AVCS Attendance

Obviously, Apple Valley Christian does not have impressive attendance numbers. In an area that is growing at a fairly good rate, and an area that has a fairly wealthy populace, attendance at a private school that offers contrast to the public system should be more popular. Some things could be changed to create, or some things added, to encourage new enrollment.

First of all, it is important to note the major issue in the current low attendance. I don’t think it has so much to do so much with current management as it does with past actions of the school. When AVC decided to turn away many students, and deny re-enrollment to others, it committed a very obvious worst error of the century. Increased attendance is – and this is why we are writing the paper – a good thing. If you want to keep classes small, you don’t turn people away; you increase tuition to hire more teachers. If so many people wanted to be at AVC, they were willing to pay more money.

That said, if I was part of the current management, I would change some things. The best thing to do is to increase output to the community. Speaking through churches, newspaper and radio ads, and even holding conferences to introduce the material at the school would be important. Any way to inform people about the product at the school, which is probably unique from most private schools, is a good idea.

The idea that equipping and funding the elementary school more than middle school and high school will produce better long term attendance is really one of the worst and most flawed management decisions to come out of this school. Unless the school wants to become an exclusively elementary school, it cannot take this approach. People are going to judge a school like AVCS by its high school’s quality, and a lot more people will come to the school in their high school years than the school thinks. A balanced approach should be taken, but equipping and funding the lower levels of schooling and lowering the levels of attention for the higher levels within the school will make AVCS into an elementary – only school in the future, which wouldn’t last long on its own anyways.

Apart from that, the school just needs to wait and hope that its past poor management decisions don’t stick with it forever. Bankruptcy and the disbanding of most of the structure of the school is possible, however, so steps should be taken to increase enrolment. The main approach now, though, should be a patient but aggressive one.