Buying without a procurement department
A private school has no sealed-bid statute, no board warrant cycle and no mandatory pre-bid walkthrough. A business manager or director of finance and operations can agree a scope and a start date in a fortnight. That speed is the whole advantage of this segment — for you and for us.
What a private school actually costs to clean
Private school buildings are typically smaller and simpler than public ones, and cleaning productivity runs higher — roughly 3,000–4,000 square feet an hour against 1,500–2,500 in a public school. But per-building overhead does not scale down: supervision, equipment, insurance and management cost about the same on a 16,000 square foot school as on a 60,000 square foot one. A small school is therefore priced above the per-square-foot rate you would see quoted for a large one, not at the bottom of it.
As a working range, a 16,000 square foot independent school runs from around $28,000 a year at a lighter service level with school-supplied paper goods, to $38,000 or so at a full nightly specification with consumables included. Anything materially below that is a contractor who has not counted the restrooms.
Diocesan and network schools
Parochial schools frequently sit inside a diocese that may buy centrally, may delegate to each school, or may do both. If your diocese coordinates facilities, one conversation can cover a dozen buildings and take the per-school cost down materially through route density.
Route density is the quiet economics
Four schools within a 25-minute drive of each other share supervision, equipment and cover for unfilled shifts. One isolated school 40 minutes from anything else carries all of that alone. If you can introduce us to neighbouring schools, the price improves for everyone — that is not a sales line, it is how the cost structure works.