Innovative Open House Strategies: New Ways to Attract Prospective Students and Parents

Innovative Open House Strategies: New Ways to Attract Prospective Students and Parents Admission Community of Practice Facilitator: Rebecca Egolf FEATURING PROGRAM IDEAS FROM Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation's Capital The Ann and Nate Levine Academy Shalom School of Sacramento Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Monmouth County September 22, 2008 1

Goals of the Call To explore multiple perspectives on open houses, informed by our personal experience and the guidance of our facilitator and guest speakers To increase our knowledge of creative and original programming strategies for Jewish day schools To consider offering alternative programming options that will attract the attention of prospective students and parents 2

Agenda PEJE Announcements Upcoming CoP Conference Calls New Tools: The PEJE Admission Tracker Setting the Context Program Ideas from 6 Different Schools Questions and Answers Share your Successes What are You doing that Works? 3

Format of the Call Our guests will present information about each program. After each presentation we will take a few quick questions. We ll take more questions and discussion at the end, as time permits. Anyone who wants greater detail about any of these programs is encouraged to contact the presenter directly email addresses of each are included. You can submit questions using the Chat feature if we don t get a chance to answer all the questions I ll distribute all the answers following the call. 4

Upcoming CoP Conference Calls Widening the Circle: Engaging Interfaith Families in Jewish Day Schools Tuesday, October 28, 1-2 pm EST Guest: Rabbi Lev Ba'esh, Director of the Resource Center for Jewish Clergy, www.interfaithfamily.com Mark your calendars this is the first call after the holidays end! There are articles to read before this call. They are posted on the Admission COP Google Group in the Files section. Or email rebecca@peje.org to request a copy. 5

New Tools from PEJE and Measuring Success The PEJE Admission Tracker: Help your school to organize your admission process and reach your enrollment goals. The Admission Tracker manages data on all prospective students and families from inquiry to admission using simple software that promotes best practices in admission. THE NEXT TRAINING FOR SCHOOLS THAT HAVE PURCHASED THE ADMISSION TRACKER IS THIS WEEK WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 24. LAST CHANCE FOR TRAINING BEFORE THE HOLIDAYS! See the PEJE website for more information or email admissiontracker@yardsticksuite.org 6

Setting the Context In these times of busy schedules and short attention spans, some schools (but certainly not all schools) are reporting that attendance at open houses and traditional recruitment events is down. Many schools are wondering, given the significant cost, amount of planning required and the challenge of getting involvement from all parts of the school, if it is worth it to continue offering these types of events. Some schools have begun offering creative and innovative programs that involve families in an activity, rather than just listening to speeches and presentations. Are your programs getting the attention of prospective students and parents? If not, how can you improve them? Six day school admission directors will be sharing their successful programming strategies with everyone. Question: For a traditional open house during the week, do you tour first or meet first and then tour? Levine Academy believes that the parents are not interested in the entire school, just the entry grade. They are looking to learn about where the child is going next. Then, as follow-up, they are invited back to have a full tour. It is often best to use group events to create curiosity. Then, have the one-on-one in-depth tour as follow-up. It allows you to personalize the tour based on their needs, which you can t do on a group tour. Some have student ambassadors do a group tour then for a more in-depth experience, the family will need to meet one-on-one with the admission professional. If coming a distance, they will need to see enough of the school so they do not need to come back. In this case, they meet for questions, then small tour of classroom, specialty areas, kindergarten. 7

Program Idea #1: For Some Schools, The Open House Isn t Dead Yet Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation s Capital Washington, D.C. Sindy Udell, Director of Admission Sindy.Udell@jpds.org 8

JPDS of the Nation s Capital Back from the brink: this Pre-K through 6 th grade school has grown from 146 to 244 students in 5 years! Until they can expand, their facility is full wait lists for PK, K and 1 every year. About 40 people attend each open house, with nearly 100% conversion to application and enrollment. JPDS-NC credits their successful traditional open houses to their attention to relationship-building and generating positive word of mouth. When Sindy joined the school four years ago, the school had fewer than 150 students and was financially near to closing. Now they are at almost 250 students and full beyond the capacity of their facility. They are the only day school actually in DC, though there are many in the surrounding Maryland and Virginia communities, where most Jews live. She used word of mouth (parent to parent) to build the personal relationships. She has an active parent ambassador group and their entire job is to spread positive word of mouth. She matches each organization with a current JPDS parent. The parent would write a letter to the parents of younger students as an invitation to join them at an event. The pre school directors would be contacted and she would arrange to visit their schools. It allowed her to update them about their former students who were now at the day school. The flyers would be given to the students to take home. JPDS also sponsors a preschool director s lunch in the fall. At a synagogue, they would post notices throughout the building. The Judaic studies director would include the rabbi in the school. They are also on several community listservs that are an effective way to spread the word. Traditional advertising is used as a reminder of the dates since the word of mouth has already passed the information along. This allows the personal connections to grow. It is important for parents to feel comfortable and happy with the admission director. 9

What is the schedule of the open house? For the day-time events, they begin with a two-minute video of the school. They feature a parent and a student speaker. Then they go on tours. Following the tour many people have to leave to go to work. For those that choose to stay, the directors of general studies and Judaic studies speak, then they end with Q&A. The evening event is more like a back to school night. The teachers are all in their classrooms, which allows parents to chat with the teacher. Later two alumni and one parent speakers present. 10

Most preschools are happy to pass out JPDS flyers in the kids backpacks. For those preschools that might perceive JPDS as competition (overlapping Pre K programs), Sindy creates different versions of this flyer to pass out that don t mention the JPDS Pre-K program and just focus on elementary school admission. This removes the obvious threat. Even though the school still has a Pre-K program, she isn t advertising it or making people think that Pre-K is the only entry point. If a synagogue gave her trouble about posting and passing out flyers because of competition with their religious school, she would talk to them about the importance of attending a day school and hope that over time they would change their mind. She would also ask permission for a JPDS parent who attends that synagogue to make an announcement at Shabbat services or Sunday school. 11

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Program Idea #2: Open Houses Can Be Both Recruitment and Retention Activities The Anne and Nate Levine Academy, A Solomon Schechter School Dallas, Texas Anna Popp, Director of Admission Apopp@levineacademy.org 13

Levine Academy Levine Academy serves infants through 8 th grade, with over 500 students enrolled. Their own preschool is their primary feeder, but they do recruit aggressively to several other feeder schools and programs. Families are totally focused on the program in their child s entry year and aren t so interested in hearing about upper elementary and middle school programs so the focus is just on K and 1 in these programs Challenges they face: Keeping their own early childhood families for elementary school Families who typically go to private school don t view Levine as their first choice Families who typically go to public school can t get past the financial barrier Solution: one program and supplemental print materials that promote Levine Academy, the difference between public school and Jewish day school, and the achievements and successes of Levine students compared to those attending other private schools Levine has specialized open houses for Kindergarten and first grade. They found that the general houses were not getting good attendance so they made them more focused. The activity is held inside the classroom. Parents want to know what the next step is, not the long term program. They offer two kindergarten open houses: one in evening and one in the day. HOS opens the program. A current 8 th grader will speak. Then, a parent whose child went to Levine, then left for public school, and came back speaks (perspective from both sides). Judaic and secular teachers also speak. To address concerns of various audiences about public school and independent school competition, they have handouts about the math and science curriculum as well as Judaic studies, which also includes the weekly schedule (parents are very concerned about how time is spent). For their current students, they focus on what distinguishes Levine Academy from the public school. For those who are comparing other independent schools, a list of high school and colleges where their graduates attend is included. They also provide extra curricular activity info. Parents see the value and comparison between various types of schools. 14

How do you market within own school so Pre-k families come to the events? Evening events are mostly attended by families from outside of the school. Daily events are primarily for their current ECE families. Within their own Pre-k program, parents come to Shabbat every Friday and stay for this event, which follows it. 15

Another feature that the public schools can t offer is lots of personal attention and customization for each student. This is a great selling point in their market. 16

Program Idea #3: Ready, Set, Grow: A Program With Lasting Benefits The Shalom School Sacramento, CA Lynette Otis, Director of Admissions lotis@shalomschool.org 17

The Shalom School Shalom School is the only Jewish day school in the Sacramento area, serving infants through grade 6. Ready Set Grow helps Pre-K students prepare for the transition to Kindergarten by exposing them to the Kindergarten classrooms and teachers on an ongoing basis. Students (and their parents) attend one event together, then the Kindergarten teachers visit the Pre-K classes 5-6 times over the rest of the school year to ease the transition, remind parents of the excellence of the elementary school, and get kids excited about school. The Shalom School is the only JDS in Sacramento. Three years ago they created this program to keep more of their own early childhood families enrolled in the elementary school. An event held in the morning begins with a meet and greet in the library. Preschoolers are taken into the kindergarten room. Then parents join in the classroom. Then they go to the multi purpose room for lunch. Teachers will mingle for questions. The students all get to wear an I was an honorary kindergarten student today sticker. Parents will go back to the library for more Q&A and overview of the kindergarten program and calendar of upcoming events. This is held prior to the admission cycle. The big all school open house follows this so many families can attend both. They send a thank you to the parents for attending. Following the main event, the kindergarten teacher goes to the Pre-K classroom on a monthly basis (as many as five times over the rest of the year) to teach a lesson from their ZooPhonics curriculum. This enables the parents to see that the students are being integrated into the kindergarten to bridge the gap and create a connection between the early childhood program and elementary school. The parents are not present for these return visits, so the kids get Honorary Kindergarten Student stickers to wear home as a reminder to the parents of the ongoing benefits of the program. 18

Here s an example of the event invitation. Is this for the entire community of just your own school? It is primarily a retention event. Since they are the only choice for JDS, there is not any competition from other Jewish schools. It helps keep families from leaving their school to attend public school. Outside families are also invited and a small number attend, but outside families do not get the benefit of the follow up visits to their classroom. They do publicize the event, but that isn t its primary focus. 19

Here s an example of the follow up letter mailed to parents who attended to remind them of the Pre K K connection. 20

Program Idea #4: When Is A Tour Not A Tour? When It s a Sundays at Schechter Mystery Adventure Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County New Milford, New Jersey Lymor Wasserman, Recruitment Director Lwasserman@ssdsbergen.org 21

SSDS Bergen County The Sundays at Schechter events are scheduled around the theme of each holiday, with an interactive activity, crafts, and music that are sure to be a highlight for the whole family The clues in the scavenger hunts take the families around to the most important parts of the building, so by the time they finish they have basically had a tour, without ever officially going on a tour. One event connects to the next to encourage them to return again. Prior to starting the Sundays at Schechter program, where people come to do a craft for a holiday, the school was not receiving new families, just siblings. They decided to create an activity to get families moving around the school. The also do tours and periodic story hour programs. 22

This is an invitation to Sukkot event. The Sukkot event started in the lunch room and then moved to the library. Participants then received a clue to move to sing a song. Then they moved to a classroom to do a craft. In each location the kids did an activity and received a clue to solve a puzzle. By the time the event is over the kids have seen the whole building without feeling like they were taken on a tour. They hoped to double the number of prospective families attending events. 9 new prospective families attended the event (that do not already have a child in the school). 7 were of the right age to apply for the following year and did so, 2 were younger children not yet old enough to apply but who have stayed on the mailing list and attended other events to maintain interest until their child is old enough to attend. 23

This is an example of booklet for the scavenger hunt. Each page of the booklet had a picture of a different place on campus and a clue. They had to figure out where to go, then go there to do an activity. They get to keep the booklet. There were older students helping so the admission director could speak with the families and therefore follow up appropriately. Who prepared the crafts? The teachers put them together. The school paid them to come in. But for this year, there was a stipend for one teacher to attend all events and take care of it all. When to have events? There is no perfect time to have events - every community seems to have its preference. Daytime, weekday evening, and weekends all have success in some places - you just need to figure out what works best for your area. You can do this by trying a variety of times until you find what is most successful, or just offering some of each to attract a wider variety of families. Track data about attendance so that you have proof of which time/event has the most success. 24

Sundays at Schechter for Chanukah The Dreidel Lulav Thief At the Sukkot event, the answer to the mystery was that the Dreidel stole the Lulav the kids are then invited back to the Chanukah event to meet the Dreidel and continue the adventure. The dreidel pictured above was cut up into puzzle pieces. At each station on the scavenger hunt, children got another piece of the puzzle. When they solved it at the end, they saw who stole the lulav. Then they were invited back to a Chanukah program to meet the dreidel in person! They spread the word that there would be a life-sized dreidl at the December event. In this event, they had a puppet show in the lunchroom, moved to the library, and then to the kindergarten classroom for a craft. When back in the lunchroom, they sang and had snacks. As a result, 25 families attended; 18 submitted applications; and 7 were too young. In April at the Pesach event, there was no pressure for parents, just an activity for a Sunday morning. Many families attending the spring event had already been accepted to the school for the upcoming fall. Linda Glickstein wrote on the Chat: I held an Israel at 60 scavenger hunt based on Lymor s model, and it was a huge success. A wonderful program idea! 25

Program Idea #5: The Non-Program Program: Experiencing the Life of the School Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School San Diego, CA Audrey Jacobs, Director of School Advancement ajacobs@hebrewday.org 26

Soille Hebrew Day Many of us are beginning to re alize that creating the "perfe ct, controlled" recruitment event or open house can be dry, lack the magic of what happens naturally at our schools and most importantly - is a lot of work to put on and yields little success and often disappointingly low attendance. So STOP planning events! Invite prospects to come WITH their parents to see what's happening at your school during the school day. This is good for K prospects and even better for kids that are in pu blic school. If the kids have fun, the parents will get excited! You can do it on a low key one-on-one basis with your hottest prospects OR also market it to the entire community. What really sells the school best is the spirit and excitement of the students and teachers in action during the course of their normal daily routine. In the last 3 yrs, enrollment has grown 40%, Pre-k-8 th grade. They realized that creating the perfect event created a lot of work and stress on staff. They realized that it can fail to capture the magic of the school. A sneak peek strategy invites prospects and children to come to see what happens during the day. This allows parents and child to have a one-on-one experience at the school and allows them to see the interaction of teacher and students. You need to structure these during the recruitment cycle. Soille Hebrew Day limits attendance at an exclusive event to two families as they do not want to overwhelm the teacher and they need to allow for the student to sit with the others. If ambassadors are involved, needs to be planned around the classroom time. Need to work closely with the teachers and be respectful of their time. Show off all teachers. 27

Soille Hebrew Day What s happening in your school? Classroom Shabbat parties Holiday celebrations Music or art classes Special assemblies, speakers, programs When: You re open on days when public schools are closed In the afternoon after morning preschools have dismissed Can happen all year long fall events for current prospective students, spring events for students still a year away from entry The admission director can meet with teachers and Principal to discuss class projects they'd be open to having visiting students and parents and parent ambassadors come participate in. In order for this to be successful, the admission director needs to set up standards with principal and work with teachers to decide how often and what to showcase. Examples of events for Sneak Peeks : K & 1 st grade Shabbat parties which are held weekly Holiday art projects Holiday events (Rosh Hashanah, Tu B shevat) that are class-specific, grade-wide or school-wide Music classes Secular academic lessons Special assemblies at school, speakers School wide events For events targeting public school students- schedule events when public school is off, or afternoon of school half-days 28

Soille Hebrew Day Who: Invite your hottest prospects Get to know each prospective family to know what it will take to convince them and what their concerns and needs are Pay attention to the balance of insiders and outsiders at each event Prospective parents are accompanied by current parent ambassadors so they are always guided How: Personal phone calls, letters, emails not formal invitations Community resources Who should you invite? Depending on the number of prospective students you have on your lists, you may be able to invite everyone in small groups throughout the fall months. Or, invite just your Hot Prospects by sending a short personal note and email invitation and follow up with phone calls. Ambassadors can call prospective families if they know the prospect, and the school can invite parent ambassadors to be at event as well. Soille uses sneak peak postcards. Families need to RSVP. As a follow-up, families will come back for a tour and Q&A. They utilize e-newsletters from within the community for promotion as well. Follow-up Strategies a. Email the teachers to say thank you for allowing you to bring guests b. Email thank you to ambassadors that came c. Send thank you note to CHILD and parent after they visit d. Call back parent to invite to a informational follow up meeting 29

Soille Hebrew Day San Diego s Federation has an e-newsletter that goes to every Jewish family with a child under 5, that promotes events of interest in the entire community free advertising! This is an example of how to publicize your event in a community newsletter for families with young children. 30

This edition of San Diego s Shalom Baby e-newsletter featured 4 events at Soille Hebrew Day 2 fun student/family events, a parent education workshop, and an open house/tour. Here s their listing in this issue of the Federation s e-newsletter. It includes invitations to four different kinds of events, at different times of day, and different days of the week. There is something for everyone. It shows how open they are to the community and what a variety of activities happen at the school. 1) Menorah Making Contest Awards & Holiday Celebration - November Our students make menorahs and we announce the winners and have an art display and celebrate Hanukah with latkes, jelly donuts, and singing with live music. This is an internal event sponsored by the PTA and we invite prospects to see how we celebrate the holiday. 2) School Group Tour of the Dead Sea Scrolls December Our School organized a private tour at a museum with families and a free lecture/lunch before the tour with our Rabbi. We invited prospects to come join our group! 31

Soille Hebrew Day Soille Hebrew Day also does great parent education/outreach programs. Audrey spoke about these events in a previous COP call titled Community Outreach and the Admissions Office to view that presentation go to the Files menu in our Google Group (or email rebecca@peje.org for a copy) 32

Program Idea #6: What s The Buzz? Middle School Dances Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Monmouth County Marlboro, NJ Linda Glickstein, Director of Admissions & Marketing Lindassds@optonline.net 33

SSDS Greater Monmouth County SSDS-GMC has 225 students in nursery through 8 th grade. Like many schools that combine elementary and middle school divisions, they didn t usually bring in many new students for middle school from outside. For this fall, the school has increased enrollment by 11% or 60 new students, including 9 new middle school students. This success can be credited partly to the partnerships that have been developed and their highly successful middle school dances. The most common reason families cite for leaving this school prior to middle school is that the students feel that there is not enough of a social life. So they targeted the students, then worked on the parents. They asked the kids, What do you like to do? The students said they like to go to parties and dances. So they decided to have 5-8 th grade dances. Although they can t tell exactly how many new admissions are attributed to these dances, this year they have nine new students in a middle school of 35 students. That s a huge increase. Many of those new students attended one of last year s dances. Most importantly, the kids had a great time. There was positive buzz in the community. Students went home and told their parents about the school. The students all sign in when they come, and they created a mailing list of prospective students based on the attendees who didn t already attend a day school. These students then receive personal invitations to future events. 34

SSDS Greater Monmouth County SSDS-GMC partnered with the other local Schechter schools (there are several) and the Kadima youth group chapters to offer middle school dances in their gym. These dances are fun, help students bond across schools and communities, and build social connections. More importantly, they have spread the word of mouth that SSDS-GMC is a fun place to go to school. With teens, it s all about the cool factor and what their friends think. They partnered with others to bring in additional students. They contacted the two other SSDS schools in area and the local chapters of Kadima, the USY junior youth group. All students were invited to attend. They asked the students for their input to help plan the events. They placed banners in school and sent flyers to Kadima directors and SSDS schools in the area. At the first dance, a Chanukah ball, 110 students attended the dance. They hired an alumnus to serve as the DJ. Parents helped with the decorations. They transformed the gym. Dinner was served at each event (pizza). Expenses were covered by donations. Parents served as volunteer chaperones throughout the school to supervise and maintain security. 35

The students didn t like the formal invitation Schechter made, so they made their own wild flyer for last winter s Chanukah Ball. Since the students didn t like the boring invitation that the school had created, they asked a student to design the invitation. This is crazy, but the kids responded to it. 36

The successful Chanukah Ball was followed with a Purim costume ball. Since the Chanukah dance was a success, they planned a Purim costume dance in March. Costumes were required and admission was a food donation. 37

SSDS Greater Monmouth County Each event has sponsors to cover all the costs A local favorite DJ who does all the Bar and Bat Mitzvahs in the area, who is also an alum of the school, DJs the events for $250 each. This includes all the crazy prizes and fun give-away items. This fall they have teamed up again to have a New Year s Eve Dance counting down to 5769 plastic Shofars replace traditional noise makers The New Year s Eve dance was held just this past week. They had 80 students of which 2/3 were not students at Schechter schools already. In the past they had not charged for admission. The kids would bring a toy or canned goods or a donation. This has been a strictly off-budget event. They have to find donations to cover the costs. This time they charged a $5 cover which took care of half the expenses. No one seemed to mind. There were no problems in distributing the flyers amongst other schools since it allows their students to meet others in the community. This is ultimately good for all the other Schechter schools as well. It is not seen as competition. It helps that the admission directors at all of the local Schechter schools are good friends and in frequent communication and collaboration with each other. Anne Greenspoon at Shoshana S. Cardin High School wrote in the chat: This is a very adaptable idea for high school recruitment as well. More kids are in youth groups by then, as well. You could partner with BBYO, USY, etc. 38

Share your successes What programming strategies are working well in your school? Portland Jewish Academy Last year, they had an event for the entire Portland community. From Matzah to Macaroons. It featured the teachers doing fun activities. They created a card to advertise the event. They created an educational day that featured their teachers and school. They had 23 new families attend. As a result, many did enroll. The challenge is to put PJA on the radar. They will plan for it again this year and again in the fall. Greenfield Hebrew Academy (Atlanta) We have story hours five times a year, typically connected to a holiday. We advertise in the Jewish newspaper and in all the preschools. The children come with their parents, hear a story and make a craft to take home. We just had All About Apples and made Shanah Tovah cards and plates for apples and honey. Ten families attended. 39

More questions for our featured admission directors? Anything else about programming that you want to discuss? Use the Admission COP Google Group to continue the discussion. Share your program ideas and questions. Post your event flyers / invitations / ads in the Files section. Please use Google Groups to post information about your own successful event use the Files section to post flyers, ads, or posters from your events to share. Please start a discussion or ask questions about programming strategies. 40

Thanks for participating! Thanks to our guests, Sindy, Anna, Lynette, Lymor, Audrey and Linda! Feel free to contact our guests if you want more information on their featured programs. Sindy.Udell@jpds.org Apopp@levineacademy.org Lotis@shalomschool.org lwasserman@ssdsbergen.org ajacobs@hebrewday.org lindassds@optonline.net Please feel free to contact any of our presenters if you want more detailed information on any of their programming ideas. 41