Episode 41: Watch For These 5 Red Flags When Enrolling New Students In August

The same thing happens every summer. As sure as there will be fireworks on the 4th of July, you can count on this happening about two weeks before the first day of school.

A parent calls your school and really wants to enroll their child in their school. They also want to do it right now. 

Immediately, my “antennae goes up” and I start asking myself some questions like:

• “Why did they wait until now to call?”
• “Is there something else going on here?”
• “Why are they having such a hard time getting records from their previous school?”

Most of our schools have very clear admissions policies and procedures. Most of us follow them very closely. That said, there is a very strong urge to rush through this process when your focus is on your teachers and students returning to campus.

Of course, there are many valid reasons why a family would wait until mid-August to call about enrolling their children in your school. For example, they may have just moved here from another city or perhaps their financial situation may have just improved. However, I have gotten a lot of these phone calls over the last 30 years, and I have found that it is very, very important to proceed carefully and to closely follow our stated admissions policies when a family suddenly appears and then wants us to hurry up and enroll their child.

On today’s episode of The Private School Leader Podcast, we are going to discuss why it is important to Watch For These 5 Red Flags When Enrolling New Students In August.

Thank you for taking me along with you when you are walking the dog, driving to school or running errands. I appreciate you and what you are doing for the lucky kids and teachers at your school. 

Thanks so much for listening and thanks for making a difference!

Mark Minkus

I’ve created a free resource for you called “The 6 Things That Every Private School Teacher Wants From Their Leader”. This guide is a 6 page pdf that will be a game changer for you. I guarantee you that if you do these 6 things, the teachers at your school will be happy to follow you. You can pick up your free guide by going to www.theprivateschoolleader.com/guide

I want to give you a gift to say “thank you” for listening to the podcast. I have created a FREE guide for you called “5 Strategies To Help You Work With Difficult Parents”. We know that working with parents is part of the job and most of our parents are great, but some of them can be very demanding and emotional and difficult. This guide will give you the tools that you need to build better relationships and have better meetings with the difficult parents at your school. Go to www.theprivateschoolleader.com/parents to grab the guide. Thank you again for listening every week!

Please check out all of the free resources on my website that can help you serve and lead your school community. There are "Plug & Play PD's" (45 minute webinars with guided notes) as well as Top 10 Lists of Leadership Books, Productivity Books and TED Talks over at www.theprivateschoolleader.com/resources. You can grab the show notes for today's episode at www.theprivateschoolleader.com/episode41

If you have gotten value from listening to the podcast, I would love to work with you 1-on-1. I would love to take my experience and help you to feel less overwhelmed and frustrated or help you have success if you are a brand new leader. I also work with private school leaders who are aspiring Heads of School and want to accelerate their leadership growth or experienced leaders that are moving on to a new school and they want to get off to a great start. If I’m describing you, then head over to www.theprivateschoolleader.com/coaching to learn more about working with me 1-on-1.

Please write a review of this podcast and help push this content out to more leaders. I would love to get your feedback about the podcast, ideas for future episodes and hear about how you are implementing these strategies in your life and at your school. You can email me at mark.o.minkus@gmail.com Thanks!!

I’ve created a FREE RESOURCE for you called “The Top 6 Ways To Protect Your School From a Lawsuit”. This is a 10 page pdf that will help you to keep your staff and students safe and help keep your school out of court. Litigation is expensive, time consuming and extremely stressful. This common sense guide will help you to be more intentional and proactive when it comes to protecting your school. You can grab “The Top 6 Ways To Protect Your School From a Lawsuit” at www.theprivateschoolleader.com/lawsuit. Thanks!