Young School for Wee People (YSWP) had been running a small, for-profit preschool program for young children between the ages of two and four for several decades. YSWP was one of several privately run programs in the suburban Philadelphia area. For each of the three age groups (i.e., two-, three- and four-year olds), there were two classes per day for a total of six classes in the facility each day. The classes were held both in the morning and in the afternoon, five days a week between September and June; there were approximately 200 days (40

weeks), or 1,200 class meetings, per year.1 Only about one-third of YSWP’s local competitors offered classes during the summer months. The morning classes ran from 9:00 a.m. to noon, and the afternoon meetings ran from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Lunch was not served in either class. However, each class served a snack to the children. Class size varied from nine to 15 students per class. Although there was a lot of pressure from parents to reduce class sizes, a recent article in an industry newsletter showed that, given current demographics, the market for such programs could increase by 10% a year for the next five years.

The year before, a parent suggested that the school begin hosting birthday parties on the weekend. Since YSWP’s three classrooms were empty during this time, it seemed like a good use of the space and could generate additional revenue. Over the past year, the school had managed to quickly build a sizable side business hosting birthday parties. Approximately 150 parties were held in the school’s three classrooms on Saturdays and Sundays throughout the year. The parties were typically attended by 10–20 children and ran for approximately four hours. The four-hour running time included the time necessary to set up and clean up the facility. For this service, the school’s main competitors consisted of children’s gyms, arts and crafts stores, and museums. Each had been offering specialized birthday parties for many years and charged very high prices. As a result, YSWP was able to significantly underprice these other firms while maintaining a very high profit margin. In fact, due to the success of the birthday parties over the past year, YSWP wanted to expand this business. YSWP was considering switching the bulk of its advertising campaign from one that was designed to build general awareness of the school to one that was specifically directed at promoting the birthday party business.

1 Each day there was a morning class and an afternoon class for two-year olds, another morning and afternoon class for three-year olds, and a morning and afternoon class for four-year olds.

Current Cost System

YSWP’s largest expense was related to the building (see Exhibit 1 for an income statement). YSWP had initially purchased a single-family home and converted it to a daycare/schoolhouse setting. The house cost $400,000, including $50,000 for the necessary renovations and license applications. Building- related expenses included depreciation, utilities, maintenance, cleaning, property taxes, and so forth. Traditionally, these costs were assigned to the classes on a per class-meeting basis. The building-related costs had not significantly changed since the introduction of the birthday party business. Therefore, no building-related costs had been assigned to the new product.

Salaries, supplies, and food were also allocated based on the meeting, where a meeting was either a single class meeting for three hours or a single birthday party for four hours. The actual cost of supplies and food for all of last year’s birthday parties was $3,000; the actual cost for the preschool classes was approximately $18,000. YSWP had five employees—three full time and two part time. The school’s director earned $50,000, taught two of the preschool classes each day, and administered both the preschool and the birthday party programs. She spent approximately 20% of her time in administration, evenly split between the two programs. The remaining two full-time employees earned $20,000 per year and taught the other four preschool classes. Finally, YSWP had hired two part-time employees to run the birthday parties on weekends, and each earned $5,000 per year. The director had approximately 20 years of daycare and teaching experience, the full-time teachers each had approximately five years of teaching experience, and the part-time employees were college students majoring in child development or education.

As advertising was used to build awareness of YSWP’s presence in the community and affected both products, it was not allocated to either product.

Pricing

YSWP charged $200 for each birthday party, regardless of how many children attended, and averaged a total of about $270 for each preschool class session, depending on the number of students in the class. This was an increase over fiscal-year 2003, when preschool charges totaled only $240 per class session, even though average class size declined from 12 to 10 students.

Each year, YSWP management prepared a budget for the next year that was exactly equal to the prior year’s actual results.

Further Changes

Currently, the children’s day was split up between a two-hour core class and a one-hour elective. The elective aimed to bring new ideas and teaching styles into the classroom. However, YSWP believed that its core competency lay in delivering a solid, core class to the children. This method had been successful in preparing children for the move to kindergarten. Additionally, the elective had not been successful as an experimental setting to test new teaching styles and ideas; in fact, the elective had become merely an extension of the core class. Consequently, YSWP planned to abolish the elective class and only offer the standard, core class.

Additionally, YSWP was considering purchasing a neighborhood school. As part of the expansion, YSWP’s director would have more administrative responsibility. She had hired another teacher to cover her classes as well as two administrative assistants to help with the daily operations of YSWP

Questions

1. Compute the cost of a single preschool class and a single birthday party using the current cost system.

2. Would you recommend that YSWP continue to allocate the building-related costs only to the preschool program? What alternative allocation method would you suggest? Justify your answer. Ignore consideration of excess capacity discussed in question 3 below for this answer. Please discuss any additional information that you feel is needed.

3. For three months each year (June–August), the school building is largely unused except for the birthday parties. This represents approximately 60 days, or 360 additional classes that could be run but are not. How should YSWP account for this excess capacity? Please explain why you recommend this method.

4. Do you agree with YSWP’s allocation method for salaries, supplies, and food? Why or why not? Be specific about any alternative allocation methods that you would consider.

5. Do you agree with YSWP’s decision not to allocate the cost of advertising? Why or why not? Be specific about any alternative allocation methods that you would consider.

6. Compute the cost per class meeting and per birthday party under the assumptions that you have made.

7. How could YSWP use the information from the revised cost information to enhance profitability?

8. Briefly explain the change in the average revenues per class (from $240 to $270 per class between last year and this year). What other information would you collect to help explain the variation?

Exhibit 1

What does the case teach about strategies that enterprises must adapt to in a competitive market?

Here is article:

Vizio and the Market for Flat Panel TVs Operating sophisticated tooling in environments that must be kept absolutely clean, fabrication centers in South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan produce to exacting specifications sheets of glass twice as large as kingsize beds. From there, the glass panels travel to Mexican plants located alongside the U.S. border. There they are cut to size, combined with electronic components shipped in from Asia and the United States, assembled into finished flat panel TVs, and loaded onto trucks bound for retail stores in the United States, where consumers spend over $35 billion a year on flat panel TVs.

The underlying technology for flat panel displays was invented in the United States in the late 1960s by RCA. But after RCA and rivals Westinghouse and Xerox opted not to pursue the technology, the Japanese company Sharp made aggressive investments in flat panel displays. By the early 1990s Sharp was selling the first flat panel screens, but as the Japanese economy plunged into a decade-long recession, investment leadership shifted to South Korean companies such as Samsung. Then the 1997 Asian crisis hit Korea hard, and Taiwanese companies seized leadership. Today, Chinese companies are starting to elbow their way into the flat panel display manufacturing business.

As production for flat panel displays migrates its way around the globe to low-cost locations, there are clear winners and losers. U.S. consumers have benefited from the falling prices of flat panel TVs and are snapping them up. Efficient manufacturers have taken advantage of globally dispersed supply chains to make and sell low-cost, high-quality flat panel TVs. Foremost among these has been the California-based company Vizio, founded by a Taiwanese immigrant. In just six years, sales of Vizio flat panel TVs ballooned from nothing to over $3.1 billion by 2013. In early 2009, the company was the largest provider to the U.S. market with a 21.7 percent share. Vizio, however, has fewer than 500 employees. These focus on final product design, sales, and customer service. Vizio outsources most of its engineering work, all of its manufacturing, and much of its logistics. For each of its models, Vizio assembles a team of supplier partners strung across the globe. Its 42-inch flat panel TV, for example, contains a panel from South Korea, electronic components from China, and processors from the United States, and it is assembled in Mexico. Vizio's managers scour the globe continually for the cheapest manufacturers of flat panel displays and electronic components. They sell most of their TVs to large discount retailers such as Costco and Sam's Club. Good order visibility from retailers, coupled with tight management of global logistics, allows Vizio to turn over its inventory every three weeks, twice as fast as many of its competitors, which allows major cost savings in a business where prices are falling continually. On the other hand, the shift to flat panel TVs has caused pain in certain sectors of the economy, such as those firms that make traditional cathode ray TVs in high-cost locations. In 2006, for example, Japanese electronics manufacturer Sanyo laid off 300 employees at its U.S. factory, and Hitachi closed its TV manufacturing plant in South Carolina, laying off 200 employees. Sony and Hitachi both still make TVs, but they are flat panel TVs assembled in Mexico from components manufactured in Asia.

Union Local School District has bonds outstanding with a coupon rate of 5.2 percent paid semiannually and 19 years to maturity. The yield to maturity on these bonds is 4.7 percent and the bonds have a par value of $5,000.

What is the dollar price of each bond? (Do not round intermediate calculations and round your answer to 2 decimal places, e.g., 32.16.)

Which of the following is true about peer harassment directed toward lesbian–gay–bisexual (LGB) individuals?

a. It is the most intense in preschool and negligible in high school.

b. It has often been linked to suicidal thoughts and attempts.

c. Its incidence has been reduced with the advent of the Internet.

d. It involves homophobic epithets that are not derogatory toward the LGBs. G

1. Would a child’s learning experience during a trip to another part of his or her country be comparable to school learning for that period of time? In what ways might parents maximize the educational benefits of such a trip?

2. With the ever-growing aging population in developing countries, how will changing demographics worldwide impact the travel industry?

(Answer both in detail)

1) What was your first encounter with a nurse? What did you think then?

2) What are your thoughts now that you are in school?

3) What behaviors of a nurse have you witnessed that have NOT been professional? And what will you do to maintain a positive nursing image?

•Must be at least 3 paragraphs with at least 5 sentences per paragraph.

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Research children's health issues, focusing on environmental factors and links to poverty. The assessment of environmental processes includes agents and factors that predispose communities and populations to injury, illness, and death. What correlations did your research show between environmental and health issues in the school-aged child? Make sure to include references to the article(s) you consulted.