SchoolAdvancement (TM) Helping Schools Advance Toward Their Vision

MARKETING

Click here for this week's free marketing tip, Marketing Matters ^(SM)!

ENROLLMENT

Click here to find out more about BASICS - a FREE TOOL to help bring more students into your school! Enrollment Estimators (TM) are now available for the 12-13 school year!!

DEVELOPMENT

Development Development

A monthly article to help you form a development mindset from a fundraising one. Click here for this month's artilcle!. If you're already developed in Development, and want to advance toward an Advancement mindset, check out Advancementality:. Every week, a new post is made to advance your ability to attain an attitude necessary for Advancement.

PRESENTATIONS

Access to presentations given throughout the year can be found here!

* "Miracle Marketing" - For those in the Diocese of Harrisburg, click here to view or download the presentation. For those in the Diocese of Buffalo, click here to view or download the presentation.

* "Retention: The First Step To Growing Your Enrollment"

For those in the Diocese of Harrisburg, click here to download handouts from the presentation.

For those that attendend the NYSCIRS Conference in Albany, click here to download handouts from the presentation.

For those that attended the Alliance of Catholic Schools of Lancaster County, click here to download handouts from the presentation.

For those that attended the West Virginia Christian Education Association Conference, click here to download handouts from the presentation.

Summer Vacation: The Latest Oxymoron

Remember those days when you were a teacher? My daughter is now a teacher. She teaches in a public high school program in North Carolina. She's back home with us for June and July, and has to be back for the start of school at the start of August.

Now you're an administrator, and because you are, you must now live by these five words - there is no summer vacation.

Why? Are you "winding up" the school year, or is the school year "winding down?" If both are true, then one action negates the other, meaning that activities continue....and they will. Recruiting efforts, financial aid applications and retention techniques are the main focus through the summer, as well as enrichment classes and revitalization. "Summer vacation" has become oxymoronic. Although we may long for the way things used to be, the only thing that we can count on is change, and we must learn to see change as a blessing. It is only through change that we grow. And if we're not growing, we're dying. Remember John 10:10: "The thief comes only to kill and destroy. I have come so that you may have life, and have it more abundantly."

So here are a couple of things to consider for summertime growth opportunities:

1) Your Marketing Advantage

If the public schools in your area offer no full-day K program, and you offer both full and half-day programs, what is your marketing advantage? If the public school only offers half-day, then consider offering only full-day K. When I was in school administration, I heard comments such as, "The children are only here for full-day K, and then they'll be transferring." If these words still echo true in your school today, you must make your Kindergarten experience an excellent one for PARENTS of these children. They are a captive audience. Businesses LOVE a captive audience because it's easier to retain current customers than to find new ones. If you're the one making the comment about the children transferring, refer to the previous paragraph about change, and apply it to your current mindset.

2) Invite!

St. Louise de Marillac Parish in the Archdiocese of Chicago has a board that sends an "invitation to apply" letter to families with five-year olds.

Again - the board sends the invitations...and who doesn't like to get an invitation! It's not a brochure, and it's not just a letter, it's an invitation! An invitation presumes something wonderful, exciting and fun!

That's a great first step...but something's missing. That would be...follow-up. The board can send the invitation, but then you as a school administrator can follow-up with a phone call. If you do, you'll be doing more that about 80% of the schools out there do right now when it comes to following up with parents!

They also have a sponsorship program. Parishioners that do not have children in the school but value the school and the gift it provides to the children of the parish share in the tuition that a parent pays for their child to attend the school. This type of program can be done anonymously so that the family of the child does not know the identity of their benefactor, but is encouraged to "go and do likewise" when they are able.