The entire Runnels School is closing at the end of the academic year, school leaders announced to parents Sunday, citing a “decade-long decline in enrollment” and other financial difficulties that plagued the 55-year-old school.
The move comes one year after Runnels changed its tuition schedule in a last-minute effort to raise enough money to keep the school open. It’s also been one month since the school announced plans to shutter the high school following the 2019-2020 year.
“The reasons are all fundamentally financial in nature,” school founder Kelly Runnels wrote in a letter to parents Sunday evening, following the board of trustees’ decision to close the entire school. “We are currently millions of dollars behind and to continue the effort will only worsen the situation.”
Over the past 10 years, the school saw enrollment steadily decline by 34% as the total number of students has dropped from more than 800 to about 550. Meanwhile, the high school portion of the school has decreased to fewer than 200 students.
Runnels attributed the enrollment decline to “the current and increasing abundance of good and free schools in surrounding parishes and in charter schools and magnet schools in Baton Rouge.”
Unlike almost all other tuition-charging private schools in Baton Rouge, Runnels is unaffiliated with a church and lacks added financial support from which religious schools benefit.
Last year, high school grades increased tuition by some 43%, but the school still fell short of its necessary monetary goal, even after launching a fundraising drive to cover the remaining gaps. That pushed officials in February to announce the high school’s impending closure.
However, a “more subtle financial hazard” became clear to officials, Runnels wrote, when they attempted to study the details of the planned K-8 school, including already low enrollment projections and an inability to adequately staff the grades.
“The already marginal enrollment in those grades contains a significant number of Monthly Contracts, requiring relatively little cash at enrollment time, with a significant fraction of the payments not due until the summer months,” Runnels wrote. “In practical terms, we cannot force parents to honor those contracts, leaving parents to opt-out of the agreement if they cannot accept (for example) cost-saving efforts by the school. The current enrollment in the Preschool program is woefully short of being break-even, and the usual spring-time influx of enrollments has not materialized, neither at the preschool nor in the elementary and junior high grades.”
Wanting to gauge high school enrollment for next year, officials had previously asked parents to prepay for their children’s tuition and fees for the following year, with the funds being placed into a special account. Those payments will be refunded, though the process could take up to 60 days after restructuring the school’s estate, which would entail selling the school’s property at or near its appraised value.
The campus-wide closure will affect 542 students currently attending pre-kindergarten through high school, as well as 140 faculty and staff members. Officials will continue paying teachers and staff until August, while Runnels staff will help transition students into other schools.
Kelly Runnels opened the independent school in 1965 with three students in his house. The school moved to its current location along South Harrell’s Ferry Road in 1983, expanding to offer junior high and high school the same year and, later, opening a preschool on Jefferson Highway. While he’s retired, Runnels and his wife, Gladys, ran the school together for many years and he kept involved in school affairs, continuing to serve as its nonprofit corporation president.
Runnels School has been well-respected locally for its strong college prep program and commitment to the arts.
