Running a Private School

Editor's Note: I asked Stephen Alexander of Wilson International to explain how outsourcing a boarding program works. ~Rob Kennedy

1. Tell us about Wilson International, its history, and the services it provides for schools.

Wilson International aims to be at the forefront of global trends in private preparatory school education, providing a housing solution to schools that recognize the value of increased diversity and academic caliber of prospective students. The company was founded just this year for our first program in Roanoke, Virginia. Beyond providing a much-needed housing solution to our affiliate schools, Wilson cherishes the opportunity to help nurture thoughtful and competent global citizens within the framework of our affiliate schools' mission statements. Here in Roanoke, Wilson provides 16 rooms and 48 beds to its affiliates in a recently restored historical building in the heart of downtown. The building is updated with a fully secured access control program, designated fiber optic internet service, laundry facilities, and a full-time chef. In addition to room and board, Wilson provides a residential life program for its students and is also creating a recruiting branch of the company to assist day schools that need a jump-start in their international admission goals.

2. What prompted North Cross School and Roanoke Catholic School to add a residential option to their programs?

Both schools had engaged in specific and strategic initiatives to increase the diversity and caliber of their prospective students in the last seven years. Because both schools are

Summer is a good time for the marketing team to review the year-to-date and plan for the year ahead. Strictly speaking, summer doesn't begin in most private schools until school is out. That can be anytime between the middle of May and the middle of June, although some schools finish classes at the end of June. In any case, this is an excellent time to spend a couple of days reviewing your marketing initiatives. It is important to see what's working and what isn't working.

I like to think of marketing from the perspective of the homeowners I used to represent back in the 80s when I was a real estate broker in the Litchfield Hills of Connecticut. I would explain to them how important it was to view their home and surroundings just as a potential buyer would. Buyers see things that you are so accustomed to seeing that you don't see them. The things which you do not see objectively could well be deal-breakers. The same principle is true in marketing your school. Certain things which you take for granted or think are not important could be deal-breakers for potential families looking at your school.

Against that backdrop, let's take a look at each of your marketing tools as well as your overall campaign.

1. Your website

Think of your school's website as the front door to your school. The entrance to your school is warm and inviting, isn't it? Perhaps it is impressive, even imposing.

Marketing a private school is one of the tasks which can be daunting for school administrators of the small to medium-sized school. That is mainly because most heads of school have as their principal duty raising money. That responsibility is a full-time job by itself. Naturally, heads of school have a host of administrative duties as well. Moving down the organization chart, private school business managers have to keep the books balanced, manage the cash flow and deal with the overall management of the physical plant. Academic deans manage the teachers and what happens in the classroom. As a result, the admissions office ends up with the marketing brief, such as it is, in smaller schools. Most of the time marketing in the small school consists of making sure the website is updated, regular posts to the social media pages are done, and an admissions catalog is produced annually.

This state of affairs contrasts sharply with large private schools which can afford to hire the professional marketing staff needed to promote their schools effectively.

What is remarketing?

So, I can just imagine you reading this and thinking that you barely have time to market your school, much less remarket it. Anyway, what exactly is remarketing?

You and I are targets of companies' remarketing efforts every time we surf the web. For example, I was looking at bread machines the other day. After I left Amazon, I went to The Guardian to check the headlines and

How sustainable is your school? This article is written with small to medium-sized schools in mind. Larger schools can plan and use professional resources of all kinds to ensure their sustainability for the future. On the other hand, small schools typically have limited resources, to begin with. So with this in mind, I want to look at three aspects of how your school runs and offer some suggestions as to how we can ensure it will run for many years to come. In other words, let's ensure that your school is sustainable and will continue to be sustainable for many more years.

We are going to look at two types of day schools: for-profit schools and not-for-profit schools. A large number of primary schools are what we would describe as for-profit schools. These are the kinds of schools that a well-intentioned, visionary educator has established because she believes in a certain teaching style and wants to reach a certain clientele in her local area. I use the description of well-intentioned advisedly because many of these wonderful people have great pedagogical ideas but lack the business experience to make their school an ongoing reality. Here are some practical steps that the owner of a small primary school should take to ensure that her school stays viable.

Develop a business plan.

When you started your school, you knew that it was not enough to think that you could budget for, say, 50 students and charge tuition at the market rate,

This article originally started out as an overview of the top private school Facebook pages. However, as I began my research, I discovered that the Facebook private school landscape was in worse shape than I had first thought. What am I getting at? Simply that apparently many private schools are not implementing the measures necessary to create an effective Facebook presence. That is a shame because creating an effective Facebook presence is something which can scale to match your resources of both time and money. Put another way I literally cannot think of one good reason why even the smallest private school shouldn't be taking advantage of all that Facebook can do to help market your school.

Build brand awareness

Am I beginning to sound like a marketing professor? If so, I will plead guilty on the one count: my thrust is very definitely marketing. But, no, I am not a professor nor have I ever been. The closest I ever got to that august title in academia was Adjunct Instructor. But I digress. This short video gives you an idea of what is involved.

Marketing is critical for any small business. Every school has to pay attention to marketing. Marketing comes in many forms. Which ones you use depends largely on your and your budget. Marketing informs current and future parents of your existence.

Marketing drives your future intake of students. For many private