As Head of a PreK - 6 school, I had the privilege of working with two outstanding directors of enrollment. Among the skills that made them so good at what they did was their attention to how they structured their time, from the yearly calendar to each individual day. What they did during the first two weeks of school is a good example.
In short, they devoted the entirety of the first two weeks to retention. They scheduled no tours and kicked all inquiries to their admin assistant. Instead, they spent each day helping new students and their families make their way into school life and attending to continuing families who'd been touch and go in signing enrollment contracts. They were at the front gate to greet families as they arrived, introduce them to others, and get a read on how it was all going. They spent the rest of the day cruising through classrooms and calling parents to check in--with a brief vignette about something they'd seen the child engaged in that day, a heads up about an upcoming event, or a chance to field questions. This was an especially welcome call for those parents who'd left a weepy child at arrival. To know that 20 minutes after they'd left, their child was playing happily was a huge relief and evidence that the school was on its game. And, they were there at dismissal to check in. They kept simple tally sheets to record their contacts and strove to have a substantive conversation with each new/tentative family in person or by phone within the first 3 days and at least twice in the second week.
Faculty was the second constituency on whom they focused. They left them brief notes on all of the conversations they'd had with parents of students in their classes and asked them to make calls to parents whose children seemed to be making a particularly rocky transition. They insisted that teachers get in touch with parents themselves and not pass messages through nannies or grandparents or car pooling friends who were doing the pick up. The object was to create a team approach to helping students and families make the transition and to empower teachers as classroom culture leaders. They attended to new teachers closely, providing them with what they needed to guide students and parents into a school culture that was new to them as well.
Last, all of this is possible only if the enrollment team has cleared the decks for these two weeks by working diligently over the summer to create its yearly plan, update marketing materials, clean up data, provide faculty with new student summaries, organize the yearly calendar, etc. Admissions teams buried in their offices in the early fall completing these tasks in preparation for inquiry and touring season have missed a critical opportunity for retention.
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