I wrote this article using my personal experience as owner and principal of school, in-charge of teacher training and human resource development in not-for-profit organizations. You are invited to share your experience, opinion and suggestions relevant to the subject.
If you have some interest in Education, you might have thought about establishing your own school that fulfills your dreams about education. Starting your own school can be a thoughtful as well as time-consuming process. It requires a strong vision, clear objectives and dedication of the individual or a group. If initiated correctly in an organized way, your school may be a success even in early years and benefit the community too.
The following steps, in general, are useful in starting your own school:
1. Develop vision and goals of your proposed school: Determine what is your vision of a school and what goals do you have in your mind. I would suggest write down clear vision statement of your school and list up concrete objectives. The vision statement must be broad enough to reflect values of your school and why it exists. Remember who are the target community and why it is important to reach out to this community. Think about the long term goals and objectives of your school. This can be done through developing annual, five-year and long-term plans of your school.
2. Establish an Advisory Board: It is helpful to invite an appropriate group of committed individuals to be the members of school’s advisory board. The members must have strong professional skills in various technical areas and should know that they are expected to serve in best interest of your school. I would prefer the people who have earned good repute among peers and community and they can contribute in terms of new and progressive ideas. The board should be able to work as a team in order to help the school get started and gain acceptance from the community.
3. Seek Legal Consultation: There are many legal matters that your school must deal with in starting up. it is sometimes helpful to seek a lawyer, an education official or someone who has already established a school. They can help you with registering the school with education authorities.
4. Chose Name for Your School: Before registering your school, you must choose a name. It will be helpful to research list of schools registered with education authorities to make sure that the proposed name is not already being used. The name may reflect your vision and values of the school.
5. Select a Suitable Location for Your School: It is very important to carefully select location of your school. While selecting the location, you may consider:
- Presence of other schools in the proposed location
- What grade levels are already being offered
- Any gaps noticed in terms of access, quality, values, safety or cultural needs?
- Availability of a suitable building for your school (in case you plan to hire a building)
- Cost of construction of your own building (in case you plan to construct the school on your own land)
- Expected enrolment
- Availability and access of staff to the proposed location
- Availability of other facilities e.g. road access, water and sanitation, playground, internet, food and other supplies.
6. Determine which grade level you plan to offer: Once you have carefully deliberated over the location, think which grade level you plan to offer. It depends upon needs of the community where you have planned to start the school. You may initially start with pre-school grades only. Usually, it is a good idea to focus upon certain grades e.g. primary grades only as it is easy to manage your school in the early years. However, it entirely depends upon your plans and feasibility of running certain grade levels.
7. Ensure Availability of Appropriate School Requirements: Though provision of school facilities depends upon certain factors like level of the school and location, however, the common requirements may include the following:
- Availability of school building
- Sufficient size and seating capacity of classrooms
- Library
- Resource room
- Science labs
- Art room
- Language lab
- Computer lab
- Meeting room
- Hall
- Playground
- Principal’s Office
- Admin office
- Sports room
- Assembly arena
- Staff accommodation (if required)
8. Buy School Supplies: Upon availability of funds, you should buy and furnish your school with quality school supplies. Though this is not an exhaustive list of supplies, some common items are listed below:
Furniture (student chairs and desks, office furniture, cupboards, racks and shelves, writing boards, notice boards etc.)
- Labs equipment (science equipment, computers, art and drawing materials, language materials, furnishing of labs etc.)
- Books for library (books from various categories for staff and children, reference books etc.)
- Stationery (admission register, accounts registers, attendance registers, forms, examination sheets, vouchers, fee receipts, letter templates, letterheads, pencils, markers, notepads, paper, visitors’ book etc.)
- Communication (telephone sets, fax machine, cell phones, scanner, photocopier, printer, TV, internet)
- Sports items and toys
- Other supplies (kitchen supplies e.g. electric kettle, coffee machine, utensils etc.)
9. Hire School Staff: Hiring is the key element for your school’s success. Your school’s performance, repute and success mainly depend upon your hiring for the school. Since I have been part of the hiring process in many organizations, based on my personal experience, I would recommend consider the following when hiring staff for your school:
- Invite committed professionals to be on the interview panel
- Develop clear and precise interview format and scoring sheet
- Organize a mock session during interview (e.g. ask candidate to deliver a sample lesson, give a candidate a situation and ask him / her to respond to the situation)
- Give a written test relevant to position requirement
- During the interview, try to assess whether the candidate:
- is a true team player
- has a positive attitude
- has relevant qualification and skills
- can work under stressful conditions
- will stay with your school for a reasonable period of time
- can support you and other staff in technical areas, where appropriate
- can take lead on organizing various activities and events where possible
- can promote a culture of learning, collaboration and respect in the school
- is aligned with vision, mission, values and objectives of your school
10. Write School Prospectus: Draft school prospectus and share it with advisory board for final approval before registration. Contents of the prospectus may include (but not limited to) the following:
- Name of the school
- Vision, mission, values and objectives
- Names, introduction and messages of the advisory board
- Administration and organizational structure
- Salient features of the school
- Programs and grade levels that school offers
- Description of School facilities
- Curriculum you will follow
- Detail of proposed co-curricular activities
- Schedule of tests and exams
- List of social and religious events
- Code of conduct for students (and may be for staff)
- Scholarship facility if any
- Fee schedule
- Admission policy and procedure
- Admission form
- Some general rules and regulations
- Contact information e.g. telephone numbers, email, website
11. Draft Bylaws (where applicable): Bylaws act as a guiding document that determines structure, power, and organization of the school. The bylaws help resolve and minimize disputes and conflicts and should be available to advisory board and school staff for ready reference. Though it varies depending on the needs of your school, some general information included in the bylaws may be:
- Vision, mission, values and objectives
- Registration information
- Members and qualifications and length of memberships
- Board size, roles and responsibilities, structure
- Structure of board meetings
- Committee Structure
- Duties of other office holders
- Procedure of decision-making
- Mechanism of conflict resolution
- Authority for termination of membership
- General financial procedures
- Other as necessary
12. Register Your School: After an appropriate name is chosen and the bylaws are written, it is necessary to register your school with respective education authorities. The documents to be submitted will vary between provinces and regions, but in most cases the following information may be required:
- Ownership of the school
- Advisory board
- Grades with enrolment details
- Fee details
- Names and qualifications of staff members
- Details of school building
- List of facilities e.g. classrooms, labs, library, playground etc.
- Rules and regulations / bylaws of the school
13. Hold Periodical Meetings of Advisory Board: Once your school is legally registered, an initial advisory board meeting should be held. The board members should officially adopt the bylaws in the first meeting. Later, set up schedule to conduct periodical meetings of the school’s advisory board.
14. Set Up An Accounting System: All organizations including schools need an effective system for recording where money comes from and how it is used. It is important to put an accounting system into place to deal with the bookkeeping and reporting requirements. You may develop a cash based accounting system to:
- record revenue when added to a bank account
- record expenses when cash withdrawn from the bank.
However, you may seek advice from accounting professionals in order to maintain accounting system that closely matches to your needs. It may be a good practice that all financial transactions are documented and recorded into financial journals by the bookkeeper. Transactions should be numbered appropriately and put in chronological order. It is good to keep copies of thank you notes for every donation received. Misuse of money should be strictly prevented with the help of effective and organized bookkeeping practices.
15. Further Steps: Once the previous steps have been completed, you may follow few miscellaneous steps in order to further strengthen your school. Some of these include:
- Invite volunteers to work with your school. Volunteers may support your school in working as substitute teachers, delivering motivational speeches, developing work plans, organizing school events and reaching out and becoming your school known in the community.
- Hold social events to spread your message and get your school recognized.
