What?  Estimate enrollment?  Already?  The school year just got started, and we can’t deal with that right now.

Then I ask, “So, what strategies are you using to bring new students to your school?”

“Well, we just hope parents enroll their children.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that in the past 20 years.

If you haven’t yet heard, “hope” is not a strategy.

It is one of the three things that last, but if you depend on it to grow your school, you’re going to be tremendously disappointed.

Today is October 1st, and this is the day when your official enrollment figures are reported to state agencies and other organizations to which your school belongs.

SchoolAdvancement.com has been publishing Enrollment Estimators since this site started, and several years ago, I began beta-testing an Enrollment Projector to estimate the next five years of a school’s enrollment.  One memorable comment came from someone who input their school’s grade-by-grade enrollment for the previous 6 years and contacted me, saying, “There’s something wrong with your calculations.  I’m getting negative numbers in the column that show enrollment 4 and 5 years into the future.”

I said there’s nothing wrong with the calculations.  If negative numbers are appearing, that’s how dire this school’s enrollment situation is, and it will be closed in four years if something isn’t done.

A long silence followed, follow by an “Oh.”

It felt very “Dickensian,” like a “Ghost of Christmas Future” prediction.

But for now, let’s take things one year at a time.

Please visit https://schooladvancement.com/?page_id=492

Choose the Enrollment Estimator that describes your school’s grade configuration, and download it to your computer.  Then, you can see the sample on the first worksheet of the file, test for the tool’s accuracy on the 2nd and 3rd page of the file by inputting the grade by grade enrollments as indicated, and then, on page 4, input the grade by grade enrollment for the previous 6 years to estimate your enrollment for the coming school year.

This will at least give you some basis to build your school’s budget.

If you’re not enamored with that figure, input your desired enrollment for the year in the green box, and then the tool will show you how many students you need to enroll in Kindergarten for the coming school year to make that figure a reality.

Would love to hear your thoughts!  Send an email to schooladvancement@gmail.com to connect with the words Enrollment Estimator Reactions in the subject line.