{"id":138,"date":"2012-03-10T22:59:35","date_gmt":"2012-03-11T03:59:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/?p=138"},"modified":"2016-04-11T06:58:27","modified_gmt":"2016-04-11T11:58:27","slug":"arent-children-our-customers-after-all-they-benefit-from-the-education-they-receive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/?p=138","title":{"rendered":"“Aren’t Children Our Customers? After All, They Benefit From the Education They Receive.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

“You recently made a presentation at my school that made me uncomfortable.\u00a0 How can you say that children are not our customers when they benefit from the education that they receive in our school?”<\/em><\/p>\n

It makes me feel like I’m doing my job when I make people uncomfortable…since if you’re complacent and satisfied, you’re not very likely to change what you’re doing or, at least, change the thought processes associated with actions.<\/p>\n

If you’re uncomfortable, there are two things that can happen – you become either energized about what you’ve experienced, or you become angered by thoughts that are different than yours or incongruous with your current mindset.\u00a0 I’m thinking you’re in the latter group, so I’ll explain.<\/p>\n

Children in our schools are receiving the gift of a Catholic school education.\u00a0 You don’t give someone a gift, and then ask them to pay for it.<\/p>\n

According to the United States Council of Catholic Bishops\u00a0(USCCB), the Catholic school is a “privileged environment.”\u00a0 In other words, students have a “right” to a public school education, but not a right to be educated in a Catholic school.\u00a0 This argument could be applied to any private, parochial, or other faith-based school (which is why the “voucher” argument could create as many problems as it might seem to solve).\u00a0 Many Dioceses have Catholic school parents complete a Memorandum of Understanding stating that they realize what their obligations are as a parent of a Catholic school student.<\/p>\n

I’ve met many adults who say they are “a product of a Catholic school education.”\u00a0 I have not met anyone who has said “I’m a customer of a Catholic school education.”<\/p>\n

If someone is paying tuition at a PK-12 school, the person who is paying the tuition is the customer, and therefore, should be treated as such, with outstanding customer service.<\/p>\n

That philosophy, however, changes when we begin speaking about college.\u00a0 Higher education today “bills” the student, and parents have to be “authorized” to see the charges their student compiles, as well as be authorized to pay those charges.\u00a0 Note that it wasn’t always thought of that way.<\/p>\n

Colleges and universities have seen great successes in Advancement and Development efforts in the past.\u00a0 However, as today’s “customers” (the students) graduate and become part of the fabric of alumni that have traditionally supported their Alma Maters, will they be as compelled to give back?\u00a0 After all, they were <\/strong><\/em>the customers, were saddled with tens of thousands of dollars of student loans, and now they’re being asked to support the institution with more<\/em><\/strong> of their dollars!\u00a0 If the folks being asked for support are members of Gen-X and Y, they’re going to be less likely to support the institution if they haven’t kept in touch with it, or, more correctly, if the institution hasn’t been successful in engaging their alums.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“You recently made a presentation at my school that made me uncomfortable.\u00a0 How can you say that children are not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2319,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dearschooladvancement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/DearSA.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2ggCS-2e","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":383,"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions\/383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooladvancement.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}