When I worked for the Baltimore City Life Museums (now defunct), I was
discouraged by the quality of our free school tours and wanted a change. I
decided that I needed both a better design of tours and more highly
qualified staff, but to do all that I would need money.   We talked with
teachers about what they wanted and needed, set up a pilot program with
redesigned tours and recruited new staff, giving them a new name -- "Museum
Teachers."  The new staff were trained in living history interpretation,
storytelling, and using hands-on activities.  None of our 60 or so docents
chose to become part of the program.  We began charging for the tours to pay
for our newly trained staff and some minimal supplies, but still offered our
old free tours

The result of this change was as follows:
*Our new fee-based tours were so good, they forced out the free tours (word
-of-mouth was key).  We came up with a way to allow those schools who
couldn't afford the cost to participate.
*We had a trained staff of about 20 folks, mostly college grads and
housewives who were energetic and skilled.  We were able to utilize them as
costumed interpreteres for all kinds of museum events.
*We used the new activities and new staff for fee-based weekend programs --
birthday parties, Girl Scout programs.
*Within two years, we had grown from no income to $100,000 from school tours
and weekend programs -- enough to pay for all the new staff, a coordinator
for the program and some profit.

The keys to these changes were redesign of tours in consultation with
teachers, high-quality staff who did highly participative tours, and
piloting the program with local schools to iron out wrinkles.

Good luck.  Feel free to contact me if you want to chat

Dale Jones
Institute for Learning Innovation
3168 Braverton Street, Suite 280
Edgewater MD 21037
410-945-5144
[log in to unmask] 
[log in to unmask]

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).