How to start a School?
The article covers the steps on how to start a school. The school is an education institution where we learn how to live a life of selfless service on behalf of the society and find the path to virtue, subordinating innate self-interest as individual to the interest of the community, the good of the whole. Opening the school is not just a business but also a social service where people share their vision for the education development of the nations. Nowadays, it is a most popular business choice, but starting the school is not an easy process. Opening school is a a difficult and lengthy process with so many legal formalities and others essential steps. Sometime people takes help from consultants who provide the services like projects reports, branding and marketing of schools.
There are different types of the schools which are opened by different individual, nonprofit and profit making organizations as well.
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Let’s briefly discuss about the schools types before discussing about how and what factors should be considered while opening the school.
1. Public Schools: The school established by the local, state and federal government is called public schools. They get funds and managed by the government .Generally they provide the free education to the children who belongs to middle and lower economic class people. Public school also called as government schools.
2. Private Schools: The schools which are established by the group of individual, private organization or single person which mainly opened for earning profit. They generate the fund from the tuitions fees and other nonpublic sources, like religious organizations, endowments, grants and charitable donations. They select from a pool of students who apply for admission.
3. Magnet Schools: These are the free public schools which are very competitive and highly selective. They are renowned for specific programs and academic standards like science and arts. We also called it as special need based schools.
4. Charter Schools: It is a non-profit organization which is opened by the society, community, parents, teachers that runs independently. Charter schools don’t charge the tuitions fees and get funds by sponsorship or private funding. To some extent they are free from the rule and regulations that apply to conventional schools.
Steps to start a School :
Step 1. Develop the mission and vision: Initially, you should make the clear mission and vision to direct you throughout the life. Vision means what the school wants to achieve or accomplish in the long term future. Mission means school’s core purpose and focus which remain unchanged over a time and it should include a rationale for starting your schools, your schools values, educational approach etc. Vision will direct your decisions and strategy in short term and long-term. It gives the answer of such questions -what kinds of education you will offer. Who are your target people? What extra things will your school provide that others school can’t?
Step 2. Find a right location: While opening the school, you should be very careful about the location. It should be nearer to the market and easy to reach the target audience. It is better to establish the school in a location with high need of quality school with good education system. You should avoid those locations which already have a network of well-established schools
Step 3. Determine the grade levels: This is primary thing that should be considered while opening the school. There are different types of schools, which we have discussed earlier. How many and which grades will you start and up to which level it will rise in the coming future? Generally, many schools start with the fewer and lower grade level which eventually goes on increasing in the future.
Step 4. Competition: Competition may kill the newly opened schools so it should be the major concern to thenew schools. They should avoid the competition in the initial stage. The schools should be open in niche area where there is less competition but huge possibility of success.
Step 5. Develop your facilities: To get the approvals basic infrastructure, interior, and human resources planning must be developed. These things involve various aspects of schools like land, buildings, layouts, facilities and qualified staff. The school should be spacious.
Step 6. Legal requirements: Another major part of of the school opening process is legal formalities. You should apply for registration with NOCs and other legal consents. Local or municipal authorities and department of education are major authorities which provide help service to you. To get permission you should also have developed basic schools infrastructure and highly qualified staff/employees. You should also decide that from which board and council it should get its affiliation.
Step 7. Develop a business plan: It is the detail blue-prints of how the school is going to be operating in future. It describes your goal for the school and your plan to accomplish them economically. It mainly concerns with the financing of fund and satisfying the incorporation various steps needed to open a school. You will need to decide how many students you are supposed to enroll , budgets and operating cost, upkeep of the grounds and all others facets of the school’s operation to determine the succession of the school. You should do the feasibility study to determining the viability of the school opening option.
Step 8. Market your schools: once you have got approvals to start a school, you need to promote it through the different marketing tool and cost effective online and physical promotion like designing and appealing website, putting hoarding and digital marketing. Design a high impact marketing mix to develop brand and good public relations and be prepared to carry it out with enthusiasm. The most important things is that you must know your target market and what you need to do to be successful in retaining and attracting the maximum number of students you want to enroll.
Step 9. Hire key/excellent staff and faculty: When you start your school you should choose the different qualified staff and faculties because they will determine your school’s education quality and hire people who are adoring about education and compassionate with students and can contribute to the schools to become successful. Similarly, prepare the job description for different positions so that you can hire and attract the competent, dynamic and capable staff and faculties.
The article has been authored by Jagat Kadara, SIBM Pune.
