Job and school under one roof - on-site schools

Nation's Business, Feb, 1993 by Janet Beales

George Tash, owner of a small plumbing-parts company in Moorpark, Calif., doesn't mind that his 13-year-old son, Adam, accompanies him to work every day. In fact, he insists on it. That's because Adam attends school on the premises of his father's company, G.T. Water Products.

Tash's 24-year-old company is housed in a converted warehouse in the industrial district of Moorpark, near Los Angeles. The firm has 30 employees and annual sales of $3.5 million.

The school that Adam and 15 other children of company employees attend is financed entirely by the company and is in an enclosed section of the firm's warehouse. The students at G.T. Private School range in age from 5 te 13 and attend the school tuition-free. Because it is a private school, it is not required to have accreditation by any local or state agency. Nonetheless, its two teachers are highly qualified.

The students spend the bulk of their day pursuing academic interests, but, unlike most students, they study in a most unconventional setting. While their parents are at work assembling and shipping plumbing parts, the children are nearby studying the Constitution, learning multiplication, or writing essays at computer workstations.

In this modern one-room schoolhouse, children of varying ages work individually or in groups at their own pace. A small play area behind the warehouse and a nearby city park provide outdoor space for recreation. Occasionally the class travels to Tash's home to swim in his pool or create plays for the small theater the students built in his orchard.

The length of the workday, which runs from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., matches the school day. Instead of hopping on the bus when school is over, the students commute home with their parents. For the parents, the school constitutes an important employee benefit. "It takes the business from just a workplace to more of a family affair," says Tash.

Like a number of other business owners who have become involved in educational reform, Tash launched his school to create a positive educational experience for his own two children and for the children of his employees.

Similar goals of providing benefits for employees have led to creation of the many work-site schools--some private, others public--in operation across the nation. In Dade County, Florida, for example, the school district created what it calls a satellite learning center as a reform model "because we feel it brings education and business together for the benefit of the children," says Thomas Cerra, deputy superintendent.

To get his private school operating, Tash hired a former Montesson teacher, converted an unused part of his building into classrooms, and filed an affidavit with Ventura County to establish the school. The city council passed a zoning ordinance to allow the school to operate within the company's industrial surroundings, which Tash says was not difficult to accomplish. Once the county inspected the warehouse for health and safety, the satellite school was opened for business.

Tash's annual operating expenses for the school come to just under $50,000, which includes compensation for the schools one paid teacher, school supplies, computer equipment, and visiting instructors who expose the students to music and other subjects that they might otherwise have to forgo. A second teacher, a parent of one of the students, volunteers at the school full time.

Because all the students are children of his employees, Tash's insurance costs for the company remained the same despite the addition of the school. Fund-raising efforts by students and their parents enable the school to afford occasional luxuries such as a recently purchased secondhand piano.

In a number of places around the country, satellite public schools are being launched by private companies, which typically donate the land and building and pay some of the school's operating expenses. For example, four businesses host four public schools on their work sites in Florida. In downtown Minneapolis, IDS Financial Services and Northern States Power Co. jointly established a public school in rented office space near the two host companies. In January, Hewlett-Packard opened a public satellite school at its facilities in Santa Rosa, Calif.

All of the businesses involved in establishing these schools have discovered unexpected benefits in doing so. Tash cites high morale, dedication, and employee loyalty. He says his employees "see we're doing a lot for them; they want to return the favor by putting in that extra effort." He also has discovered that his work-site school attracts desirable job candidates: "People who are really involved with their kids, who want to be near them, tend to be responsible employees."

That lesson is not lost on larger corporations eager to recruit top employees. In Dade County, Fla., American Bankers Insurance Group (ABIG), a private insurance company with 1,100 employees, uses its satellite school as an inducement in recruiting and retaining workers.

Established in 1987 as part of the local school district's efforts to ease classroom overcrowding, the Florida school now enrolls up to 90 children in kindergarten through the second grade. ABIG reports that work performance among the parents of children attending the school has risen substantially as a result of the school. Notably, absenteeism has dropped 30 percent and turnover has declined 9.5 percent among parents as compared with such figures in the years before the school was established, according to Linda Vann, director of Children's Services at ABIG.