Re-Enroll Current Students

Linda Seese

I'm the administrator for a preschool that recently implemented BBEM, and I'm trying to figure out how to manage the re-enrollment process for existing students. ? My current dilemma…Each year, families need to update their program selection (ie. 2 Full Days, 4 Mornings, 5 Full Days). Is there a way to solicit this information from families that will automatically integrate with our BBTM contracts (like it does with new student applications)?

I considered the Re-Apply feature, but it treats existing students as new candidates, which is annoying for parents. I keep re-reading the Knowledge Base articles on how to set up Re-Apply, and I'm just going in circles.

I know I can create a School Form to solicit the information, export to a CSV, then import program selections to student profiles or manually enter it, but I have to believe there is a simpler, more efficient way to handle this. (Given how much time I've invested in trying to figure out a solution, I probably could have had it all done manually by now!)

Does anyone have any guidance for this hot mess?

Sarah Bienvenue

Hi Linda, no need to export/import from school forms. If you use the user profile update block on the school form, the school program can be updated via the form. Support can walk you through this.

Thank you,

Sarah

Geoffrey Goodfellow

Hi, @Linda Seese. Sorry if I may not be understanding all the nuances of your situation, but at my school, we created a very abbreviated enrollment contract that we use for our existing students. It confirms their demographic information, gives them a box to let us know if they are returning or not, and if they are returning, then they select the tuition plan and payment plan they wish to use, and submit. We have a separate tuition plan set for each of preschool days - 2 Full Day, 4 Mornings, 5 Full Days, etc. Based on what plan they select, that lets us know how to setup up our program divisions in Academics for next year. It's not automatic in the sense that it updates the program selection automatically, but because grade level is separate from program, it always requires some individual record management more so than our upper grades which progress seamlessly from year to year.

Linda Seese

Thanks, Sarah. I located the “School Program Type” selection field on Profile Update form. When I generate contracts, will the system know to pull the “School Program Type” from the Profile Update?

Sarah Bienvenue

Hi Linda, that will update the school program field that shows in the contact card, and in turn the contracts will “know” to look at that field.

Thank you,

Sarah

Linda Seese

Sorry for the additional questions, Sarah. I have not been able to find documentation in the Knowledge Base that clearly addresses how to handle our situation, probably because it is specific to Preschool programs. Support has not been able to help me with a solution either, so I truly appreciate your assistance.

Before soliciting Profile Updates from our families, do I first need to set 2022-2023 as the Current School Year? I'm assuming the School Program Choice they select on the 22-23 Profile Update will overwrite the 21-22 School Program Choice. That will impact any reports I run for the current school year that involve the School Program Choice field, which isn't ideal. Am I correct in my assumption?

Josceline Reardon

We just solicit the info on the school form, so that our Little Sch. Admin can figure out rooms. Then we have a separate contract for each type and just assign the students to that contract.

So you have a different Type contract and then you can add the year under it. Attaching a screenshot. TLS is our preschool (The Little School).

Elizabeth Perron

Hi @Linda Seese,

While Sarah is a very responsive Blackbaud Community member who is Blackbaud Staff and she might answer in a couple of days. When support is unable to answer your question….that means it would be valuable to post as a new question for your Blackbaud Community members to weigh in on their best practices. I would encourage you to do so and see how many other members you can help by just asking an engaging question!

In harmony,

Elizabeth

Blackbaud Community Manager

Anita Pinkerton

Hi there!

We have the same problem. We track and manage this all fairly manually with a little help from the system.

(A little background - We function like a school with regular Aug-May enrollment and then a summer care program that is not under contract. We are on continuous enrollment, so we do not secure a new contract every year from the families. Our initial contracts state that they are considered enrolled until they tell us they are not. We have a specific window each year when parents can notify us of their intent to withdraw without penalty. Outside of that window, we have an early withdrawal penalty that is the equivalent of one month's tuition.)

1. Since we are on continuous enrollment, we assume families will enroll for the same days and times year to year.
2. We add the next year's School Program field as a Publishable field so that parents can see it on their child's profile - right now we have 22-23 School Program as a publishable field
3. We manually populate the 22-23 School Program with a bulk upload - we just download the current School Program field values and create the upload file to add the same data to the 22-23 School Program field.
4. We then contact parents to verify the data in that field during our “re-enrollment” window in January. They are instructed to only contact us if they need to make a change. Only about 10% of our families make a change each year, so this works well for us.
5. We have a process for tracking any changes made to that field using Admin View Only fields for notes
6. We can run all kinds of lists on that data and we use it to build the payment info that goes into Smart tuition for the next year.

This is not ideal, but it puts MINIMAL work on the shoulders of parents. We are all about creating a process with a low PITA factor for parents. (Pain in the @$$)

We may do something different for next year, but this is working well for now. Everyone who needs to see the data can see it and it is easy to change/update and include in lists.

We also have an annual process to save the School Program field year to year as historical information in Admin View Only fields. Again, not ideal, but it precludes using the cumbersome new contract, make the student a candidate again process.

Happy administering, and have a blessed day!

Anita P