TCG logo RGB type outlines Director of Operations
Thought Excercise
CDCPS Enrollment Strategy Design Scenario
The task
As the Director of Operations, an essential part of your role is managing the student recruitment and enrollment process for our network of charter schools. You will partner with the Director of Special Projects who will provide you with strategic guidance and you will collaborate the Operations Managers across our schools to conduct effective outreach and enrollment actions that ensure fully enrolled schools on the first day of the following year.
In this exercise, you are to design and present a strategy for how you will plan to engage families (from initial outreach through enrollment and the first day of school) starting in the 2021-22 school year.
General information
· Community Day Charter Public Schools (CDCPS) is a network of 3 schools with a budgeted enrollment of 1200 students in grades K1-8.
· Prospect: K-8, 400 students
· Gateway: K-8, 400 students
· Webster: K-8, 400 students
· At CDCPS, schools are split into 3 grade levels: Early Learning Center (ELC), Lower and Upper School. Each grade level team is led by a Head of School who is supported by their Operations Manager.
· All CDCPS schools participate in a public lottery for enrollment. There is only one other charter network in Lawrence that also serves students in grades K1-8. There is not a universal lottery enrollment system in the city of Lawrence.
· January: Lottery Application opens. We host an “Open House”
· February 5 th: All Lottery applications are due by 5 pm
· March 3rd: Lottery is official held
· Post March 15th: Open opportunity to engage and enroll matched students to your school begins
· To be officially enrolled, students must complete and submit their:
· Enrollment Packet
· Proof of Birth
· Proof of Residency
· Immunization documentation
Directions
The enrollment strategy should be formally written, but no longer than 1-2 pages, and include items such as:
· Your strategy to initially engage families during the application window
· Your plan to officially “enroll” students, following the lottery
· The resources you require to successfully implement this plan
· The tracking/reporting mechanism schools should use to share out their progress in engaging and enrolling families
· Your “stickiness” strategy, to ensure that students arrive on Day 1 of school
This written strategy should be sent to Tarah Mohika ( tmohika@thecommunitygroupinc.org ) before your scheduled final interview. During the final interview, you will role-play the presentation of this strategy. The presentation should be approximately 7-10 minutes long. Following the presentation, there will be 20 minutes of feedback and questions.
Performance Activity Tips:
· Please consider the following when creating your presentation:
· You are presenting primarily to the Director of Special Projects;
· Engage and involve the team in the presentation.
· Please consider the following questions as you create the content for your presentation:
· What do you need to discuss in order to gain buy in from Director of Special Projects and other stakeholders?
· What supports do you need? How will you make sure that this plan is well supported towards success?
· What are the next steps? What is expected from everyone involved to make sure that the plan is successful?
