American Boychoir School to close

The American Boychoir School, which was founded in 1937, is closing its doors after struggling to raise enough money to maintain operations for many years.

The head of the school’s board of trustees announced the decision in a letter to supporters today, citing steep enrollment declines.

“I am writing with difficult news about the American Boychoir School. Over the course of the summer, our anticipated enrollment for the 2017-18 school year declined unexpectedly. Students whom we had expected to return decided not to do so, and our recruiting efforts for new students failed to materialize at the levels we had seen in recent years,” the letter reads.

The school would  only have 19 to 21 boys enrolled for the opening of school, according to the letter written by Rob D’Avanzo.

“This is at best the bare minimum for us to be able to present a professional choir that is up to our standards. In addition, at that level of enrollment, the amount of tuition we can expect to collect, after taking into account substantial grants of need-based financial aid, would be sharply lower than we had anticipated,” D’Avanzo wrote. “Even with the continued generous support of the ABS community, the anticipated revenues would not support our operations, which include the satisfaction of our obligations under our Chapter 11 Plan of Reorganization. We worked very hard with our committed staff to try to fashion a reduced-cost “break even” budget within these revenue constraints; it just could not be done.”

Enrollment and budget projections for this school year are only part of the problem,  D’Avanzo wrote.

“As I explained last spring, to be in a position to open the school confidently this fall, ABS needed not only to finish last school year with a balanced result (which we did, thanks to an outpouring of contributions in May and June), but also to raise additional funds as working capital to give ABS a cash cushion that would carry it through the fall semester, while we waited for holiday concert revenues and contributions to cover operating costs,’ he wrote. “I told you then that ABS needed to raise a substantial portion of that working capital before this September. We have worked diligently to try to locate additional working capital from our donor base, and we have had some limited success.”

The school sold its property on Lambert Drive and moved to a campus in Plainsboro, only to move from there to the Rambling Pines Summer Camp campus.

The school does not have enough working capital to get through the fall semester, he wrote.

“When the lower enrollment and related lower tuition revenue are taken together with the constricted cash position, the conclusion is as clear as it is unpleasant: ABS does not have the cash it needs to open the school and cannot reasonably anticipate revenues that would allow it to finish the school year if it did open,” he wrote. “If the school were opened in that position we expect that we would be forced to close it within one or two months. We cannot do that to our students, to their families, or to our staff.”

On Monday evening,the school’s board of trustees decided that the school cannot be opened this fall.

“We will proceed to wind down operations as soon as practicable, return all tuition deposits, notify Rambling Pines that ABS will not renew its lease, address the impact on our staff and students, and cancel all concert commitments,” he wrote. “I know this is deeply upsetting news for all of you, just as it is deeply upsetting for all of us. We regret the result for our students and for our staff, and for our long history as an American music institution. We simply could not see any other way. After all of our financial struggles over the past several years and a successful year of operations in 2016-17, we are stunned that our enrollment was not what we had anticipated it would be and that we do not have confidence that we have the resources to continue.”

 

6 Comments

  1. Please follow up this report on the employees of this school who were only told yesterday that they did not have jobs to go to this year leaving them in the dark is precisely why this institution is doing so poorly. Incredibly poor management is to blame and the students and faculty suffer.

    1. What total and irresponsible nonsense. The school has faced declining enrollment for years. ABS has been generous to a fault allowing any boy with talent to attend regardless of his financial condition. Most students were on either full or partial scholarship. The ABS board is of course composed of very talented and distinguished individuals who have donated their time and effort to keep the school alive. The delay in notification only occurred because the board was working until the 11th hour in hopes of saving this treasured institution. I might also note the parents who complained the most were the ones who did the least to help keep the doors open. My son was unimaginably enriched by attending this school. We thank the Board, especially Rob D’Avanzo, Fernando Malvar Ruiz, Fred Meades and all the teachers who gave everything they had to this wonderful school.

      1. Knowing many of the outstanding leaders of the American Boychoir School personally, and knowing of the very high quality of experience the boys have there, and the dedication of both faculty and administration – I can be very certain that Mr. Percarpio describes the situation accurately, not Mr. “L” who seems to have an axe to grind.

  2. Really sad news. Such a good school. Sad to also learn that the Princeton Latin Academy went under a few years ago.

  3. Sad that multiple local people wanted to add substantial financial support in 2016 and were unable to procure a meeting to discuss despite multiple attempts.

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