Bear with me on this metaphor: In order to be alive, a human needs oxygen.
But most people don’t make it their life goal to have oxygen – we just know it will be there. Instead, humans make it their goal to have friends, a family, a home, a job, and a purpose. These are the things we stay alive for.
The PA Distance Learning enrollment team knows, like a human knows oxygen, that the students will be there. It’s not about numbers; it’s about the relationships.
In order to be a school, of course we need students. But the number of students is not why we exist.
We exist as a school to give kids opportunities they deserve, to build relationships with kids that could change their life, and to teach kids that school is only a fraction of what learning and discovery can be. That is our goal.
We want to get to know each family who is coming in so that we can do our best to help them succeed. We also want to discuss what it is they need in a school; more often than not, we offer what they need.
Take, for example, the Doran family (see video). The Doran’s have two kids: one wasn’t being challenged enough, and the other wasn’t being helped enough. PA Distance Learning was able to offer a fit for both.
At the end of enrollment, we want to be able to send them off to our teachers with a taste of what is to come: education bound in meaningful relationships.
Some Enrollment Teams are judged and evaluated on numbers - not us. We're evaluated on the experience we give to our families and the relationships we build.