Moving Beyond Enrollment Pipelines: A Reframing of Student Retention and Recruitment Strategies in K-12 Systems

Abstract

The Dallas Independent School District is a large urban school system that serves over 145,000 students in the Dallas metropolitan area. The second-largest district in Texas, Dallas ISD is known as one of the fastest-improving school systems in the nation, having reduced the number of “failing” schools from 43 to four between 2014 and 2019. While the district has been lauded for its rapid improvement and model programs, it has also dealt with a persistent challenge in recent years: declining enrollment. As with many urban school districts across the country, student enrollment in Dallas had been impacted by increased competition from public charter and private schools, as well as other variables like declining birth rates and gentrification. And like other districts, this challenge was only exacerbated after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. During my residency in Dallas ISD’s Office of Strategic Initiatives, I was charged with developing a strategy to address student enrollment decline. As part of this process, I led a committee of district-level leaders to review relevant data and develop a pilot to test out recruitment strategies across a sample of 10 schools. Through this process, the district gained a more robust understanding of why enrollment was declining, when it was happening, and how it might be addressed at the campus and district levels. This Capstone details my approach to this strategic work, including the development of the pilot and qualitative and quantitative data that would help influence next steps. I analyze why the work unfolded in the way it did, as well as the technical and adaptive shifts I think school districts need to address to maintain enrollment and high-quality programming in the face of increased choice for families. The implications I share may be helpful to district leaders who want to develop their own targeted approach to recruitment. It may also be helpful to organizational leaders from any sector interested in using pilots to help inform strategy-building, especially in large settings where executives interface less substantially with those “on the ground.”