School is back in session across the nation (for year-rounders, the fall session is in gear), and another summer program is in the bag. Now is the time to revisit and reassess what you offered, who attended, and the strength of your bottom line. By setting goals now for summer 2014, you can take your summer program to the next level to recruit and re-recruit students and enhance your hard income.
Your summer program gives you the opportunity to draw in your wider community as well as keep your current families involved during those off months. Your offerings must be enticing, especially if yours is just one of many summer programs in your community. Emphasis on planning now gives your Summer Program Director the chance to digest the evaluations from this year’s program, to address any weaknesses, and build on your strengths. The director can then develop the workshops, classes, and activities; work out the appropriate budget; and search for the right staff.
Summer programs are an excellent place to give children a chance to learn and grow in their academics, without risk. Diane Cook, Director of the Summer School at Cheshire Academy, CT, writes in Successful Summer Programs: Building Confidence to Take Risks, “It is the chance to play, try, fail, try again, and create in environments unfettered by grades, rubrics, and tests. The measure of success would be in their connections to each other and in their confidence to take risks. Our students would step into the unfamiliar territory of classes that begin with questions by asking questions of each other: ‘Where are you from? What are you good at? Can you teach me that?’ And, perhaps most important, ‘Let’s figure this out together.’”
You can achieve more when your Summer Program Director works throughout the year—running a smaller-scale “parallel school” with many of the same functions that you oversee as the Head for the entire school. The Summer Program Director should know and understand your school’s strategic plan, and be involved with administrative planning meetings. The director should not disappear until April, when it’s time to roll out the summer offerings. Rather, the Summer Program Director is an active participant, helping the rest of the administrators and staff understand the program’s function, goals, and outcomes to support the school.
Send your Summer Program Director for in-depth training this October. ISM’s Summer Program: Generating Income and Students shows your director how to set the right budget, hire the right people, develop the best program, and recruit students for an outstanding program. Offered twice: October 13-16 and October 16-19 in Wilmington, DE. Often a sellout, save your spot by registering now. Reserve your hotel through September 14 for ISM’s special rate too.
Additional Resources
The Summer Program Director's Year-Round Administrative Role
Additional Resources of ISM Consortium Gold Members
I&P Vol. 37 No. 11 Redesign a Benefits-Oriented Summer Program
