Show Notes: 

Check out our story on the retention phase of enrollment marketing. 

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Episode Transcript

Welcome to the SchoolCEO Podcast. I’m your host, Eileen Beard. As we’ve been discussing in previous episodes, School choice legislation means families can choose private, religious or home schools over your district. It also means families can choose to leave your district at any time—and that’s what the Retention phase of the customer journey is all about. During this stage, the question is: What are you doing to make sure families and students stay in your district?

When you think about circumstances that might cause a student or family to leave your district, does your mind go to everything that may have gone wrong? A lack of belonging? Difficulty with staff or peers? Sometimes these things happen, and it’s definitely up to the district to make it right—but that’s not what we’re talking about here. 

Instead of merely reacting to negative situations, how can your district proactively create an awesome experience for families so that—when school enrollment season comes back around—they consistently recognize your schools as the top choice for their children? 

The more connected families are to your schools, the less likely they are to leave. So the more you can do to involve and support your families, the better. That’s because the Retention phase of the customer journey isn’t just about retaining students—it’s about retaining their families, too. 

When it comes to enrollment marketing, investing time and resources in your families gives them even more reason to stick around. Superintendent Dr. Joshua McDowell of Crete Public Schools in Nebraska recognized that for students to be connected and set up for success, their families need to be connected, too.

One way Crete Public Schools supports its families is through its in-house adult education program, which currently enrolls about 200 adults. Adult students there can work toward receiving their high school diploma, take family literacy courses, English language learning classes and even career pathways courses. As McDowell sees it, if adults are involved and connected to their system, then the chances of their kids being connected and successful is much higher.

In addition to offering opportunities for adults, Crete Public Schools recognizes that many families’ work schedules make mid-afternoon pickup difficult. Kids need somewhere to go after school while their parents are still at work. So the district built a robust after-school program that is free of charge. Now, every student is offered a snack and dinner in addition to breakfast and lunch. We often talk about taking care of the whole child, but at Crete, they’re trying to care for the whole family. 

Some places don’t have to worry about offering an awesome experience or making things easy on the folks they serve; their “customers” have no choice but to return. However, that’s just not the boat most districts are in—and that's why enrollment marketing matters.

And to put it bluntly, your families are your customers. And nailing the retention phase of the customer journey means giving them a great experience, getting them excited about being in your district, and making their choice to stay as easy as possible. 

Even if your district can’t offer after-school care three meals a day to every student, what can you do to make your families’ lives easier—to more deeply connect them to your schools? Here’s how to start:

1. Start by looking at surrounding schools and districts. What family needs are they not meeting? If the elementary school down the road doesn’t offer after school care, it could be a very big incentive for families to stay at yours—if you can manage to make it work. 
2. Survey your families. Do you have many single parents who would benefit from afterschool care? Is English a second language for many of your families? What other unique challenges do your families face that you might help alleviate? 
3. Supporting your families doesn’t just mean helping them overcome challenges. It means celebrating their wins, too. For instance, college and smart K-12 alumni programs send congrats when a former student finishes graduate school or gets a promotion or gets married, etc. What if you created a pipeline through which students, staff and other parents could submit these milestones? Then, you could announce these wins in a newsletter or send congratulatory cards. 

As I mentioned in the last episode, hospitality is really about making your customers or in this case, your families, feel like you’re on their side. That’s how you retain them. Thanks for joining me.