Case Study: Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux Enrollment Management Plan (Part I)
NOTE: The ISPD November and December newsletters are being written by Dr. Mark Williams, Superintendent of Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux and an ISPD Associate.
Enrollment management is an intentional, strategic process employed by schools that focuses on attracting, admitting, enrolling, retaining, and supporting families from admittance through graduation. Enrollment management historically began in higher education and has expanded into primary and secondary education. Catholic schools work diligently in their enrollment management efforts. Components of an enrollment management plan may include:
- Marketing and Recruiting
- Admissions
- Retention
- Financial Aid and Affordability
- Data and Analytics
The purpose of creating enrollment management plans is to plan for a predictable future and support budgetary goals. Schools must build operating budgets and plan well ahead of the next school year. Creating and implementing a codified plan creates predictability in the admissions and retention process. An enrollment management plan creates intentionality toward goal attainment.
Making Mathematics and Measurement Part of Your Plan
We believe that an impactful, pragmatic enrollment management plan begins with measuring your efforts. Always measure what you treasure! The first step to measuring your enrollment management efforts is to identify what your capacity is. If you do not know what your capacity is, work with your president or principal to determine how many students your school can successfully educate in each grade. This is a complex question, generally driven by facilities. However, other factors may contribute to your enrollment capacity. By dividing your enrollment by your capacity, you can measure your percentage of enrollment fulfillment. Mathematically, this is viewed as follows:
Current Enrollment / Capacity
By finding the answer to this by grade level, you acquire the number of open seats per grade. This allows you to make strategic decisions as to how you plan to fill empty seats. Of all our strategies, we have used this strategy with the most fidelity to increase enrollment in the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux in South Louisiana.
What grades are most important to focus on?
The primary focus of an enrollment management plan must be two general areas. First, the grades in which students enter the school must be full or as close to full as possible. If the entry grades are not full or close to full, these empty desks are more likely to remain until the terminal grade. In our enrollment management planning meeting, we consistently identify three strategies to fill seats. Three examples we have used in the past are:
- Financial Assistance – If you travel on a plane, seats are sold for different prices. This may be a good strategy to consider for your school. Consider this question: Is it better to have an empty seat or a discounted one?
- Call all students who are in your database who did not register. Ask them to come in to personally meet with you. Have them tell you why they did not register. Solve the problem!
- Let your school families know that you have an empty seat in your entry grade. Ask them to send you the names of families who they would like to nominate to join your school family. Call that family. Invite them.
A Focus on Retention
The second major focus of an enrollment management plan is retention. Once a family has chosen your school, make every effort to keep them! Retention must be measured and planned. We recommend an attrition rate of less than 2% each academic year. For example, in a school with 500 students, the attrition rate goal should be less than 10 students. Families who are moving away, can not be influenced, focus on other situations that can be addressed. Do all that you can to retain families. When families request withdrawals or transcripts, speak to the family directly, work to solve the dilemma, and then track the reasons why the family is leaving. To proactively positively influence retention, consider the following proactive measures:
- Surveying families regularly
- Support new students through their first-year transition. Create structures to check in with each student and their families.
- Capitalize on every opportunity to meet families in person.
Define Your Trends
Before building your enrollment management plan, identifying enrollment trends is necessary. Longitudinal data is extremely informative, especially when a goal has been set to provide context. The chart below appears to indicate positive performance, experiencing three straight years of enrollment gains in the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux. However, our goal is to attract and retain a total of 5000 students. Therefore, there is still work to do. Grade-level data is even more helpful to view, allowing for closer evaluation, analysis, and interpretation of trends. For example, the primary goal of our enrollment management plan is to fill entry-level grades first and to create a 98% or higher retention rate. Focusing on trends of each grade level is necessary in evaluating performance.
Table 1.1: Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux Enrollment Growth