Business booms for firm that recruits students as enrollment in school districts tank nationwide
Caissa K12, based in Memphis, Tennessee, has been hired by school districts to recruit students as more parents opt for schools outside their neighborhood public school, causing enrollment numbers to plummet.
“We kind of focused on locally first and started expanding in this area. So we haven’t quite got to the rescue ship, but we’ve gotten a lot more calls lately,” president of Caissa K12, Brian Stephens, told Fox News Digital.
The firm, which initially specialized in political campaigns, amassed over 100 school district clients across 27 states since it started student recruitment services over the past ten years. Caissa K12 has been utilized by school districts in big cities such as Memphis, Tenn., Orlando, Fla., Newark, N.J., and dozens of other school districts.
Caissa K12’s recruitment efforts entail setting up canvassers across a school district to speak to parents.
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“All we hear about is how bad public schools are, because it’s easy to attack them. They’re the biggest, they’re the largest, they’ve been around for hundreds of years, and you have got this new grass that is greener things. So what we do is actually just present the facts. We say this school district’s got 186 extracurricular activities. They’ve done really well here and if you love those things about that school, then pick it,” Stephens said.
Stephens said that they are just now starting to expand from the East Coast to the West Coast.
“We haven’t really yet expanded onto the other side of the Rockies. So we’ve done a little bit of work in Arizona and New Mexico. California we just started to talk to,” Stephens said.
“Now that school choice is even more on the rise, we’re getting more and more and more requests,” he added.
Fox News Digital previously reported on several other states following Arizona in passing universal school choice legislation, responding to the trend of parents seeking alternative options to traditional public schools. The legislation is introducing competition into the education landscape as parents have options outside the neighborhood school their child is zoned for, placing challenges on school districts that are struggling to retain students, especially in large urban cities.
For instance, after Arizona launched its $800 million universal school choice program giving parents $7,000 to put toward their child’s education expenses, Tucson Unified School District has reportedly recently faced financial and enrollment struggles — citing losses of $20 million as parents overlooked the district.
There has been an uptick in parents choosing to homeschool their children since the coronavirus pandemic, indicating a growing trend of parents deciding against public schools. Charter schools are another growing option for parents.
Stephens, the lead architect of recruitment strategies for public schools, told Fox News Digital that vouchers and charter schools are forcing public schools to compete, leading them to enlist the expertise of Caissa K12.
“The more students they get, the more taxpayer money they get. So all competition started off in the bigger, more dense communities. And now, over the last 20 years, I mean, choice really started a long time ago. I think it’s been about 20 years, especially like in Louisiana and in Arizona – it’s radiated to the suburbs and now since COVID is radiated even to the rural areas,” Stephens said.
The Trump administration has made strides in expanding school choice nationwide.
Among them is instituting a federal tax credit scholarship, giving individuals all across the country an opportunity to support school choice programs within their state, circumventing anti-school choice measures.
“I think school choice has really taught everyone that they need to improve their game,” Stephens said.
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