The Fear of Summertime Quits

We all have students that want to take a break during their summer vacation time. We do everything in our power to minimize this. Even with AM classes and all our fun summer events, we still have a few students that take summer off. And some of these students never return. So summer presents a real retention challenge.

To keep our team focused on this, we set a goal to have as many students on September 1 as we did on June 1. If you feel like this is a goal you’d like for your school, here are three things you can implement right now to keep summer attendance strong and avoid those future quits:

1. Weekly Summer Raffle - For each class a student attends, they earn a raffle ticket for a prize giveaway at the end of the week. Kids earn additional raffle tickets for bringing buddies to class. Typically we offer fun prizes for junior students like super soakers, which get raffled off on Fun Fridays or Super Saturdays.

2. Fun Fridays and Super Saturdays -These are themed days ranging from padded weapon sparring to board breaking to our “Tournament of Champions.” Buddies are welcome at all Fun Friday and Super Saturday Events. Choose different themes for each day and host them weekly from the end of June to the beginning of August.

3. Summer Spectacular – Who doesn’t like a party? This event is an opportunity for staff and participating students to show a little bit of what they can do with demonstrations, games, and usually a potluck. A culminating event like this attracts a huge audience and can be a great recruiting event if students invite their friends.

As you can see, it’s good to mix activities designed to keep existing students with those that help you to recruit new students. Working on retention and new student acquisition during the summer will help you maintain your active count, and keep summer attendance strong.