ENROLLMENT
Committee chair: Don Klinger
Members: John Deming, Lon Gruesbeck, Barbara Livesay, Wayne Wentland
Adventist parents are considering options in the education choices for their children. Because of that Adventist schools must stand out for their excellence in addressing the needs of Adventist families of all different socio-economic strata.
Three key areas are critical to addressing ongoing enrollment declines in Northwest Adventist schools:
Customer Service—We must provide mandatory annual training to all school personnel, board members and pastors to improve service, attitude, consistency and teamwork. We recommend that Bob Farrell’s “Give ‘Em the Pickle” leadership training materials be used across the Northwest to help our school leadership adopt an active attitude of service.
School Climate and Environment—We must create a climate modeled on the Golden Rule that provides an environment of value, respect and safety. We will train all school personnel to model the principles of this rule and intentionally teach it in all classes. We will annually assess our progress by conducting surveys of students and parents, unique to elementary, middle and high school levels.
Inclusive Enrollment—We must meet the challenge of including all families in our schools—new converts, all income levels and all ethnicities. We will promote a better understanding of Adventist education benefits to parents including results from the Cognitive Genesis study, involve pastors and teachers in strategies to increase enrollment from all groups and encourage new funding sources to support student enrollment for all families in need. We will also develop more effective strategies for integrating home-schooling families.
June 26th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Are we missing “the how” in this report? In order to address how to fix we may want to consider why many parents are not enrolling and are seeking alternative forms. Granted socio economics play a big factor, i.e. two children in a private school from a middle income home is approximately $1000 a month, accounting for 1/3 of the families income–a strong reason not to enroll in that your home must come first. But even here, I will venture to say that economics it is not the only reason for low enrollment.
There are some simple solutions that could really assist future enrollment and don’t cost much; phone calls being returned, solid communication from teachers to parents, consistent policy procedures, written expectations for the classroom and for discipline, science and career fairs, spellling bees, community involvement with other institutions, allowing homeschoolers to pay for core courses, allowing the parent to be more involved, etc, etc.
Maybe we could first start by actually visiting local public and private schools who are successful and who are extremely full. This last year, I was privileged to test most of the Salem area schools for the Nations Report Card and was wonderfully surprised to exciting classrooms who are actively involved in creating success for every student.
Personally I think we have sold ourselves an idea that SDA education is superior simply because we are “family” or teach about God. But parents want to know that excellence is visibly active. Hint: Have we even bothered with exit interviews to get an idea as to why a parent may choose to leave? Would love to talk further. Glad to see you discussing!
July 11th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Rollyn, I think your idea of an exit interview is a good one. When we left, it was like we had the plague and people shunned us. I felt like an Amish person who had gone against some unspoken code. My children felt it keenly and didn’t even want to attend Adventist church anymore. That story is NOT unique.
When I was a child my parents got our church to finance sending our little neighbor boy to one of our schools. After three months his parents took him back out because of the treatment he got because he “smelled of cigarette smoke.”
I just met an adult a few weeks ago who said “Oh, You are an SDA? I attended your school when I was in the fourth grade. I only stayed three months because the other children tormented me about the meat in my sandwich.” This woman who told me this was over 60 years old!
Do you see a pattern here? It has been going on for generations in our schools! I really hope that you guys are going to sit up and smell the postum and not just have one more committee who refuses to listen to the truth about problems. If you do, it won’t be long and there won’t be a school out there with our name on the front of it.
July 14th, 2007 at 8:34 am
As a forty-something person, with 3 children, living in this day and age, there are many banking ideas that one can choose from, annuities, 401K’s, 403B’s, checking , saving accouts, ect.. With this vast selection of banking ideas, I feel that I have alot to choose from. I want to pick the best that addresses my personal goals.
As with schooling, there is also alot of competition, there are many different christian schools. When Im looking at a school, the money is not an issue as much as a question that I ask ” what does the school have to offer for the money that I am spending?” Is it Spanish, Latin? Do they have an after school program? Do they have alot of field trips? Do they teach about God’s Word, or are they dealing more with indoctrination? How many are in the classroom? Will this experience help them to think they are better than others, and encourage them not to relate to others, unless others believe as they do? Or will they learn to get along with others who do not believe as they do, but yet, they can learn to focus more on what they have in common? Is the school competive with other schools?
In the article, I read that the SDA schools are at least in the 60-65 percentile nationwide, and that is good. However, in the public schools that are around my area, the schools are in the 75-80 percentile, and some of the christian schools, are in the 90 percentile.
Since the article has agreed that parents influence and homelife is a stronger influence on children and their choices regarding spirituality than anything else, then what I think a lot of parents are looking for in a christian education is spirituality, learning about our Savior and the 3 R’s.
I personally had a child in an Adventist school, and did not feel that I got my money’s worth.
July 15th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
My daughter had the privlage of attending a SDA school last year after attending public school for 3 years. A little country school re-opened nearby and with the help of my church we were able to afford the tuition. Our experience with the school was wonderful and I do not want to send her back to the public school system and hope when my son starts school we will be able to send him as well. I think the cost of tuition is one reason some parents choose not to send their children to private school. I know we would not be able to afford it if we hadn’t been blessed with the help of my church. Her school is a small one classroom school so for that reason there didn’t seem to be problems with students mistreating each other. I know that her teacher emphesized friendship and treating each other kind and treating each other how Jesus would want us to. I feel it is very important for school staff to emphesize and encourange the love of one another as God wants to be as Christians but bottom line it all starts at home. I think parents need to take responsibity for the actions of their children and how they treat others. If they are treating other badly it should be addressed of course at school and followed up with the parents. Maybe the school and parents can work a little more closing together addressing issued concerning the student body and try to reach resolution somehow. A well trained staff with a strong focus on our true mission can make all the difference in the world. Our children are there of course for a great education and to build a solid foundation in Christ, School and parents need to work together.
July 18th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
I take issue with how “Inclusive Enrollment” is defined. No mention or inference of including non-Adventists or non-Christians, only “new converts”. I am incredibly frustrated with our failure to include educational institutions alongside our churches and medical facilities as a true mission of the church. There are too many members that see our schools, academies, and colleges as being for “our” students, instead of true mission opportunities for students and families that are not part of the SDA church. With so many public schools struggling to educate students and struggling with violence, drug use, and other social problems, it would seem a perfect opportunity to market our schools as a excellent alternative. But we don’t. Too worried about the impact on our “inclusive” schools for “our” students. And don’t even get me started on this nonsense of charging different tuition rates for non-Adventists. Its morally reprehensible to charge someone more because “they aren’t one of us.” How that policy remotely supports an “inclusive” educational mission as a Christian denomination is beyond me.
July 20th, 2007 at 4:59 am
The following is an excerpt from a letter I recently sent to Elder Dennis Carlson, president of the Mid-America Union where I reside. I believe what I have to say is important here.
…. I did a lot of research on educational test scores. What I found led me to want to write an academic paper on my data. …
First curriculum. I spent several weeks, hours at a time searching the internet for Iowa Test and Stanford elementary test scores. It didn’t matter from what schools, Adventist or other church-affiliated school…..Once I found a website with scores listed, I took careful note of the results, and read about the school and its curriculum carefully. As I began to tabulate the data, I discovered that those schools who use a curriculum entirely from one publisher (such as all from Abeka, or all from Bob Jones, or all from Sonlight, it didn’t matter) those schools achieved the highest test scores; in some cases two and three years ahead of the national average, if not more in some subjects. Those schools that had a curriculum from two publishers had the next highest scores, while those that had a curriculum from multiple publishers (such as Adventist schools) had the lowest scores…… I know that test scores aren’t everything, but today’s parents look at test scores to see how well a school is doing. If a school has good scores, it can be used as a powerful marketing tool.
Let me tie these two issues together. One, curriculum…….the copyright date has a powerful impact on parents looking at sending kids to school. If they see books with a copyright date more than ten years old, they are less likely to send their kids. Case in point; recently I had an extended conversation with a home school FATHER who was quite disgusted with the age of some the Adventist textbooks. “They are old and outdated,” he told me. “Those books are more than 20 years old.” Here’s a secret:
A Beka “revises” its materials every five to ten years. They change the covers of their materials, add a new copyright date and re-distributes the books. The “guts” of the books are nearly the same.
Second, test scores. One home schooling church member was offered a job as a secretary of some sort at the conference office. While discussing the position, she was told she would have to put her children into the local Adventist school. She flatly refused, telling the interviewer that she would not put her boys into a school where the test scores were lower than the public school district’s. She had found the test scores in the education section of the local newspaper.
…… If we can vigorously promote our schools to the community through the use of well designed web sites that are continuously updated, the publishing of standardized test scores on those websites to show how well those schools are doing and through updated (i.e. current copyright dates) curriculum, much can be done to bring in those students you say we need.
August 7th, 2007 at 11:33 am
I am an SDA educated (all but one year of college), WWC graduate who majored in Education. I taught for two years in our schools. Now, I have three children and I homeschool. Why? Well, finances are a consideration- but, if I believed an SDA education was the best, I’d work hard to find a way for them to go. It would be FAR easier than teaching them at home!
I did send the two older children to one of our schools for two years - my son for 3rd and 4th, and my daughter for 2nd and 3rd. The first year went well. The second year was NOT good. The teachers in the school were good - but the education my kids received from the other children (about half non-SDA and many very liberal SDA) had a strong impact on them. Jewelry, immodesty, bad language and symbols, sex talk, disrespectful behavior, importance of Brand names, Game-boys, cliques, competition and toughness all were put forward and idolized. My children’s spiritual lives did not grow, but rather declined.
It took two years to get to where the memories were not vivid, nearly daily recited occurences. Now, after 3 years I rarely hear what different kids did and said when my children were in school. Basically, I homeschool because I cannot afford to risk my childrens’ spiritual lives by sending them away to an elementary school. I hope by training them while young they will be ready to attend Adventist academy or at least college and stand solidly in their relationship with God, resisting sin in all its forms - and being an ambassador for the truth.
I believe our greatest error is that we have too often shifted our focus from leading each child to God to other less valuable things. Even the necessary focus on regular classroom subjects can get in the way of the spiritual lessons that have ETERNAL VALUE and are of PRIMARY importance. (Lest you think I use this as an excuse for my kids test scores, their composite standardized test scores were 90th and 99th percentile last year - the youngest isn’t yet testing.) Worse, schools needing money grasp at any available - whether from students who will be a negative influence - or influential adults with money. If we put Christ at the center He will bless and the money will somehow work. But if we do not put Him in the center , all the money in the world cannot solve our problem. We create instead a school with an SDA culture, lacking the Cornerstone.