The 2016 Parent Group, myself included, of Totnes Independent School (when it was called TOPS) who lent Huge Sums of Money* to Buy The School Building Must Not Be Treated With Disdain any Longer and Must Be Repaid In Full Without Delay As An Immediate Priority. Their appalling treatment up to now brings the school into serious disrepute and can damage the school and staff's reputation irreparably.
The School Directors of 2016 - R. R. and D. L. - Have Proved Themselves Either Incapable or Unwilling to Achieve A Resolution to Repay Us Over Several Years Now, While Paying Themselves Good Salaries, Including Some Family Members At Times, Totalling Many Hundreds of Thousands of Pounds, While We've Been Left Lumbered.
Now other people are needed to step in where they have failed: senior staff but also all staff who care about the school, parents both present and past, friends, business associates and advisors from other local schools, ex-students who are now adults who don't want their old school to be tarnished by a shady financial dispute.
Where TIS leadership has consistently failed to put together / avoided a resolution, others now need to enable one.
*Loans would be in the form of 'preference shares' we were told at the pitch for the scheme in December 2016.
Very Brief Summary
In December 2016 several of the most enthusiastic committed parents and grandparents of children in the then 'TOPS' (later TPS then TIS) school community with some funds to loan, including myself, a regular volunteer at school events, trusted and welcomed a scheme presented to us by the then directors R.R. and D.L. and within days made very large loans* - £50,000 from my family that we absolutely urgently need back now, some parents loaned double that - for them to buy the building as a permanent secure base for our children’s school.
This followed a long period of insecurity when the school had been at 2 previous rental properties. In subsequent meetings years later parent lenders have confirmed that we understood from the presentation selling the scheme to us that as owners instead of tenants, money would be put aside by the school business, instead of paying rent to a landlord, and that money would accrue to pay us back in full by the end of January 2021, with extra supposed 'guarantees' built in for 'worst case scenarios'.
After our enthusiastic very trusting initial involvement, the scales dropped fully from our eyes in 2020 when after a period of extended caginess from senior staff when asked about the issue of money accruing, we found out in a meeting that we'd pushed for that they had put aside ABSOLUTELY ZERO! Not a penny! to repay us over the previous 3 and a bit years. Plus they'd taken a substantially larger mortgage than they'd advised us of.
We've since faced several years of severe stress (hundreds of group emails and meetings to try to agree a group strategy in person and online, eventually breaking down for various reasons, an expensive solicitor, an attempt at mediation which senior school staff first wasted a lot of our time over then failed to take part in ...) and above all endless exhausting broken assurances and dead-ends.
Overall, the ‘thanks’ we received for buying the building and keeping the business afloat for the last 9 years are to have clawed back only 15% of desperately needed funds, last payment over 2 years ago.
All while the 2016 directors who pitched the scheme to us have paid and continue to pay themselves, and for some periods family members too, salaries totalling many hundreds of thousands of pounds over the last 9 years, from a business that blatantly could not afford to stand on its own feet and make real-life mortgage repayments for the building and pay them and other staff the same salaries. Instead, a scheme involving enthusiastic parents is what has enabled the school to stay afloat and for their salaries to be paid over the last 9 and a bit years.
Our treatment for several years now is a disgusting injustice that makes a complete and utter mockery of the school's alleged 'principles' and those supposedly modelling them.
A Change Of Face Is Needed to Have Any Hope of Success
As stated, T.I.S. in Windmill House literally only stays afloat financially thanks to our 2016 loans that bought the building. While the two 2016 directors R.R. and D.L., whose scheme we went along with to secure the school building for our children and the school community, keep paying themselves, and family members in some cases, they still fail to put any money aside to repay us.
Naively, believing we were part of a caring community back in 2016, and swept up with enthusiasm at the prospect of a permanent base, I innocently assumed senior staff would, out of integrity, common humanity, take pay cuts to repay us if need be, normal in most new ventures. But no, the scheme we naively signed up to back in December 2016 in a rush before Christmas doesn't enforce that on them, and they've never offered it or taken it seriously when suggested.
A supposed 'guarantee' we were given - to raise funds from new parents in the 'worst case scenario' of not enough money accruing to repay us - has not been acted on, despite written assurances it would be 6 years ago.
Further, a recent very long drawn-out remortgage 'solution' was apparently finally refused by the lender shortly before Christmas, after this being used as a rebuttal to us for almost the last year. Another year wasted with no repayment.
The only 'plan' appears to me to be a mix of: doing nothing and ignoring us hoping we stop bothering them; hoping a new lender will magically agree to fund all the repayment due; and above all paying themselves full salaries and avoiding taking any financial hit themselves.
However overly trusting we were in 2016, we surely never deserved to be treated so incredibly appallingly. The scheme we signed up to has paid its creators many hundreds of thousands of pounds since 2016 while leaving us stranded and ignored on the rocks.
Senior leadership has failed to resolve this repeatedly over several years and cannot be expected to do anything different that will alter that pattern. To leave it in the same hands that created this painful conflict and have repeatedly failed to resolve it will mean things get worse very fast in terms of public awareness of the rank hypocrisy at the heart of the school.
So what can be done?
I call on the T.I.S. community - governors, the headteacher, other senior staff, plus all staff and all parents present and past, friends and acquaintances, and ex students who are now adults, everyone who cares about the school - please get informed, discuss at length and get involved to help right this wrong. A resolution needs your input!
Those who care about a fair outcome and salvaging the school's reputation and future need to step in Now, within the next few days - not in a week, or a few weeks, or a few months ... - by committing to group talks one evening in the school to start within 2 weeks with all 2016 lenders invited (many by zoom). This definitely cannot be a top-down managed affair, but a free group meeting, so that there is a chance to work out in the open a fresh agreed pragmatic action plan to resolve this painful mess once and for all.
The steps to a resolution may be difficult, but the only chance of getting there is via a series of group meetings.
As I see it, a resolution will almost certainly have to involve: senior staff taking very substantial pay cuts, and/or making very substantial loans from their salaries and directing the funds into an independently-managed pot for us 2016 parents.
Plus, a new much better-managed and more open shares scheme involving current parents.
Other ideas will inevitably come up from people of good-will, especially with a financial background, within the TIS community to resolve this.
Please respond to me here with your thoughts, and I promise I will respond to you and share info re a group meeting, whether online or in person.