Faced with a “perfect storm” of factors contributing to plummeting enrollment, the Des Moines school district a few years ago decided to do something new: hire a marketing firm to devise a campaign aimed at wooing students to return to its schools or enroll for the first time.
In recent years, the district has watched its enrollment drop by hundreds of students each year. In 2019, prior to the pandemic, the school system in Iowa’s capital enrolled nearly 33,000 students. Now, that number is closer to 30,000.
District leaders have attributed the decline to a “very cautious” approach to reopening buildings after COVID-19-related closures, that drove some families to consider other school options for their kids. In addition, the district operates in an environment that has grown more competitive in recent years with new charter school options, expanded open enrollment that allows parents more latitude to choose districts other than their home district, and the more recent introduction of education savings accounts that provide families with state money to enroll in private schools or home-school.
“The combination of the losses we faced as a result of the pandemic, with just a much more wide, open, and competitive education market just means it’s time for our school district to do more to tell a story about what we have to offer,” district spokesperson Phil Roeder said.
In 2021, the Des Moines district issued its first RFP seeking a marketing firm to develop a campaign, including billboards, print advertising, social media, television, and radio spots, designed to entice families to choose to enroll their children there.
It’s a decision multiple districts—including Newark, N.J., and Indianapolis—have made in recent years to best position themselves to enroll more students and offset losses, largely in places where public schools are no longer the only option for families. (Newark is home to a number of charter schools; Indianapolis schools face competition from charter schools as well as a newly expanded, statewide school voucher program.)
The marketing campaigns come as districts across the country confront historic enrollment declines that often lead to dramatic drops in funding, since state funding formulas take into account either district enrollment or attendance.
Hiring marketing firms could be a strategic investment that yields long-term results if paired with other initiatives that improve and set public schools apart, say two experts who study public school enrollment and the impact of school choice policies.
“I think it’s an effective use of district funds, but it also demonstrates that districts are not in denial about the fact that families have choices,” said Patrick Wolf, head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas’ College of Education and Health Professions. “It signals that public schools want to be the schools of choice in a choice environment.”
Marketing is an investment could lead to more money for school districts
Using marketing to promote a business or organization isn’t new—just turn on the TV or scroll through social media for a few minutes and you’ll see dozens of ads. Marketing also isn’t a novel endeavor for charter and private schools that are used to competing for students. But it’s less common for traditional public schools that face many urgent and conflicting academic, staffing, and safety needs, and where spending money on anything not directly tied to classroom instruction can be met with resistance.
The logic is that the money spent on advertising would be better spent on teacher salaries or services for students, like tutoring. But Roeder and Wolf argued that thinking may be flawed.
In Des Moines’ case, a fraction of its $600 million annual budget is spent on the effort, about $300,000. Plus, the money comes from a grant awarded by a local company that was intended to fund such efforts, meaning the money isn’t being pulled from another portion of the budget. And, ultimately, the more students in Des Moines schools’ seats, the more money the district pulls in from the state.
“The Iowa per-pupil spending is roughly $8,000 now, so if we can pull in 40 kids, that translates to $320,000, which makes a pretty big difference,” Roeder said.
Districts can narrow the focus of their marketing over time
When Des Moines district leaders began working with the local marketing firm Strategic America in 2022, they started with a broad campaign, developing a fairly simple and straightforward brand: “Come here. Become here.”
The line serves as the district’s tagline in internal and external communications.
Now, two years in and on a second contract, the team working on the campaign is narrowing its focus.
Project leaders with the district and firm pored over enrollment data and trends, and one thing jumped out: Des Moines was hemorrhaging students as they transitioned from elementary to middle school.
So, now, much of the marketing campaign is aimed at students and families in the middle grades, with short videos on social media highlighting the Des Moines district’s programs and opportunities, as well as targeted TV and radio ads, Roeder said. The goal is to both keep families enrolled past elementary school, and bring back students for high school who left to try another option for middle school.
“I think it made sense for us to start somewhat broad and then, as time has gone on, to try to adjust based on where we’re seeing the greatest need,” he said. “We’ve seen that work for us.”
Success requires more than advertising
Des Moines leaders are confident their marketing efforts have been successful, but it’s difficult to prove outright.
The year before the district launched its marketing campaign, enrollment dropped by about 900 students. The first year after the launch, in 2022, enrollment loss slowed, dropping by just 400 students.
The district can’t prove that the slower loss is tied directly to the marketing, rather than other initiatives the district has started or invested in, the fact that the pandemic—and the district’s response to it—is further in the rearview mirror, or simply chance.
“It’s impossible to prove the negative,” Roeder said. “But, if you were to ask if the numbers would have been the same had we done nothing, I would argue not.”
Regardless, Wolf said, what the district did was one desired outcome of school choice programs: cultivating a competitive school landscape that forces everyone to improve. Des Moines responded and tried to better itself, in this case by better communicating its value to families.
Marketing isn’t a silver bullet for districts’ enrollment woes, Wolf said, but it could be part of a toolbox of approaches that, together, make a big difference.
“An effective marketing campaign is sort of the first step in a public school committing to the idea that the effective education of children is a team sport, and that it’s most successful when schools and families work together in a partnership,” Wolf said. “Hopefully, that’s just the first step in establishing a collaborative relationship.”
Competition from charter or private schools has either had no effect on the academic performance of students remaining at district schools, or a positive effect, according to a number of studies on the topic.
Districts should routinely evaluate what programs, classes, and extracurriculars they offer, and respond to students’ and families’ wants and needs, said Aaron Smith, director of education reform at the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think thank that favors more school competition. Ideally, they’ll have something special that sets it apart, Smith said. In Des Moines, for example, the school system is home to a top marine biology program despite its location more than 1,000 miles away from an ocean.
“I really do hope they look critically at what they’re offering parents and ask why some parents would want to leave for other choices and find creative ways to address their concerns,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to think deeply about how schools are positioning themselves in a competitive education environment.”
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