News
BUSINESS SCHOOL
For-profit Camelot Academy must watch the bottom line
Published in: The Herald-Sun
Page: B1
Date: Tuesday, November 02, 2004
BY ANNE KRISHNAN: akrishnan@heraldsun.com ; 419-6642
When it comes to running Camelot Academy, director Thelma Glynn is strictly business.
Her private school in Durham is, after all, one of only a handful of K-12 institutions in North Carolina operating as a for-profit company. "It doesn't matter how great the education is; if you don't have a solid business, it doesn't matter," said Glynn. "You have to have a business first to put the education on top of it." But Glynn, who founded Camelot more than two decades ago to serve bright and gifted children, puts plenty of her energy into educating the school's 80 students, as well.
As with any small business, customer satisfaction is a top priority, she said. She preaches to her staff that earning an A from parents isn't good enough -- she wants A-pluses. "People aren't committed to us for 13 years at a time," she said. "It's incredibly important that we be hitting the mark well." The school's re-enrollment rate is 80 to 90 percent on a year-to-year basis.
For-profit, or proprietary, schools are most common in Florida and California, said Jim Williams, executive director of the National Independent Private Schools Association. Miami-based NIPSA counts 18 of its accredited schools in Florida and more than 30 in California, but only three in North Carolina, including Camelot. Williams estimated that there are 1,000 to 1,200 proprietary schools across the United States. "They're really performing a very positive service," he said.
Some schools are corporate, offering franchising and multiple campuses, Glynn said. Others, like Camelot Academy, are mom-and-pop businesses. The nine-classroom school occupies an 8,000-square-foot house at the corner of Proctor Street and Vickers Avenue. "This has very much become a family business and one person's life work, as if I had opened a clothes store downtown," Glynn said. And because Camelot is a small business, it has great responsiveness to consumer demand, she said. With Glynn as the sole owner, she said, there are no directors to satisfy and no hidden agendas. "We're extremely clean and streamlined and student-centered," she said. But the for-profit status has its challenges, as well. Glynn prefers to describe Camelot Academy as taxpaying, rather than for-profit, because the school must pay property, income and sales taxes. Camelot paid taxes of $5,502 last year on its building at 809 Proctor St. "It comes right off the top of our budget," she said. And Camelot can't raise funds through endowments or capital campaigns, because the school isn't recognized as a charitable entity, she said. Instead, she must charge tuition that's high enough to meet Camelot Academy's overhead, including an emergency fund. With tuition ranging from $6,250 to $8,250 depending on grade level, Camelot had overall revenue of about $750,000 in 2003.
Camelot Academy's teachers undergo an extensive application process, but the school can't offer the kinds of salaries its veteran educators would receive in the public schools, Glynn said. As a result, she tries to offer high-value benefits, such as free tuition for staff members' children, summer and after-school employment opportunities and competitive health and dental plans. Beyond that, "They have to be people who value what the job can give them other than a salary," such as small classes and a supportive administration, Glynn said. The school has 12 full-time teachers on staff.
Glynn first became involved in education as a psychology undergraduate at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. There, she worked with Julian Stanley, founder of what was then called the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth, a precursor to programs like Duke University's Talent Identification Program, or TIP. "That's where I really started to find my passion," Glynn said. "It was very exciting to work with kids who learn differently and learn quickly." In 1982, she and four other graduate students came to Durham to join TIP in its second summer and attend Duke. Soon she perceived a need in the market for a school that focused on meeting the needs of gifted students. Glynn was working as a nanny for a child with attention deficit disorder, and she saw how frustrated he was by the restrictions put on him in school. "He was a very bright little boy, and yet school was not a happy place for him at that point," she said.
At the same time, Glynn says she was disenchanted with her graduate studies in educational psychology and with TIP, which provided programs for gifted children during the summer, then shipped them back to their home schools for the rest of the year. Then the twenty-something graduate student saw a little house for rent across Roxboro Street from Durham Regional Hospital. "With all my naivete, I rented that building and started a school," she said. Glynn said she didn't purposely select a for-profit over a nonprofit model. "I grew up in a family where my father was an entrepreneurial type, and I didn't know this was an unusual model at the time," she said. "I got my business license and hung up my shingle." She opened the school with a summer camp in 1983, and her first group of 19 students started classes at Camelot Academy the following fall. Glynn has revisited her choice of for-profit status for the school more than once over the past 21 years, but each time she has decided to continue it.
Many founders choose the proprietary model to be free of the bureaucracy found in other public or private schools, Williams said. Proprietary schools that later convert to nonprofit status most often do so for succession reasons. "It becomes a problem of what happens to the school if the owner passes away," Williams said. "Oftentimes, the only solution to that is to go nonprofit."
Chapel Hill and Durham families make up Camelot Academy's primary market, but the school draws from Cary and Raleigh, as well. All of Camelot's students are classified as bright, Glynn said. About 27 of Camelot's 80 students receive merit-based scholarships awarded to the most gifted students. A similar number receive need-based financial aid.
The scholarships for top students are a business expense that, in the end, serve to market the school, Glynn said. "It helps create the community that is attractive for other people," she said. "Like any small business, you've got to find your niche and be good at it to have existed as long as we have."
Business of the week
Camelot Academy
* What it is: a for-profit private school for students in kindergarten through 12th grade
* Location: 809 Proctor St.
* Employees: 15
* Owner: Thelma Glynn
COPYRIGHT by The Durham Herald Company. Original copyright 2004. Copyright renewed 2005. All rights reserved.
For-profit Camelot Academy must watch the bottom line
Published in: The Herald-Sun
Page: B1
Date: Tuesday, November 02, 2004
BY ANNE KRISHNAN: akrishnan@heraldsun.com ; 419-6642
When it comes to running Camelot Academy, director Thelma Glynn is strictly business.
Her private school in Durham is, after all, one of only a handful of K-12 institutions in North Carolina operating as a for-profit company. "It doesn't matter how great the education is; if you don't have a solid business, it doesn't matter," said Glynn. "You have to have a business first to put the education on top of it." But Glynn, who founded Camelot more than two decades ago to serve bright and gifted children, puts plenty of her energy into educating the school's 80 students, as well.
As with any small business, customer satisfaction is a top priority, she said. She preaches to her staff that earning an A from parents isn't good enough -- she wants A-pluses. "People aren't committed to us for 13 years at a time," she said. "It's incredibly important that we be hitting the mark well." The school's re-enrollment rate is 80 to 90 percent on a year-to-year basis.
For-profit, or proprietary, schools are most common in Florida and California, said Jim Williams, executive director of the National Independent Private Schools Association. Miami-based NIPSA counts 18 of its accredited schools in Florida and more than 30 in California, but only three in North Carolina, including Camelot. Williams estimated that there are 1,000 to 1,200 proprietary schools across the United States. "They're really performing a very positive service," he said.
Some schools are corporate, offering franchising and multiple campuses, Glynn said. Others, like Camelot Academy, are mom-and-pop businesses. The nine-classroom school occupies an 8,000-square-foot house at the corner of Proctor Street and Vickers Avenue. "This has very much become a family business and one person's life work, as if I had opened a clothes store downtown," Glynn said. And because Camelot is a small business, it has great responsiveness to consumer demand, she said. With Glynn as the sole owner, she said, there are no directors to satisfy and no hidden agendas. "We're extremely clean and streamlined and student-centered," she said. But the for-profit status has its challenges, as well. Glynn prefers to describe Camelot Academy as taxpaying, rather than for-profit, because the school must pay property, income and sales taxes. Camelot paid taxes of $5,502 last year on its building at 809 Proctor St. "It comes right off the top of our budget," she said. And Camelot can't raise funds through endowments or capital campaigns, because the school isn't recognized as a charitable entity, she said. Instead, she must charge tuition that's high enough to meet Camelot Academy's overhead, including an emergency fund. With tuition ranging from $6,250 to $8,250 depending on grade level, Camelot had overall revenue of about $750,000 in 2003.
Camelot Academy's teachers undergo an extensive application process, but the school can't offer the kinds of salaries its veteran educators would receive in the public schools, Glynn said. As a result, she tries to offer high-value benefits, such as free tuition for staff members' children, summer and after-school employment opportunities and competitive health and dental plans. Beyond that, "They have to be people who value what the job can give them other than a salary," such as small classes and a supportive administration, Glynn said. The school has 12 full-time teachers on staff.
Glynn first became involved in education as a psychology undergraduate at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. There, she worked with Julian Stanley, founder of what was then called the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth, a precursor to programs like Duke University's Talent Identification Program, or TIP. "That's where I really started to find my passion," Glynn said. "It was very exciting to work with kids who learn differently and learn quickly." In 1982, she and four other graduate students came to Durham to join TIP in its second summer and attend Duke. Soon she perceived a need in the market for a school that focused on meeting the needs of gifted students. Glynn was working as a nanny for a child with attention deficit disorder, and she saw how frustrated he was by the restrictions put on him in school. "He was a very bright little boy, and yet school was not a happy place for him at that point," she said.
At the same time, Glynn says she was disenchanted with her graduate studies in educational psychology and with TIP, which provided programs for gifted children during the summer, then shipped them back to their home schools for the rest of the year. Then the twenty-something graduate student saw a little house for rent across Roxboro Street from Durham Regional Hospital. "With all my naivete, I rented that building and started a school," she said. Glynn said she didn't purposely select a for-profit over a nonprofit model. "I grew up in a family where my father was an entrepreneurial type, and I didn't know this was an unusual model at the time," she said. "I got my business license and hung up my shingle." She opened the school with a summer camp in 1983, and her first group of 19 students started classes at Camelot Academy the following fall. Glynn has revisited her choice of for-profit status for the school more than once over the past 21 years, but each time she has decided to continue it.
Many founders choose the proprietary model to be free of the bureaucracy found in other public or private schools, Williams said. Proprietary schools that later convert to nonprofit status most often do so for succession reasons. "It becomes a problem of what happens to the school if the owner passes away," Williams said. "Oftentimes, the only solution to that is to go nonprofit."
Chapel Hill and Durham families make up Camelot Academy's primary market, but the school draws from Cary and Raleigh, as well. All of Camelot's students are classified as bright, Glynn said. About 27 of Camelot's 80 students receive merit-based scholarships awarded to the most gifted students. A similar number receive need-based financial aid.
The scholarships for top students are a business expense that, in the end, serve to market the school, Glynn said. "It helps create the community that is attractive for other people," she said. "Like any small business, you've got to find your niche and be good at it to have existed as long as we have."
Business of the week
Camelot Academy
* What it is: a for-profit private school for students in kindergarten through 12th grade
* Location: 809 Proctor St.
* Employees: 15
* Owner: Thelma Glynn
COPYRIGHT by The Durham Herald Company. Original copyright 2004. Copyright renewed 2005. All rights reserved.
