We, at SchoolPad, often come across conversations with schools where they are concerned about handling a handful of parents who not only dislike every aspect of the school but are also not shy of smearing the school’s reputation in public. In most such cases, minor issues are blown out of proportion by unhappy parents who then become a reputational hazard, spreading misinformation about school management among other parents and creating unnecessary panic and concern. Managing such parents is a massive challenge for schools and an urgent concern that has a direct
impact on a school’s growth in a hyper-competitive environment. And while it is easy to shift blame, this is an issue that needs a more nuanced and mature approach.
What is the Root Cause?
As a part of the parents’ community, we are often approached by aggrieved parents who share their issues and grievances with us directly. Given the seriousness of this problem for all the stakeholders, we decided to dig deeper and figure out the root cause. Our conversations with various stakeholders revealed that it is not always about the parents being unnecessarily problematic, or the schools being deliberately uncooperative. In most such instances, the issue was an expectation mismatch that resulted in eventual dissatisfaction and conflict.
Also Read: 5 Proven Steps to Boost Enrolments for Senior Secondary Classes at Your School
What is the Right Approach?
Once we started looking beyond the obvious blame game and approached this problem from a solution- oriented approach, it became clear that the answer could only be found by figuring out what worked and what was right, instead of focusing on things that were obviously wrong. Our teams, hence, started a conversation with a handful of schools to understand more about the parents who were happy and had been sharing positive feedback about the school. We realized that these happy parents were the ones whose kids were active and involved with various initiatives taken by the school and were enjoying their learning journey. This understanding led us to the conclusion that the parents whose expectations and desired outcomes were aligned with the school’s approach towards setting up goals and nurturing the child to achieve these goals and outcomes were happier and showed more cooperation and willingness to continue their child’s journey with the school.
The Three-Step Solution
We consolidated our learnings and distilled them into three simple steps that you must follow right from the moment of a student’s enrolment in your school to ensure the student and their parents remain happy and satisfied in the long run, enjoy the learning journey with the school and remain involved throughout.
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- 1. Ask For The Parents’ Expectations
Add a mandatory section in your admission form which asks the parents to explain their expectations from the school. To make it easy, you can further break this down into small questions like ‘would you like your child to prioritize only academics or be good at minimum 2 sports? (You can also add options of all the sports facilities available), ‘would you like to receive homework from the school?’ (You may add options like Daily, Weekly, Never), and so on. Make sure you get into the expectations in detail so that you can process them and accordingly guide the parents about choosing the right school
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- 2. Keep A Track Of These Expectations
Maintain a list of these questions and parents’ answers or a summary of these questions and answers for each child on record which can be easily referred to by the class teacher or the coordinators. This list can be taken up during parent-teacher meets and the discussions with the parents can follow accordingly. This not only helps staff revise what the expectations are, and align their approach accordingly but also keeps parents in the loop of how this alignment is working for the benefit of the child. Additionally, this prevents miscommunication of expectations from either party and avoids any potential dispute or blame game.
Also Read: Why every school needs an admission management system
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- 3. Maintain A Strong Feedback System
Feedback is an extremely useful development tool for any organization. As a school, you must keep track of the real-time expectations and experiences by directly asking for them from the parents. This can be done through a short and crisp feedback form to collect feedback and see if parents are satisfied with their child’s learning journey. Make sure this is done at least 3-4 times every year. Collecting feedback, and duly processing it by implementing necessary steps is one of the sure-shot ways to keep all the stakeholders meaningfully engaged in the student’s learning journey. This is also important as it shows the parents that you as a school truly care for their expectations and are willing to go the extra mile, which in turn enhances their trust in the school and general satisfaction levels.
This starter’s guide can help you manage expectations and ensure that the students who are enrolled with you, and their parents not only remain satisfied but also deeply involved in the learning journey with the school.
Curious about Schoolpad? Want to know more about how we work with schools and help them manage and access their data around students’ expectations, goals, and ongoing observations? You can write to us at connect@schoolpad.in or click on the request a demo link and one of our coaches will get in touch with you.
