Listen Differently

     With the school year well underway, it's time to start planning for next year.

     Once again, you may be thinking that the school year isn't even 1/4 over yet, and we've only started "thinking" about what we're going to be doing for Catholic Schools Week.  If, indeed, that is what you're thinking, you are about a year behind from where you should be...but that's another topic for another day.

     But since the year has started, you might start hearing parents commenting about your schools' tuition.  No matter how many principals I speak with, all of them get frustrated when they hear this type of conversation between parents:

- "I don't know how much longer I can keep paying this tuition.

- I know what you mean.  This year, we got back from vacation and there was a notice that our first month's payment was due!  That was July!

- Where did you go?

- We had great time!  It was a 6 day cruise aboard one of those huge ocean liners...they even have their own private island!

- That sounds wonderful.

- It really was.  By the way, what happened to your Volvo?  I saw you getting out of a Acura.

- It was such a great deal we couldn't pass it up.  And the four-wheel drive will be great in the winter."

     Now, before you say, "That's the same argument that everybody makes.  If they'd only make different choices, then they could afford a Catholic School education for their kids," you need to know where these parents are coming from.

     Parents are members of Generation X.  They're the ones that are skeptical about everything institutional and traditional.  As evidenced from the above conversation, they will pay for quality.  Therefore, the first question you have to ask yourself is, "Is there something that's affecting their perception of the quality of our school?"

     But the other thing you have to do is listen differently.  At first hearing, you may think that these comments are complaints about your tuition.  However, these parents could afford a cruise and a new luxury automobile.  And they're not saying that this tuition is high...they just don't know how much longer they can keep paying it.  Perhaps they could afford to make a major gift to your school.  Doing so could shift expenses from your operational budget to a capital budget, and therefore, help keep the tuition down.   You'll never know what they'll say until you ask.  Of course, you have to be prepared for the "Are you out of your mind?" response (some people think us Catholic school folk are out of our minds anyway).  But you also have to be prepared for the "I've never thought of it that way" response, and be prepared to continue the conversation.

© Michael V. Ziemski, SchoolAdvancement, 2007

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