A great recruitment strategy is key to keeping your program healthy and maintaining or increasing enrollment. Equally important is to retain the students you already have. Making sure that kids don’t run off for a shiny new elective is just as important as getting them in your door in the first place.
So what more can we offer students to keep them interested and engaged with music? In this episode, I speak with Scott Lang, founder of Be Part of the Music, about how we can keep students coming back year after year. Scott’s an incredibly passionate speaker and advocate, and he has hands-on tips for keeping your enrollment numbers up.
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In This Episode, You’ll Learn How To:
- Retain more of your current students
- Empower student leaders
- Figure out why students quit
- Make sure you’re retaining the right students over the long term
Get the retention tips
I’ve compiled Scott’s best tips on retention into a handy checklist. Download it and use it to plan your retention strategy this spring.
Three Key Takeaways
“Number one, you want to retain the right students.”
It’s important that every student have access to music education, but not every student will have the same level of passion for music. You want to retain the students who are passionate about music, who want to be in your class. That doesn’t mean that you only want students who will go on to be music majors. Kids join music for all sorts of reasons; they aren’t all headed to Julliard. What’s important is that you retain the students who want to be there.
“Understand your community.”
Communicating the importance of music education – and why students should stay involved with music – gets much easier when you understand your audience. What works for high schoolers won’t necessarily work for elementary school parents. What works for a teacher in a rural area – where internet access may be limited – won’t work for a teacher in the suburbs. Take your community into account when working on retention (or recruitment).
“Recruit your own kids first.”
There are kids in your ensemble that are burned out, unhappy, or struggling. Retaining those students is the best way to make sure that your program stays healthy and enrollment stays high. You have access to those students and can work with them directly, so much of the “recruitment” work has already been done for you.