Introduction
Across the United States, enrollment trends for some of the largest school districts are decreasing. Over the last decade, in Los Angeles Unified School District, enrollment has decreased 2 to 3% per year due to families having less children (economic factor), families moving to more affordable cities, and/ or families choosing other school options (e.h., independent charter schools, private schools.)
At Fifth Sun Pictures, our mission is to increase school enrollment among our network of school partners so they can have the funding resources to offer the highest quality academic and extracurricular programs.
In this blog post, we encourage all school partners to develop, implement, and sustain a phone banking process as part of a comprehensive student recruitment plan. Most schools in our network partially or in full follow our evidence-based campaign framework, the Fifth Sun Framework. As typically outlined in "Phase 1: Research & Strategy Development" an effective campaign both uses creative assets like a film production and follow through with engaging prospective student families multiple times in the enrollment journey.
What is phone banking?
Phone Banking is a direct outreach strategy where volunteers or representatives call individuals to provide information, encourage action, or gather feedback on a particular issue, service, or campaign. Commonly used in political, educational, and nonprofit settings, phone banking allows organizations to connect with their audience, answer questions, and increase engagement.
How can your school benefit from this strategy?
Towards the end of key enrollment deadlines, for instance the closing of the Zone of Choice Application for LAUSD high schools, an online application where existing and prospective families rank their preferred neighborhood school of choice, phone banking outreach can:
1) drive parents to complete applications that haven't been submitted
2) encourage parents to re-consider or further learn about the best school for their student's needs
3) foster positive two-way dialog with parents and the school
4) improve efficiency of recruitment efforts through optimized recruitment database that target only families who are undecided or in the process of submitting an application to the school
5) improve efficiency of recruitment efforts by informing enrollment committee of communication gap and opportunities (key messaging talking points and outstanding questions that are most relevant to students and parents, discovering directly from students and parents what's driving enrollment decisions)
At a more universal level, phone banking is a cost effective and accessible way to engage with parents in meaningful conservation to inform overall school decision making.
Case Study In Progress: Santee Education Complex High School
One of our school partners, Santee, which is implementing the Fifth Sun Framework including following our guidance to routinely use phone banking recently assembled a phone banking team ahead of the November 15, 2024 Zone of Choice application deadline. The phone banking team consisting of 8 student volunteers, 2 teachers, and 1 school administrator, Mr. Molina.
To setup their team, Mr. Molina invited students interested in earning service learning hours to attend a 60-minute phone banking training where a Fifth Sun Pictures representative facilitated the following training agenda:
1. Welcome and Overview (5 mins)
2. Phone Banking Process Walkthrough (15 mins)
3. Effective Communication Techniques (10 mins)
4. Role-Playing Activity (15 mins)
5. Troubleshooting and FAQs (10 mins)
6. Next Steps and Wrap-Up (5 mins)
In addition, Mr. Molina consulted with a school counselor to prepare a database with key student population segments who would most likely thrive on campus. This database will target 500 prospective families with a goal of securing at least 100 confirmed enrollment applications from this phone banking and outreach campaign.
Fifth Sun Pictures will continue to monitor the performance of this outreach campaign and will circle back in our next blog post tentatively titled "Enrollment Campaign Program Evaluation".
Again, we encourage all our school partners and beyond to leverage phone banking as an evidence-based school enrollment and marketing strategy.
Case Study: Students Demand Action
One of our nonprofit partners, Everytown for Gun Safety is an expert at grassroots phone banking campaigns. In October 2020, volunteers with Students Demand Action, an initiative of Everytown, surpassed their goal by helping over 100,000 young people register to vote ahead of the 2020 election through their virtual organizing program. Additionally, a volunteer leader completed over 1,600 phone banking calls and led 19 phone banking shifts, contributing to the organization's voter registration efforts.
In October 2022, during a Weekend of Action, volunteers held over 200 canvassing and phone banking events to support gun sense candidates in the midterm elections.
These metrics highlight Everytown's effective use of phone banking to engage voters and promote gun safety advocacy.
When to implement phone banking in the enrollment journey?
In similar fashion, schools can organize volunteer phone banking teams to optimize their recruitment efforts and help increase the number of enrollment applications, especially 7 to 30 days prior to a crucial enrollment application deadlines.
Phone banking can be a routine activity completed throughout the year if bandwith and volunteer commitment permits. Our advise is to preemptively include phone banking as part of your school enrollment plan to maximize recruitment efforts and strategically allocate staff resources towards a volunteer phone banking program. Phone banking can be done in a sophisticated way like at Everytown for Gun Safety, however this strategy is flexible enough to be applied with limited resources and time.
Resources for Implementation
To help jump start your phone banking team, here are two resources to facilitate a 60-minute phone banking training available for download and distribution among your recruitment committee:
Contact us at info@fifthsunpictures.com to learn more about phone banking or leverage other evidence-based school enrollment and marketing strategies. If you haven't learned about the Fifth Sun Framework, we also encourage you to study it on our website to ensure your school is well informed in best practices to maintains and increases student enrollment.
Written by Marco Vargas, Chief Executive Officer at Fifth Sun Pictures
Peer-reviewed by Jorge Madrigal, Partnership Manager at Fifth Sun Pictures
This blog post was published on Monday, November 4, 2024.