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Thursday, December 1, 2005
An aggressive marketing campaign coupled with strategic alliances with churches, community groups and labor unions helped the Detroit Public Schools stem the loss of students this school year.
Preliminary figures released earlier this week show that the District was just a few hundred students shy of meeting its enrollment projections for the 2005-06 school year. According to the figures, which are yet to be audited, 130,597 students are enrolled in the District’s schools. This number does not include adult education and pre-kindergarten students. There is also a possibility that the numbers could go up by as many as 400 students, as a small number of schools within the District are still finalizing their student data.
This year 110 schools exceeded their enrollment projections, significantly more than the 81 schools who met their projections last year. A total of 84 schools exceeded the previous year’s enrollment, compared to only 63 schools that did so the previous year.
The recently released enrollment figure is 10,000 less than the 140,613 students the District enrolled during the last school year. The drop in enrollment was anticipated, and the District’s budget for the current fiscal year was designed with 10,000 fewer students in mind.
Indeed, the District is projecting a student population decline of 10,000 each year for the next five years. The loss of students is attributable in part to the exodus of residents from the city.
Last year the District enrolled 7,000 fewer students than it had projected. To forestall a similar problem this year, CEO William F. Coleman III launched a marketing campaign in August that featured advertisements on radio, television, newspapers and billboards. District officials addressed many churches and community groups and also worked with the unions to help recruit students and stabilize enrollment.
“The projected loss of 10,000 students a year assumes we will sit on our hands and do nothing,” Coleman said. “We will not do that. We will be telling our story more aggressively in order to increase our market share. We’ve lost too many students to charter schools, private schools and neighboring public school systems because a lot of people don’t know about the wonderful array of academic programs we offer.
“Look at what we accomplished with less than two months of a targeted campaign. Just imagine what we could have done if the campaign had begun two, three or six months earlier. While we are disappointed that we have shrunk by 10,000 students, we are optimistic that we have found the right formula for recruiting and retaining students. “
About the Detroit Public Schools
The Detroit Public Schools, founded in 1842, is one of the nation’s largest public school systems. Detroit Public Schools is a school of choice and is open to children who live outside the city. The District offers a variety of highly competitive academic and career technical programs.
