CO Charter Student Recruitment
February 26, 2015
Agenda
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Strategic Drivers – Why Parents Choose
The Yardstick Process
Enrollment Strategies
Customer Service
Who's Involved?
Eat, Sleep, Play & Worship
Strategic Drivers
There are a number of different factors that contribute to a parent’s rationale for choosing a Charter
School. A few of them are outlined below.
Academic performance is critical
to student recruitment and Charter
Schools can customize an
enrollment campaign to specific
content areas and grade levels of
their greatest enrollment needs.
In the midst of budget cuts, school
closures, and Common Core many
schools have limited or eliminated
extracurricular activities which
provides a tremendous opportunity
for all Charter Schools.
Parents often believe in the importance
of focused individual attention to their
children that can only come from a
school with a low student to teacher
ratio.
Smaller Class
Sizes
Academic
Performance
Better
Education
Why
Parents
Choose
Extra Curricular
Activities
Transportation is a driver for
parental choice. This creates a
heightened priority considering
that many charters don't offer
transportation.
Safety
Transportation
According to the
Friedmont Foundation
in Nov. 2013, 81.3% of
parents choose a
private school because
they believe it offers a
better education than
their public school
options.
Parents value Safety over almost
all else as they seek to ensure
that a school provides a safe
learning environment for their
most precious cargo.
The Yardstick Process
Our hands-on recruitment process celebrates the uniqueness of each
school in order to sustain strong enrollment.
Competitive
Benchmarking
Ambassador
Recruitment
Targeted
Outreach
Track, Assess,
Revise
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Competitive Benchmarking: At the onset of the project, the Yardstick team partners with schools to collect as
much information as possible on the schools most competitive with their schools. We then define a targeted
list of most vulnerable competitors and listed every venue for potential student capture (Cheat Sheet)
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Ambassador Recruitment: The next phase of the project is to collaborate with school leaders and their
recruitment teams to select organizations that have the most frequent interactions with families in order to
recruit their leaders to serve as ambassadors throughout the community on behalf of each schools.
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Targeted Outreach: In addition to attracting families via strategic partnerships, we also outline enrollment
projections for all upcoming community events and target our outreach based on greatest potential
outcomes.
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Track, Assess, Revise: The cheat sheet's projections are then compared to actuals and reviewed throughout
our engagement to assess effectiveness and determine alternative strategies.
Enrollment Strategies: Targeted Outreach
Successful enrollment campaigns begin with a clear articulation of goals
followed by an implementation strategy that drives the specific tactics.
Recruitment
Effectiveness
Assessment
Differentiation
Indicators
Parent Facing
Representatives
– WHO?
Eat, Sleep, Play,
Worship,
Community
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Event Effectiveness Assessment: We will walk you through simple formulas to calculate your weekly enrollment
targets and the effectiveness of enrollment events so that you have a clear understanding of what works and
what doesn’t.
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Differentiation Indicators: Based on your individual school’s enrollment, charter schools must understand who is
your school’s competition as well is how your school differentiates itself from your competition.
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Parent Facing Representatives – Who?: Anyone in direct connection with parents and potential parents is a key
driver of an effective enrollment team. Administrative Assistants and school personnel selected to attend
outreach events need to be carefully vetted and trained prior to interacting with any potential parents.
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Eat, Sleep, Play, Worship, Community: This deck outlines engagement strategies to target each of these five
outlets to decision makers in your school community.
Calculating Weekly Enrollment Targets
A highly effective enrollment campaign needs to be managed with quantitative
enrollment objectives. The below formula helps to calculate your weekly targets
and needs to be revisited each week as the target number can compound
and/or shrink depending on your enrollment success:
1.Current enrollment minus students loss to graduation = Remaining Enrollment
2.Based on historical data, calculate an average re-enrollment rate
3.Re-enrollment rate multiplied by remaining enrollment = Actual Enrollment
4.Total Capacity minus Actual Enrollment = Number of New Students Needed
5.Number of New Students Needed multiplied by historic shrinkage (Shrinkage is
the percent of student that enroll that actually convert into students) = the True
Number of students needed to recruit
6.True Number of students needed to recruit divided by the number of weeks left
in your recruitment cycle = Weekly Recruitment Target
Recruitment Event Effectiveness
Assessment
Given the limited time available to maximize student enrollment, it’s important
that each event attended/launch yields your desired return. The below ratios will
help you measure the effectiveness of your recruitment events.
1.Number of Events : Attendees
2.Attendees : Leads
3.Leads : Students
Each school must develop a list of events to attend where valuable human
capital will spend a considerable amount of time attempting to recruit students.
Prior to attending an event, we must address the following questions:
1.How many people will attend the event?
2.How many of those people are potential parents and/or school ambassadors?
3.How many students does each potential parent and/or ambassador yield for
my school?
What Differentiates Your School?
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Data collection and analyses of who your competition is and what
they do different is one of the most important factors in a successful
enrollment campaign.
What are the top 5 schools by GRADE level that your new students
come from? What are the most common reasons? Answers to these
questions are KEY to your individual pitch.
See attached “Cheat Sheet” as an example of data to be collected
on your competitor schools.
This spreadsheet should be kept both electronically and on every
administrator and administrative assistant’s desktop as well as printed
out next to the phone of anyone who handles any student
enrollment inquiries.
Competitive Benchmarking
Review of Cheat Sheet and Venue List
School Specific Script
• Greeting:
– Good morning this is…??
– Thank you for calling…??
– It's a great day at…??
• School Talking Points:
– Recent awards?
– Extra Curricular?
– Community Partners?
– Student Demographics?
– School days/hrs?
– Curriculum?
– Other??
Customer Service: Role Play
Schools only have one chance to make a first impression on a potential enrollee and
therefore, careful attention to detail with any customer interaction will dictate the success of
any enrollment efforts. Important factors include:
Phone Calls:
•Number of Rings – All calls should be answered within 3 rings.
•Anyone who answers the phone should be well versed in ALL things enrollment related and
know where to find the cheat sheet. It’s important that any alternate/back up person is well
versed in customer service and school specifics.
•In addition to responding clearly and concisely to parental questions, the school
representative should PROACTIVELY highlight important points that differentiates the school
from all local competitors celebrating the school’s success.
•Never hang up without recording name and contact info of parent as well as all student info
•Let's call your school and 1-2 competitors to better understand the customer interaction in
real time.
In Person:
•Front office aesthetics – Desks should be clear of clutter and debris.
•Representatives should be pleasant and greet parents accordingly.
•Attire – Look the part of an outstanding institution of learning.
•Wait time – If administrator is unavailable, front office staff should be able to answer all
general questions as to minimize wait time for potential parents seeking additional
information.
WHO? - Characteristics of Effective
Recruiters – YOU!
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Behavioral Characteristics:
– Extrovert – It’s imperative that your lead recruiters are EXCITED
about speaking to others about your school.
– Believers – Your recruiters must go beyond that of a traditional
employee and genuinely believe in your efforts and exhibit
passion about sharing this with the world.
– Influencers - Well regarded in the school and local community.
e.g. Long family history in the neighborhood, Relationship w/ local
business owners/pastors/community leaders
– Presence – Intangible presence that commands the respect of
everyone (s)he encounters
– Knowledgeable/Historian – Understands school/community’s
historical challenges and can clearly articulate improvements as
a result of your school's presence
Eat, Sleep, Play, Worship
• Build relationships where students EAT:
– Grocery Stores – free banners in stores
– Convenience Stores – employees become school
ambassador(s)
– Fast Food Restaurants – e.g. every pizza delivered includes
a school flier, same with every combo meal
– Partner w/ local caterers
Eat, Sleep, Play, Worship
• Build Relationships where students SLEEP:
– What school based employees live in the neighborhood?
Incentivize them with time off, awards, etc. to recruit a
specific number of students per employee
– Neighborhood watch club sponsorships
– Target cafeteria workers, security guards, and custodians
to serve as ambassadors in their daily lives in the
community.
Eat, Sleep, Play, Worship
• Build Relationships where students PLAY:
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Pop warner league
YMCA
Recreation Centers
Church leagues
Police Athletic Leagues
Private clubs
Eat, Sleep, Play, Worship
• Build Relationships where students Worship:
– Leaders from the Faith-Based community become
Ambassadors
– Mention in weekly announcements
– School designee speaks on behalf of school at
church/synagogue/mosque/etc.