An ongoing marketing strategic plan for local Catholic schools is showing positive results as applications are up at several secondary campuses, and enrollment declines have slowed among archdiocesan and parish high schools.

Only four months after the archdiocesan Department of Catholic Schools' (DCS) started the marketing plan in the fall of 2008, applications at archdiocesan and parish schools increased by 1,000.

And, analysis of this school year's student census figures shows there's also been a decrease in the drop in enrollment from a loss of 653 students in the previous school year to a loss of 437 students enrolled at archdiocesan- and parish-administered high schools.

The percentage drop of enrollment at all of the 50 local Catholic secondary schools --- including 24 private Catholic high schools, 21 archdiocesan high schools and 5 parish high schools --- is 4.18 percent. The enrollment decline at the archdiocese's 224 elementary schools is currently 3 percent, down from the previous school year's decline of 4.5 percent.

Interestingly, L.A. Unified School District schools this year also have a 3 percent decline in enrollment. Taxpayer-funded charter schools in Los Angeles, however, are on an upward trajectory with a 19 percent enrollment increase from last year.

Catholic elementary and high school enrollment has been reduced by more than half nationwide since the 1960s, when five million children attended Catholic schools. Currently, 28,574 students attend the archdiocese's 50 high schools and 52,730 students are enrolled in 224 local Catholic elementary schools.

Strategic plan
"Our goal with the marketing strategic plan was to stop the hemorrhaging in elementary and high schools and then to start increasing enrollment," said Domenico Pilato, a marketing consultant and St. John's Seminary College graduate who is volunteering his expertise at the request of his brother, Father Sabato Pilato, archdiocesan superintendent of secondary schools.

When Father Pilato, the former principal of Serra High School in Gardena, was appointed by Cardinal Roger Mahony to oversee secondary schools in the archdiocese a year-and-a-half ago, priorities were two-fold: increase marketing and strengthen Catholic identity in the high schools.

A 10-step marketing and public relations strategic plan was developed by Domenico and presented to high school representatives for the first time in October 2008 at a workshop held at Holy Family High School in Glendale. Participating high schools' marketing "teams" were required to submit a strategic plan by January 2009 using the workshop templates.

Like a business
Mary Anderson, director of marketing and admissions at co-ed St. Paul High School in Santa Fe Springs, attended the initial workshop with four fellow staff members, including Lori Barr, St. Paul's principal.

"It was exciting. [The message] was we need to start marketing our schools just as a business would market its business," said Anderson. "We have to be very strategic with what we do and we need to think long term. One of the things that struck a chord with me is realizing that there are lots of [potential students] out there."

Using the templates supplied at the workshop, Anderson and her team spent the next two months doing research on area demographics and brainstorming about how to improve the school's marketing efforts. In the process, the team reached out to teachers, parents and the community soliciting ideas to raise St. Paul's profile.

One idea submitted by a school parent member of the L.A. Dodgers Booster Club was to invite the group to hold their meetings on campus. This accommodation resulted in the boosters offering three scholarships for graduating seniors and promoting the school as the group's meeting place on its annual calendar.

Beginning this week, St. Paul's band teachers will start music enrichment classes for a nominal fee to participating school families at four partner elementary schools: Resurrection in Los Angeles, St. John the Baptist in Baldwin Park, St. Pius X in Santa Fe Springs and Beatitudes in La Mirada. St. Paul is also looking into providing drama and Spanish enrichment classes to strengthen their connections to local Catholic elementary schools.

"You have to go out and be proactive about getting your students," said Anderson. Staff members and a school parent have visited neighboring parishes to talk about the advantages of a Catholic high school education, emphasizing the fact that close to 98 percent of graduates go on to college. Results are paying off: Applications for next year's freshman class are up 90 percent from the year before.

Alumni database
Applications at all-boys' Bishop Mora Salesian College Preparatory High School, East L.A., are also up from this time last year, thanks to the implementation of proactive marketing efforts.

When Moises Delgado, the school's admissions director, attended the 2008 DCS marketing workshop, the first thing he and his fellow participants did was assemble a marketing team made up of 75 percent staff and 25 percent school parents.

As suggested in steps 4 and 5 of the marketing workshop, the team members then did a "SWOT" analysis identifying the school's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. School alumni, the team realized, were an underutilized asset.

"What's worked for us is gathering the alumni database," said Delgado. "We're keeping in touch with our alum with [biweekly] e-mails and the quarterly Spirit magazine. We keep them in the loop. We're starting to see more alum coming back and having their kids apply here."

Collaborative effort
Last summer, high school administrators, including Delgado and Anderson, came together in a collaborative effort to plan elementary school marketing workshops based on the 10-step strategy that's proven successful in the high schools.

The all-volunteer effort coordinated by representatives from 16 high schools resulted in seven elementary school marketing workshops hosted at secondary schools throughout the archdiocese. Hundreds of elementary school teachers, staff and parents attended the sessions, including 167 participants at the Jan. 16 workshop at Salesian High School.

Workshop participants received a binder of marketing materials/templates and learned about upcoming resources such as the first ever DCS schools website coming in February. An intranet central data system connecting schools and the DCS is also planned for the future.

Starting in March, marketing campaign officials are going to set up collaborative groups of high schools and elementary schools located near one another in the same deanery or neighboring deaneries to meet on a regular basis.

"Our goal is to give schools a shot in the arm, give them some basic resources, create the strategy and help them get going. Then, there will be follow-up," explained Domenico Pilato.

"We are determined not to close any schools," he added. "As long as we team up and work and have a plan and are strategic, we'll get it done. The energy and expertise are coming in --- it's a whole new world."