I currently have 2 children at Fairmont Preparatory - one will be senior soon and the other will be…read moresophomore. This is a typical private run high school, uniforms, smaller classes, college prep curriculum. I sent my kids here because I felt they take student safety as well as opportunity for learning, seriously. The tuition was always high, and every year it would increase 4-5%, typical of private schools. 2 years ago it was sold by the owning family to a conglomerate (named ISP or "International Schools Partnership"). Since then, many of the great teachers or people around the school, have begun leaving. The emphasis is now on creating a "glossy image" for the school to appeal to high income international students and their families. The have focused heavily on making everything look orderly, and making the student population look diverse (it is not). There is less emphasis on the actual curriculum (resulting in cutting down on classes offered) and less encouragement of school clubs. Due to this combination of unfortunate factors, teachers are leaving left and right. I cannot blame them. The school has increased tuition for this coming year by 11%, citing "maintenance needed for air conditioning, and more, etc." to the campus. While they have increased tuition by 11% for every student, they are cutting teacher salaries. If they increased tuition, to keep the teachers, it is something parents would understand and have to accept. To be told tuition is going up at this rate, and to know that teachers are all being told to take a pay cut - raises the question - where is all this money going? It is not benefitting the teachers, and not benefitting the students. I can only imagine it lining the coffers of I.S.P. and the management salaries of those who work there.
I feel we are now stuck - I don't want to move my kids and upend their school life. I used to be able to "recommend" this school to parents who wanted an option for a private school. I do not recommend this school anymore, because the current owning company is only interested in increasing their profit, and promoting all their portfolio of international private schools, rather than actually caring for each campus, the happiness and motivation of the teachers, and the offerings and education for each student.
I will be very fair. If you a family from outside United States and would like to send your child to an expensive international private school through a student visa, I believe you are the target market. They can place your child with a host family or house them in a dorm, and bus them to school, etc. This will cost you yearly about the same as a US Private College tuition, but if money is not an object, this will not matter. You are the most important target market for I.S.P., and your child will attend Fairmont Preparatory with many other children just like them. This is not derogatory- my children have many international student friends, precisely due to this marketing strategy which heavily influences the student population.
If I had known another entity would purchase the school, raise tuition, and order pay cuts for teachers (again, where is all the money going then?) which then causes an exodus of great teachers, then I would have looked for another private school for my children's high school education.
