Retention, Re-Recruitment, Re-Enrollment — Keeping Your Families Enrolled

Your retention rate is a key indicator to the overall health of your school. It is a reflection of your parent’s satisfaction and their continued loyalty to re-commit their investment in your school.

Because of this, what happens during re-enrollment is critical to the overall success of your school next year and beyond.

January is one of the most important months for the head of school and admissions director. This month begins a focus on re-enrolling families for another year at most schools. This is a crucial time in the annual cycle in order to project and confirm enrollment for the next school year.

As you know, it is more cost effective to retain a family at your school than it is to recruit a new one. Therefore, you want to do everything you can to keep your current families enrolled.

Retention is the rate in which you are able to keep your current families enrolled. Re-Recruitment is the strategy, or strategies, that you put in place to influence and impact your retention rate. Re-enrollment is the process of recommitting your families for next year. All three of these “R’s” work together to focus on a key component of your comprehensive enrollment strategy.

During the last couple of years, I have written many blog posts on retention, re-recruitment and re-enrollment. I have also presented workshops on this topic at conferences across the country. The following is a list of resources that I have compiled on this important topic for private school leaders to help develop your retention, re-recruitment and re-enrollment strategy at your school:

Webinar

• Effective Retention Strategies to Keep Your Families Enrolled – Sponsored by SSATB and presented in May 2012.

Blog Posts

• The Mark of a Great School
• Is Your Retention EPI 90% or Higher?
• You Can’t Afford to Lose a Student at Your School
• Re-Recruitment, Re-Enrollment, Right Now
• Five Re-Recruitment Strategies for Your Transition Grades
• Seven Strategies for Re-Enrollment
• Door Busters, Black Friday and Re-Enrollment
• Give Your Parents a Grade
• The “One-Family-at-a-Time” Retention Strategy
• Real Stats, Real Stories
• Nine Ways Faculty and Staff Can Market Your School
• The Personal Note Multiplied
• Roll Out the Red Carpet
• Standing Out in a Crowded School Market
• It’s Time to Survey Your Parents, Part 1
• It’s Time to Survey Your Parents, Part 2

What are some retention, re-recruitment and re-enrollment strategies that work at your school that we can add to this list?

What issues on retention, re-recuitment and re-enrollment do you want me to address in future blog posts?