How to Schola Helped Central City Vale High School Optimize its Online Presence to Reach its Enrollment Goals
Central City Value High School is a Public Charter School located in Los Angeles, CA, part of the Value Schools Network. The Value Schools’ mission is to establish and support high quality, values-based elementary and secondary charter schools for populations of students who have been historically underserved by the public school system. CCV strives to provide a rich learning environment, including academics, athletics, clubs, counseling, and community involvement, to prepare students for success in college. CCV has a history of helping students achieve incredible academic growth by the time they graduate, and currently serves a student body of 475 students.
Prior to working with Schola®, CCV was hosting tours, open houses, attending recruitment fairs, and establishing positive relationships with middle schools in the area to engage with their eighth-grade students. However, the onset of Covid-19 quickly brought all these once successful recruitment efforts to a halt. With in-person campus tours and visits to middle schools no longer available, CCV faced difficulties showcasing all of its offerings to prospective families... This posed a significant hurdle to attracting new enrollments.
“Prior to Covid-19, school tours were always a very effective way for us to recruit new students. At the time, the exterior of our building was not a good representation of the inside of the campus or our school community, so not being able to invite families for in-person visits really hurt our recruitment efforts .”
-Joaquin Arroyo
To overcome this challenge, Central City Value needed to establish an online presence that was able to highlight their school and reach families in their community digitally.
Knowing that Schola® would be able to address this exact challenge, Central City Value partnered with Schola® in April 2020. Schola® immediately started building social media campaigns to showcase CCV to prospective families in the area. Through social media and the Schola® platform, the school's message reached a wider audience, resulting in a noteworthy increase in requests for more information from interested families. Now that families were interested in attending, a second hurdle that CCV had to overcome was actually getting these families to fill out an application digitally. Schola® stepped in and was able to contact and support families through the entire application process so CCV did not miss out on any prospective students.
"The fact that Schola® could give us a stronger online presence and reach families in our community was innovative and exactly what we needed. Schola helped us get a significant number of students between April and August 2020, and we were able to be fully enrolled by the start of the school year.”
-Joaquin Arroyo
Since working with Schola®, CCV has received 798 interested families, 143 applications, and 53 enrollments, generating over $1.6 Million in potential funding. Despite being located in an area with a declining population and intense competition from high school options, Schola® has helped CCV maintain steady enrollment numbers year after year. By leveraging Schola's expertise in digital marketing and online presence, CCV has been able to overcome their challenges, maintain enrollment, and continue providing quality education to students in central LA. The minimal cost of Schola's services in comparison to the substantial return on investment has made it a highly advantageous partnership for CCV.
“Even beyond just improving our online presence, the support we received from the Schola® team and the tools available on our dashboard were incredibly helpful and easy to work with. Our partnership with Schola® has not only helped us spread the word about Central City but also saved our team valuable time. We greatly appreciate their dedication."
-Joaquin Arroyo
How Schola® Helped EPLA Generate Nearly Half a Million in Funding in Just 9 Months
El Paso Leadership Academy (EPLA) is a public charter middle and high school located in El Paso, Texas. The mission of EPLA is to educate and empower students with the tools essential to achieve their self-actualization, academic potential, and success. They aim to help traditionally underserved students further their education to achieve a brighter future in college and beyond. They currently serve a total of 816 students across 2 campuses, including students who reside in Juarez, Mexico.
Prior to working with Schola®, EPLA struggled to reach a wider community of students and quickly follow up with interested families. Both Angel Torres and EPLA's other Director of Recruitment, Lorenzo Borjas, have a background in sports recruiting. Although they could easily recruit student-athletes, they knew they needed to expand their reach to non-athletes in the surrounding communities who could also benefit greatly from attending EPLA.
Additionally, their 2nd campus, EPLA East, had just opened. With this new campus, they now had the capacity to enroll hundreds of new students, but their first obstacle would be generating enough interest from families in the community to fill those seats – both in El Paso and in Juarez just south of the border.
"On my first day working at TEACH, a random pad of paper with names and numbers to call was dropped on my desk. That was the 'system' we were working with.”
Positive word-of-mouth consistently brought in new families, so TEACH rarely struggled with gaining interest; however, they fell short when it came to communication, and several families fell through the cracks and never ended up enrolling. With everyone on staff wearing so many hats, having the time and energy to follow up with prospective families and doing so in a timely manner was TEACH's greatest challenge.
After connecting at a conference in Texas, both EPLA's Flagship campus and the newly-opened EPLA East partnered with Schola® in October 2021 to address the specific recruitment challenges they were facing. Initially, Schola® launched recruitment campaigns to promote EPLA and attract new students, which was the main pain point EPLA had identified at the time. Since opening in 2021, EPLA East has grown from 70 students in the first year to 430 in their second and now over 655 students in their third year. In addition to other factors, such as offering transportation, a robust sports program, and being in a growing city, EPLA attributes this exponential growth to Schola®.
“The campaigns they ran helped tremendously in our growth. They communicated the value of EPLA to families really well, which is amazing.”
- Angel Torres
Having experienced such success with Schola® finding prospective students for their schools, EPLA recognized another challenge – actually having the time to follow up with interested families. With the influx of leads on top of undergoing some changes in school leadership, their staff simply lacked the time needed to follow up with everyone.
Realizing this, EPLA was eager to expand their partnership with Schola® beyond just lead generation. Looking for more comprehensive support, they opted for Schola's All-In-One Recruitment Solution, their flagship ScholaRecruiter Pro™ service.
EPLA began leveraging ScholaRecruiter Pro™ in February 2023, which provided them with full follow-up support in Spanish and English. The Schola® Parent Outreach Team quickly became an extension of an EPLA team, calling prospective families and guiding them all the way through the application phase.
What's more, the Schola® team's efforts aren't limited to the prospects generated from their own marketing efforts – they follow up with all the families that show interest in EPLA, regardless of the lead source, whether they come through an interest form on the school's website, an open house event, or via a QR code on a flyer. This comprehensive follow-up strategy has proven successful, yielding 30 additional applications for EPLA outside of their standard Schola® campaign.
“I remember when I first started, sometimes we would have a lot of
leads, but no one had the time to actually reach out to them.”
- Angel Torres
The enhanced recruitment strategies, including bilingual outreach and lead-generation campaigns, coupled with the suite of additional tools and support that Schola® provides, have proven to be incredibly beneficial for EPLA. Not only has it given time back to their team, but EPLA can quickly and accurately track each family's path toward enrollment on the Schola® platform and monitor overall results in the Reporting Hub all while the Schola® team's ongoing, responsive support promptly addresses any issues or challenges that come up along the way.
“Even though Schola® is not physically part of our school staff or located in Texas, they feel like an extension of our team. The communication between Schola® and our team has been terrific. Jasmin, our School Strategist, is so diligent and good at keeping tabs on us to ensure we are successful.”
- Angel Torres
In the 9 months following their switch to ScholaRecruiter Pro™, El Paso Leadership Academy received 539 leads, 119 applications, and 45 enrollments, generating over $462,420 in per-pupil funding as a result. With ScholaRecruiter Pro™, finding the time to consistently follow up with prospective students has become one less thing for EPLA to worry about, having complete peace of mind that Schola® is quickly communicating with every interested family to help them apply.
It's precisely this confidence that allows Angel to focus his efforts on other essential aspects of EPLA, like ensuring students have everything they need to succeed. With Schola® streamlining the recruitment process, they've also enabled Angel to create a more positive campus experience for staff and students alike, further fueling word-of-mouth referrals and enrollments.
Since Working With Schola®
“Schola® is exactly the niche that schools need, especially charter schools. My title may be student recruitment, but I also support with transportation and student athletics; there are all kinds of things I have to do. It’s tough with so many things to handle, so Schola® helps ensure we can actually meet our recruitment goals.”
- Angel Torres
We can help you start reaching your enrollment goals.
Connect with our team for a free consultation.
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