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Campaign for Joy

By Orna Siegel posted 03-31-2022 12:09 PM

  


This time of year, many schools announce tuition increases and ask families to commit to attending again in the fall. Retention work, which should be a year-round effort, becomes increasingly important. Regular check-ins with families, sending thoughtful emails home, and hosting an event or two showing student work can help with this effort.

However, this year we wanted to do more. Through a concerted effort, asking our own families and faculty to tell us what is so wonderful about our school, we are creating a campaign of written testimonials, videos, and pictures to share among both our school community and the broader world. When asked to reflect on everything that is going well, on the moments of joy, and value-affirming stories, parents, students, and faculty are articulating why they love our school.

Depending on your prompts, you will receive different types of testimonials, so ask your questions with a mind to the outcomes you want. My school is primarily in competition with our local public schools, so one of our prompts was, “For students who came to our school from a different school: Why did you choose our school over your previous school? What would you want to tell other students/parents about these differences?”

One parent responded: “I'd turn to my daughter and ask what she was doing in school, and she'd say, "in English, I'm doing English." Now that she’s at your school and she's so excited and more engaged intellectually and extra-curricularly. The love of learning JDS has instilled is really important to us, every parent wants their kids to love learning.”

A student wrote: "My former school is one where, if you drop your lunch tray in the cafeteria when you’re in 3rd grade, no one lets you forget it. When I visited here for my interview day, I dropped my lunch tray. It was my worst nightmare. But then, 5 kids who didn’t even know me got up and helped me clean up without making a big deal of anything. That is the kind of place I wanted to be. I came and I haven’t looked back” 

A faculty member wrote: "One of the reasons I became a teacher was to inspire the next generation to make the world a better place, and this year in 8th Grade English, we asked students to write about exactly that in a strong paragraph. I got full page responses from students who are bursting with ideas about how to make the world better. Our students want to clean up the Chesapeake Bay, reduce car emissions, and increase recycling efforts. Our students want to normalize conversations around mental health, prevent animal cruelty, and promote inclusivity on a global scale. They want to deter people from texting while driving, reduce homelessness, and provide educational opportunities for everyone. In short, our students are embracing the concept of healing the world."

What admission and enrollment professional doesn’t need shots of affirmation like these?! These stories not only affirm why families should continue through graduation but also give admission professionals evidence to share widely with others. We publish a few of them each week in our school-wide email to help current families whose personal experience may not feel as positive or who may be wavering on the value of being part of our community. We also send them out in our bi-weekly email to all the prospective families in our admission funnel to demonstrate value and encourage them to complete their application or accept our offer of admission. As an added bonus, this act has enlivened our parent ambassadorship efforts. Tales of joy and learning from the school are top of mind for all the members of our community and are therefore easily shared among friends and family at soccer games on the weekend or at down time at work.

Creating a positive affirmation campaign can be fun, enliven a mundane time of year, and hopefully support your work in both recruitment and retention. While we don’t have the evidence yet, it may even help with faculty retention because who doesn’t want to be part of school community that makes such a lasting and important impact on its students!



Orna Siegel
Director of Enrollment and Tuition Assistance
Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School
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