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ABC History — Part 2

How I prepared to start.

My dream to open an English school came true. But that was not my goal, it was just a start.

Just before I opened the school, my father told me, “Never give up once you start something.” “Isn’t that obvious?” I thought, so I replied with a light hearted, “Of course.” But soon I started to strongly feel the real meaning of his words. I began to feel responsible for all of the students who chose ABC English School over the other English schools. If I were to give up on ABC in the middle, those students would have had nowhere to go.

ABC English School turned 17 years old this year. It’s been a long and hard journey. You’ve got to be stable to maintain a school. How can I keep hiring teachers and keep the funds flowing? Always thinking of how to run the school has been extremely stressful. I’ve had many sleepless nights, many gray hairs. I’ve even thought that I might lose all my hair! Even now, after 17 years, I still have stress.

Money is an important factor to provide stability. To earn money, I must secure new students. I started ABC with only 3 students which meant there was no way that I could hire a teacher. So in the meantime, I was the only teacher.

But to accomplish my mission to open a preschool, it was necessary to hire native, English-speaking teachers and assistants. And to hire people, I needed a certain amount of income. By word of mouth, I was getting students little by little, but that wasn’t enough. I had a sign board outside of the school, but no website. So what could I do? I made flyers and traveled around the neighborhood by bike looking for houses with children’s laundry hanging from the balconies. Unfortunately, this wasn’t effective.

So I started to think of what I could do with the existing students …

ABC’s History continues in Part 3!

日本語ではこちらへ。