Marketing isn’t enough to keep students when schools close

When DCPS starts school in late August, over 2,000 students will be attending a different school after 15 schools close at the end of the school year. Students at closing schools have a DCPS “receiving school” where they can go, but many students may instead choose to attend a charter or private school. Can DCPS keep the students in the system?

In late January, when Chancellor Kaya Henderson announced the final plan to close 15 schools, she also announced a vigorous marketing campaign to try to keep 80% of the students from closing schools (1,762 students) in the DCPS system.

Unfortunately, DCPS’s Consolidation and Reorganization Plan mostly emphasizes marketing the new schools, but doesn’t let receiving schools take other steps that might do more to retain students.

The Consolidation and Reorganization Plan involves 4 phases:

Phase I (2/15 to 3/15): Inform families at closing schools of the plan. Mail letters, host open houses and meetings at the new school, phone bank, and ensure websites and phone messages have up-to-date and encouraging information.

Phase II (3/4 to 3/29): Involve the receiving school’s community in marketing the schools to the closing school’s community. Use marketing materials and give-aways (t-shirts, buttons, etc.) to entice students.

Phase III (3/4 to 6/13): Provide incentives to encourage the receiving school community to attract students by making a recruitment video, providing “swag” to schools and teachers who are successful at retaining students, and find a partner to provide support for enrollment challenges.

Phase IV (2/25 to 8/24): Create a public campaign to inform the public about the quality academic and enrichment options at the receiving schools. Buy radio, newspaper, and billboard ads; distribute flyers, lawn signs, and door hangers; and give school tours year-round at the receiving schools.

This plan places entirely too much emphasis on creating marketing materials to convince parents that the receiving schools will provide their students with a quality education and amazing enrichment opportunities. 3 out of the 4 phases almost entirely focus on giving schools and students “things” to reward them for staying with DCPS, when the focus really ought to be on actually providing students with that quality education.

Parents will need more than reading about a school on a piece of paper to interest them in sending their child to the receiving school. Meetings and open houses could provide an opportunity for parents from both schools to get to know one another and for parents at closing schools to have the opportunity to ask receiving parents what the school is really like.

Unfortunately, phase I of the plan (which includes some open houses) has already passed. Now, now the focus in on distributing flyers and telling inquiring parents that they should re-enroll in DCPS. At a recent transition meeting, one participant suggested hosting a cook-out at the receiving school. He was informed that there was no money for that type of activity and instead was offered a door hanger.

If DCPS is serious about retaining 80% of the students at closing schools, it should give receiving schools more flexibility on how to spend their retention budget. The schools school could choose to pay for the cook-out instead of door hangers; others could market their schools in the way they see fit. A school who hosts the closing school for a meal would project a far more powerful image than any message on a flyer or door hanger.