Reenrollment - Not Returning

Carissa Goddard

If you are generating reenrollment contracts in Enrollment Management, how are you handing families who wish not to return. If you add the Not Returning block the family still has to electronically sign and submit the contract. 


Do you do use the block or do you use a completely different form? I am having a hard time figuring out why I would make them sign a contract when they are not returning.

Sarah Bienvenue

Hi Carissa, most of our schools ask them to sign to confirm that they're not attending. They do not need to finish any other part of the contract or make any additional selections.


thanks,

Sarah

Carissa Goddard

Would you be willing to show me how you have yours set up? This is our first year using this system. In the past they filled out a not returning form and just didn't complete the contract.

Carissa L.Goddard Assistant Director of Enrollment Management 704.887.7057 | carissa.goddard@providenceday.org 5800 Sardis Road Charlotte, NC 28270 ProvidenceDay.org

Lauren Marcus Eisenberg

Typically, if a student isn't returning, the principal (or dean) or head of school learns this through conversations with the parents ... often AFTER the contracts have been issued. 


What is the best way to handle these contracts which will never be signed? No need for the parents to get the periodic reminder emails.

Geoffrey Goodfellow

In cases where a principal or school staff member is the one to learn about the student not returning and the parent doesn't complete the enrollment contract to indicate that, then we open the enrollment contract and mark "not returning" on our side.

Carissa Goddard

I think there is confusion on my question. I'm specifically asking about the set up of the contract within enrollment management. There is a "block" called Not Returning if you click "yes" indicating that you are not returning then the family still has to sign the contract to submit it to let us know they aren't returning. 


I think the best course of action is to not use the block and send them to a separate form to fill out their intent of not returning.

 

Brent Johnston

Carissa, I agree the Not Returning block simply still doesn't work. Parents don't know what to do when they are shown this block. The fact that it is a positive response to a negative question completely flumuxous most users. You have to click "YES" to say your NOT returning.  We have begged Blackbaud to fix this and make it work as a Positive question. Are you returning YES or NO. That would make the form process make logical sense to all users.  Unfortunately, it is still set up as if the Admissions team is entering this information on the back end.  With that all said, we eliminated the block from our forms, and have created a two step process. IF your student is returning the family completes the contract. IF the student is leaving next year, we ask them to fill out a separate form, and then we key the not returning information in the back end ourselves.


That's the only way we have found that creates a logical workflow.


Hope that helps.


Brent

Carissa Goddard

Hi Brent,

Thank you for your response and confirming that this is SUPER confusing. We are trying to work with it in our agreement and came up with this:


If your child will return for the 21-22 school year, select No below and complete the electronic signature.

If your child will not return for the 21-22 school year, select Yes below and complete the electronic signature.


The only saving grace is that if you click on "Yes" I have made it required to put in a reason for not returning, so hopefully that will make families realize what they chose.


For your Not Returning form did you create a form within EM or did you just use a google form?

Sharleen Samuelson

Hi,


We are using that block for the first time this year. I've just been very careful in explaining how clicking "yes" means no. I like having the not returning parents sign, because they acknowledge the release of their seats. Also I like that it skips the payment form. I do wish that they allowed for more fields to be added. I would like to gather some more information with re-enrollment, but the blocks are very limited.


Happy to share how I've set up our re-enrollment contract if that is helpful.


Best,


Sharleen

Ash Smelkinson

Yes- we looked into using this this year, and my biggest issue is that "not re-enrolling" is the same language used for both Newly-Enrolling Candidate and Returning Students.


I have built out a drop down for "Reason for Declining" and the "Chosen School" for the Candidates who choose not to enroll, and we LOVE that feature, but it's a problem that there isn't a similar, equal feature that is the same across the board in the contracts.


Right now, we fill out the "Reasons for Declining" in the "Decision" section for Candidates. For Returning Students, I maintain a word doc with all the "Reasons for Declining" that are copied and pasted into that section of the contracts.


Ideally, we would want a section of ANY contract that-

* Allows for a custom dropdown with our main "reasons for declining"

* These would be able to be toggled based on the contract, so we could have twenty reasons but only fifteen active for one contract and a different fifteen active for another

* A comment section for further explanation

* the school they're attending instead

* these answers would flow into both the contract itself and (if needed) the Decision section for Candidates


This way, we could get all the details we want, but still be able to put them in general categories so that we have actionable data.

 

Sharleen Samuelson

Yes, exactly! We really need to be able to customize forms. 

Sue Pelletier

i don't like that it is confusing to parents. We used it last year and many who were returning clicked yes to the not returning. They then made a comment that they were returning. We likely won't use again. Plus it should be a positive thing you see first not a negative. I think it should be are you returning yes or no. If yes they go on to review and sign the contract. If no, they go to a page where they are asked reason for leaving.

Liz King

We include a link to a form in our contracts that parents can fill out to notify us if their child(ren) are not returning. We also include the link in our re/enrollment emails. Once we know that a child is not returning, we go into their profile in Enrollment Management under Contracts and check the Not Returning box -- this ensures that they do not receive a reminder notification.