Welcome back to your Post-pandemic Planning Guide! We hope you’ve found the first two editions helpful and you are taking positive action to build toward a strong fall 2021. We’ve got your back and are going to walk beside you, step-by-step, in bringing back the music!
This week, we have three big areas of focus: engaging another key stakeholder - your counselors, continuing to build momentum in our recruiting efforts, and incorporating activities specifically designed to retain our beginning students.
GOAL: TAP INTO YOUR COUNSELOR In Volume 1, we outlined a conversation with your building principal that will help you plan for the coming year. (If you missed those resources, they can be found here.) This week, we turn our attention to having a similar conversation with our school counselor to determine how we can best partner with them to increase student enrollment. Important things to consider:
Don’t wait for the counselor to reach out to you: a proactive conversation will determine if there have been procedural or date changes relating to signing up students.
Plan ahead for the conversation. A planned conversation can help you identify any new “landmines” for this fall. Here is a list of considerations to prepare for your meeting.
RECRUITING TIP: IT’S ELEMENTARY!
In our last blast, we encouraged everyone to set a date to speak with students at their elementary school or feeder programs. If you have not already done so, be sure to set up a time.
If it's time for you to speak, here are 8 Tips for Recruiting you can use, whether the students are participating virtually or in person.
RETENTION TIP: GET S.M.A.R.T. While it's great that we are getting a jump-start on recruiting for next fall, don’t overlook the importance of retaining the students already in our program. Here is a great resource that provides a “S.M.A.R.T. approach” to retaining the beginners presently enrolled in your program.
DON’T FORGET
If you haven’t started yet, now is the time to collect testimonials from your parents and students for use later in the spring for recruiting. Volume 1 had a template email/letter you can send home to encourage students and parents to share their experiences.
RESOURCE ROUND-UP
It’s easy to get focused on the challenges we face, but here’s a reminder of 5 good things that came out of 2020.
Need a digital recruiting idea? Here is a Recruiting Slideshow that can be used in-person or online!
SAVE THE DATE
On March 9th at 5pm CST, “After Hours: Conversations for Music Educators” will host a live podcast recording and panel discussion on recruiting ideas for spring 2021. Register for this free Zoom event here.
Step-by-step, we are going to get back to making music, together! In case you missed Volume 1 or Volume 2 of the Post-Pandemic Planning Guide, check out the links below!
We will touch base with you again in two weeks and can’t wait to see your momentum continue to build towards a successful start to the upcoming school year!
P.S. - Perhaps you have some thoughts on how we can improve these blasts, awesome content that’s helped you, or want to share what you are doing now to prepare for Fall 2021. Drop us a line here - we’d love to hear from you!