be the salvation of Leelanau. To those of you I would like to address the following thoughts:
·
There is no consensus that disorders such as “ADD” and “ADHD” (or, as is the current buzz, “AD/HD”) are a medically defensible or definable condition. While Mr. Hallowell (the Board and Mr. Odell’s “prodigal son”) has certainly sold plenty of books, and has a very nice consultancy established in
· Conflating ADD/ADHD/AD/HD with clearly-definable (and objectively defensible) conditions such as dyslexia is, in my opinion, unwise. In the opinion of many social scientists many (some would argue nearly all) students with a “diagnosed” ADD/ADHD/AD/HD “condition” are in fact products of an environmental problem in the home. This is widely recognized by virtually all experts in the field, including Mr. Hallowell, from his own public statements including those on his web page. The difficulty in making an accurate diagnosis is that parents in such an environment are frequently – if not almost universally – going to under-report or outright falsify the environmental issues that may be contributing to the matter. This is a well-understood problem in every sociological exercise. Dysfunctional families do not make good decisions – while helping those children is laudable, relying on them does not lead to long-term school stability. Indeed, simply removing a child from a dysfunctional family environment is likely to lead to RADICAL improvements – and of course Leelanau, being a boarding school, inherently creates that change. But that begs the question when such improvement appears – was the environment the problem or does the student have an actual, identifiable problem beyond the environment? Indeed, my family situation was severely dysfunctional and I was the one who essentially “forced” my attendance at Leelanau – over my parent’s objections! I can speak from personal experience on this matter – it is frequently not “learning differences” that produce the results, its environmental differences!
·
The wide use of medication, specifically Ritalin (methylphenidate) is particularly worrisome. Having had a nephew in my family who was essentially drugged into compliance with this substance and having done extensive research on it I was shocked to find that chemically it is almost identical to methamphetamine. We know factually that the use of substances in these chemical families – even just once – produce permanent brain chemistry alterations. In fact, we preach exactly this and rightly so when we teach students about drugs of abuse. We also know that Ritalin and its cousins have become a favored drug of abuse among young people – they produce effects almost identical to methamphetamine but are easier to obtain! There is a great deal of controversy over the use of these psychotropic medications in children and it is not possible to predict which way the evidence will eventually come in. It is not inconceivable that it will be found that these medications are in fact extraordinarily damaging – we simply do not have the data from enough grown adults who took these drugs as children to know what the long term (30+ year) effects are. Consider the potential risks in the form of liability to the school should these drugs be found to be unacceptably harmful to young people ten, twenty or thirty years hence.
In short it is entirely possible that the school may be driving itself straight towards a cliff with its eyes wide shut by hitching itself to this cart too closely.
While certainly the adoption of this strategy has permitted Leelanau to remain open for another two years (it appears that the school will be able to operate for 2006/07) whether this goal has been accomplished by making a deal with the Devil is not and cannot - at present - be known.
But – let us assume that none of this doomsday scenario actually comes about. Then all would be well, yes? Leelanau would have found its “niche” and we’d have a nice, stable school with the promised stable enrollment around 100-115 students for the foreseeable future – or so the Administration would lead us to believe.
Unfortunately that is almost certainly not the case, for I believe the forest has been missed while staring at a couple of trees! Indeed, the most recent prognostication by Mr. Odell during alumni weekend – that the summer “enrichment camp” would meet or exceed his projected breakeven numbers – turned out to be short by close to 30%!
In fact Leelanau has been experiencing declining enrollment and a general deterioration of reputation for 20 to 30 years. The good will of the alumni – and their willingness to pony up to the bar both financially and by sending their children to Leelanau - has been squandered. Likewise, alumni are increasingly unwilling to recommend Leelanau to those who they come in contact with.
What used to be a “legacy” school – second and even third-generation Leelanau students – has given way to nearly all “first timers.” At the same time giving has gone completely into the toilet, with a pittance being given to the school in the last year for which IRS 990s are available, and almost all of that from corporations.
This is an abysmal record and speaks on its own to the alumni’s level of discontent with school governance and operational integrity.
To put it bluntly, alumni – those who know the school best – say that the job being done in this area just plain sucks. As a consequence they have abandoned the school financially.
While many excuses have been made by school administrators and board members – from “geopolitical shifts” to “9/11” to the rise of the two-income household – the fact of the matter is that when one looks at other private boarding schools facing the same enrollment and funding issues one finds common INTERNAL problems in all these schools – that is, a lack of accountability, transparency, and vision.
Only extreme myopia allows one to blame everything except one’s own actions for the results that have been obtained.
It is time for the Leelanau Board of Trustees to wake up and smell the coffee.
In fact all Leelanau has done with this “realignment” is trade its old “peer group” for a new one – a group that hasn’t (yet) learned about how Leelanau is actually run and how little integrity it has with regards to its founding purpose and claimed standards.
The school has performed this kind of “peer group shift” before, and we’ve got the evidence on how well it works out.
When the Christian Scientists were effectively ejected by the Board, the group of “potential candidates” was changed and the focus shifted to that of pure college preparatory studies.
Why? The Christian Scientist group was “panned out” – for whatever reason, they did not send either money or students…..
And the second time around? Those alumni weren’t donating money or sending their kids either; they too lost confidence in the school.
Just like the Christian Scientists.
Now we’ve enlisted yet a third group of parents, and we somehow are told that we should expect different results. Never mind that this third group by definition is not a “legacy-building” group – what are the odds that a student who has dyslexia will in turn have a dyslexic child? Certainly small by comparison to the odds that he or she will have a child at all!
Without Leelanau regaining the ability to attract a LEGACY of students and alumni who have confidence in the school both educationally and functionally, it is doomed to eventual failure. The only question is how quickly we will see the school close – not whether it will.
It has been said that one definition of insanity is repeating the same actions over and over again, expecting a different result to emerge simply by repetition. You will find with a bit of research that the author of that piece of wisdom is none other than Albert Einstein – one of the gentlemen who Leelanau has on display in the
The question to ask is this: “Has Leelanau learned anything from Mr. Einstein?”
I charge that the reason the school found itself in its present financial situation had little or nothing to do with 9/11, with shifting demographics, with two-income households or any other external cause.
I believe that the reason the school has repeatedly found itself in this box is that it has put itself there by promoting the four pillars which define Leelanau – all laudable and important statements of what I call “first principles” - and in truth has repeatedly delivered on none of them to a satisfactory degree.
As alumni discover this, they have increasingly refused to contribute to the school or send their own children for a repeat performance of what they personally experienced.
Why?
Because there are other options now – over the last 20-30 years accountability, transparency and choice have all increased at other alternative educational scenarios for parents – whether it be through charter schools, voucher programs, home schooling, more open access to school boards and more effective parent/public school interaction. During this time academic strength available in all these venues of education has also improved.
While Mr. Odell took a cheap shot at “No Child Left Behind” in his presentation, in fact public school performance, choice and accountability have all vastly improved over the last 30 years.
As an example, in Okaloosa County FL I can send my daughter to any of a local public high school consistently rated one of the best in the state, a Christian K-12 school, a Catholic High School or a Collegiate High School (assuming her academics are strong enough to qualify) - where she can there earn both a diploma AND an AA. The
It is parent activism, insistence on transparency and accountability that has made this possible for everyone.
25 years ago I essentially had to force Leelanau to follow through on a promise they made to me to offer something similar to the Okaloosa Collegiate High School program in my senior year – that was a hard-fought battle that quite literally came down to the school either allowing me to have a car on campus and drive myself into NMC for half the day or I would have elected to get a GED, go to college full-time, and deny the school my tuition dollars.
Many if not most will elect, instead of going “to the mat” as I did, to retire from the battle and withdraw both financially and personally from Leelanau, or “knuckle under” but remember quite clearly what they had done to them when its THEIR turn with THEIR children to choose an educational institution.
In short, Leelanau has lost its attractiveness to alumni both for charitable giving and as a place to send their offspring for secondary education simply on the basis of not meeting the competitive challenge, along with a consistent failure to deliver on the claimed first principles of the school.
What is particularly galling in this instance is that Leelanau indeed has not one but four foundational statements which it has carried pretty much since inception – statements of “first principle” that, if followed, would have prevented not only my singular issue from arising but would have virtually guaranteed that the school would not be undergoing the crisis it now faces, because instead of an apathetic alumni and near-zero legacy participation the school would be enjoying legacy students and annual giving sufficient to insure its continued success..
Indeed, these four statements of “first principle” are so well-placed that I believe they form the foundation for salvation of Leelanau as a school – if the Board should decide to actually live to the standards that the school has set for itself.
Specifically:
1. “Straight As The Pine”
Leelanau must make major revisions to what it promises its students – and their parents – with regards to ethics and operational principles. There are a number of reports which concern me from the recent past, including alleged statements by Mr. Odell, the President, to seniors during a senior week excursion. In addition all alumni are aware of how “justice” has been meted out with less-than-reasonable consistency through the years. Finally, most alumni can recount multiple experiences of “less than straight dealing” by faculty, staff and administration during their time as students – personally, it would be hard for me to count the transgressions I believe occurred.
There is simply no excuse for any of these issues – ever.
The foundational principle here is a consistently-applied, strong, and binding code of behavior that is expected from not only students, but also faculty, staff and board members – all published, objective, and with stated and binding penalties for non-compliance that are applied evenly and transparently to all.
This code must be crafted while recognizing that a student who is under 18 years of age – with the school acting “in loco parentis” – is still a citizen of the
Leelanau must adopt a consistent, objective campus justice system, and I suggest that it be modeled upon the one in the “real world”. Certainly, being expelled from a school is at least as serious as an encounter with the juvenile criminal system, and it is arguably more serious – since your juvenile justice record is sealed at 18 yet your educational record follows you for life. As such the campus justice system must provide for the presumption of innocence, the right to trial by jury of one’s peers, an objective set of “laws” governing conduct which allow certain determination before an act is undertaken whether that act is in violation of the campus code or not, the right to confront witnesses and so on.
Next, one must consider the issue of respect – a key element of all adult relationships. We all begin life as a dependant pair; reliant on the transportation of food and water literally all the way to our mouths by others in order to survive. As we grow towards adulthood this inherently dependant relationship must transition to one of respect for and negotiation between equals if we are to succeed in the world around us. If you fail in this part of your mission as in a residential school setting YOU FAIL OVERALL AS A SCHOOL, irrespective of academic or other measures of achievement.
This transition can only occur if all individuals on the campus begin their life at Leelanau as individuals who are respected, and if and only if they prove unworthy of that respect and trust are forcible restraints placed on their range of conduct in the form of sanctions. That it is more difficult to address issues this way rather than use a blanket approach of prior restraint does not absolve the school for adopting the latter approach - which it continually has taken to “solve” these problems. Indeed, it is a direct indictment against the administration and board that for at least the last 25 years the school has been unable to foster mutual respect cemented by trust between student and staff and has instead adopted a position of “demanding respect at gunpoint”!
In addition students must have the right of freedom of speech as guaranteed under our US Constitution, subject only to the limits imposed on society at large, which shall be dealt with under the school judiciary code. For the purposes of this portion of the code, any staff or faculty member must be considered a “Public Figure” because - within the school community – they are. Only when free speech is permitted are abuses able to be freely exposed and dealt with.
The school must adopt a formal code of ethics and apply it equally to all persons on campus, including not only students but also faculty, administration and staff. If, for example, random drug tests are to be performed on students then they must also be performed on faculty, administration, board members and staff as well. It is radically improper to demand that a student pee in a cup for a random test unless the President (and everyone who works for him as well as the board) has done so at least annually – and randomly – without any way of knowing when such a test will be performed. In short, the staff must live to the same standards they demand of the students – or again, you cannot achieve mutual respect based on trust. If you’re unwilling to live to a given code of ethics and standards yourself, you have no right to impose that code on others!
As part of this commitment to mutual respect and trust the School needs to carefully reconsider its policy regarding Internet filtering on campus. I found the filters to not only be offensively overbroad (“Myspace” is a perfectly legitimate site for 14 year and older students to use) but in addition it is programmed to block the display of pages on the web which contain any of a number of words – regardless of context. I found, specifically, that news articles which contained the word “drug” were filtered – meaning that one could not, for example, do research on a pharmaceutical company or potential student health issues! This is obscenely overbroad and is in fact collective punishment by prior restraint – a tactic guaranteed to destroy trust and respect. One need only look at how well the Israelis have fostered “respect” in the Palestinian population over the last 30 years through their exercise of collective punishment to see what sort of result accrues from this approach.
In addition such a policy is completely ineffective – I was able to plug my phone (which has wireless data) into my laptop and completely circumvent the filters – and so can any student. A family which has $43,000 a year to send their kid to Leelanau can afford $20 a month (what I pay for unlimited data through my cell phone) so their children are not subject to this sort of foolishness.
If there have been specific violations of the school’s code of conduct with regards to “social networking” sites like MySpace, those individual actions need to be investigated, charged and sanctioned under the school’s code of conduct.
Collective punishment was attempted when I was a student at Leelanau on multiple occasions and it was NEVER successful. It served only to destroy trust and respect and must, as a matter of school policy, be expressly forbidden. I sat through more than one “silent hour” in the dorms as an attempted means of getting someone to “rat out” a person who had committed some offense – the only effect it had on me and those around me was to cause the immediate and permanent destruction of ALL accrued respect for the staff involved.
You can force someone to comply with your demands at gunpoint, but in doing so you run the risk that if they are ever able to wrest your weapons from you they will be turned upon you without mercy. It is far wiser to instead foster a community of mutual trust and respect such that threats and brandishing “weapons” are not necessary.
I have a model for such a school “justice” and ethics policy and procedural guidelines, and would be happy to share it on request. It involves the students and staff acting in what amounts to a jury role, with all present subject to the pool just as citizens are. It further involves a written, objective code of conduct which applies to all persons involved in any official capacity with the school – including faculty, staff, administrators, board members – and of course students.
If you’ve taken from this section that any deviation from “Straight As The Pine” results in the destruction of mutual trust and respect, you’re correct. It has, does, and will. There is no escaping this truth, which is why Leelanau adopted this statement as one of its foundational pillars originally.
The school desperately needs to return to its roots and BE “Straight As The Pine.”
2.
“Sturdy As The Oak”
Leelanau must, to be blunt, get its financial house in order. The current debt situation is intolerable and it is clear that there is no current plan in place – contrary to Mr. O’Dell’s statement at the alumni dinner – to actually pay down the existing note. Being “under consideration” does not constitute a plan, and without a documented and communicated plan to return the school to fiscal solvency you are asking alumni and others to throw money down the toilet.
It should not surprise you that the response to this sort of entreaty has been non-existent, and you will not succeed until and unless there is an actual plan in place which you both communicate and are willing to be held accountable for.
Those who are able to contribute didn’t amass the funds to do so by being stupid; insulting our intelligence will not result in our checkbooks opening wide.
The school’s fiscal priority must be, quite simply, to first extinguish the line of credit and then rebuild the endowment. Only with a secure endowment and a retired operating line of credit can the school consider undertaking a capital mortgage; without a stable means of guaranteeing payment of substantial parts of the school’s operating costs instability in the school’s financial posture cannot be repaired!
Financing physical plant improvement is important but must be done in a manner that does not place the school’s continued existence at risk. Under no circumstances can the school’s Board allow the acquisition of long-term secured debt to be accumulated to cover increasing operating shortfalls, and this is doubly true of the use of secured, callable lines of credit. One of the first principles of successful financial management is that you do not use debt to cover a depreciating or transitory expense unless you can document that over a realistic period of return that the principle, along with a market-based rate of return, will be earned by said expense. This has simply not been demonstrated to anyone’s satisfaction as of this time.
In short, the alumni have been given no fiscal plan we can examine and judge - without providing that to us you cannot earn back the trust necessary in order for us to begin to make donations to the school with reasonably certainty that our funds will both be effectively spent and that we are donating to a good and just cause.
3. “A Clear Fire”
One word – transparency! When this phrase was coined, that was what was intended – and it needs to be the new buzzword around Leelanau.
This has been woefully and intentionally ignored by administrations both past and present.
This must change, and it must happen now.
There is no reason under the law for Board Meetings not to be recorded, minuted, and available to all faculty, staff, students and alumni immediately. The board is able to use a “closed session” for committee matters where it is necessary to retain confidentiality due to the requirements of law (e.g. some employment situations, HIPPA, or health related issues, dealing with threatened or actual lawsuits, etc) but in general as alumni, students, parents, faculty and staff this is our school, not yours, and we have a right to know what is going on!
The key principle to keep in mind is this – without us – alumni, parents and students - the school ceases to exist!
In addition, I believe it is appropriate for the board to publish all annual balance sheets going back to the inception of the school and to pledge that all quarterly balance sheets shall be published as soon as they are reviewed and passed by the board (or whatever committee within the board oversees this process.) While this is not required by law if Leelanau expects Alumni to both send our students to the school and make donations we have every reason to demand that full financial statements be made available.
I can view GE’s financial statements before I invest money in the company, and can view their annual reports essentially to the founding of the company. There is no reason whatsoever that Leelanau should be considered by any donor as a worthy charitable organization if they cannot see at least as much information as is required to be published by any public for-profit enterprise!
The current practice, going back years, of deferring the IRS-990 filings to the last possible second must end. The school has repeatedly filed extension after extension, when the fiscal year has long since past. There is no reason for this, other than a bald-faced attempt to hide the true condition of the school’s financial picture from prospective student families and potential donors.
The need for transparency also extends to the student and staff judiciary process. Since Leelanau is not a public school it can (again) require that FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) requirements which would prevent such a stance from being adopted be waived by all prospective students and their parents as part of their application procedure, and set forth the reasons why. In addition Leelanau can require its faculty, administration and staff to sign an employment agreement setting forth these principles as a condition of employment.
As a specific example of the sort of problem described here, the recent action by the board to adopt the precise opposite position regarding board actions must be immediately reversed.
It is not possible to monitor compliance with the stated goals of the school, the quality of its execution, or the wisdom of the decisions of the Board or the administration, nor can students, parents and alumni be assured that alleged violations of the code of conduct are dealt with fairly without this general principle being followed to the maximum extent possible in all matters relating to the operation of the school.
In addition we, as alumni, need to be able to trust the statements coming out of the administration. Mr. Odell put forth a projection for the summer “camp” at the Alumni Dinner – a camp due to start in only a couple of weeks – which turned out to be off by thirty percent, and below his own claimed break-even numbers!
No alumni or other person should consider sending their children to Leelanau or donating money to the school unless they can be assured of FULL transparency in the school’s operation in all respects – including but not limited to financial, judicial, policy-making and operational.
4. “A Clean Hearth”
In short – apologize and own up for your past sins – or, as is sometimes said in slightly less-polite company, “Take out your own trash.”
Those of us who have been at Leelanau know that none of the above has been the order of business there for a very long time – if ever. If the school wishes to acquire our trust and respect, then it must admit to what has been done wrong, in detail, document how it has been uncovered, explain how the damage will be repaired (if it can be), and show how future similar sins will be prevented.
While I am hesitant to use Christian principles here, there is a clear analogue. In order to be forgiven a sin in the Christian faith you must do three things:
· Admit you have sinned
· Make restitution (penance) for your sin(s)
·
Vow to sin no more
Without all three, forgiveness is not yours.
Leelanau simply must live to its founding principle of “A Clean Hearth” – and right now that means some serious summer trash taking-out needs to be done, and then the broom, dustpan, spit and polish must follow.
The problems that have plagued Leelanau in regards to student enrollment and charitable giving are not simple, they did not arise overnight, and they will not be solved in a day.
True solutions to these problems do not come by finding “a new niche” – that’s just trading one group of suckers who have wised up for another who has not yet learned the truth due to their lack of experience.
In short, it is a trade of wisdom for ignorance.
That’s a poor way to run any business – and Leelanau is, underlying all of the euphemisms, a business. In order for it to remain operational, it must in the end deliver more value for the dollar than competing opportunities.
Leelanau competes not just for students, but also for alumni dollars and recommendations. The school has come to the brink of failure not because it has lost its relevance, requiring a realignment to find it once again, but because it has squandered the goodwill that it had every opportunity to acquire with every student and family who has walked through the front door of the administration building on their first visit to campus.
If Leelanau is to acquire the trust of the alumni, regain the legacy of student families being educated at the school, grow the endowment, pay off its debts and ultimately survive then it MUST not just TALK about these four “first principles” – it must LIVE them.
I fully realize that most if not all of this document sets forth a path for Leelanau that will be foreign to the school’s trustees, its faculty, staff and administration. Much of what is printed here is likely to engender an immediate, even visceral response.
Nonetheless, I believe it is the correct – and essential – path forward.
From my point of view hypocrisy is unacceptable, especially when you have your hand out asking for my money.
If Leelanau wants me to give to the school, then this Alum insists that the school address the above issues. Without meaningful reform and transparency I see no reason to support the school in its mission with my hard-earned money.
For me, it really is that simple.
I also believe it is appropriate for the LAO collectively and other alumni individually to adopt the same posture.
Today I am not a member of the LAO, as I require the same sort of concrete goals and plans of action from it as I do any other organization – and as of today, they have not yet adopted a concrete, consistent platform of action that I am able to support.
Indeed, this letter is being published openly for the precise purpose of attempting to rally others, including the LAO – towards that cohesive, concrete plan of action, with the goal being Leelanau’s prosperity.
As I explained to Mr. McNutt on Saturday evening during Alumni weekend, while I love the school I insist that if I am to become a part of keeping it solvent and functional that I obtain an honest bargain for the money and/or effort I donate. While I have no particular desire to see a developer own Leelanau’s 600’ of shoreline, destroying my Alma Mater in the process, I am acutely aware that when I check into the Homestead and pay for a condo for a week I give them a fixed amount of money and get exactly what I was promised in exchange – the use of a condo for a week.
Leelanau is competing for my charitable donations with other organizations and causes that do offer me complete transparency and a strong, even inviolate ethical backdrop. I can (and have) bought thousands of dollars worth of food and distributed it to homeless people in Chicago – with the knowledge that every last nickel actually went down someone’s throat and none was siphoned off and misused. Why? Because I watched the PB&Js be consumed with my own eyes after making them with my own hands! I have done extensive work on family law reform, all without taking a nickel of anyone’s money, and once again, I know that every bit of my money and effort went towards the cause as intended. I have applied effort towards other political matters, including public access on state land in
Today, Leelanau fails in this comparison for my charitable giving, and as I’m sure the school is aware, both money and time are a finite resource.
Each year I allocate my charitable giving from the “top down”, rating each organization that I would consider giving resources to (whether money, time or both) on the above principles. To date, Leelanau hasn’t even come close to meeting my criteria for acceptable transparency and operational ethics.
But tomorrow, the school could easily get there – simply by living to the four “first principles” that I saw plastered upon the wall of the
Perhaps equally important, Leelanau must meet all of the above standards – without exception – before I would consider sending my daughter, now nine years old, to the school.
After all, this is what you “sold” me when I attended the school – but you, by my evaluation, both at the time and 25 years later, did not deliver it. Absent those four core values, even the highest-quality academic education is a poor bargain.
In the end, it is my (and other alumni and parents) evaluation that matters – what the board thinks is, quite honestly, irrelevant, as you’re not the ones writing the checks. You just cash them and disburse the funds.
As someone who has found his own area of success, is now retired, and has the means to write the check, this should deeply concern the Leelanau board and administration.
I look forward to a constructive response and engagement on the issues herein.
Submitted respectfully;
Karl Denninger
Class of ‘81