Hanover’s enrollment data analysis strengthened Options Schools’ K–12 recruitment and enrollment strategies in a competitive charter school landscape.
Hanover’s enrollment data analysis strengthened Options Schools’ K–12 recruitment and enrollment strategies in a competitive charter school landscape.
Options Schools (Options) serves at-risk students in grades 6–12 across Indiana with individualized and flexible learning environments. Facing stalled enrollment growth in an increasingly competitive landscape, Options turned to Hanover Research for data-driven insights into enrollment trends, student characteristics, and geographic opportunity zones. Options used Hanover’s findings to refine their K-12 recruitment strategy, focusing their statewide outreach and marketing efforts on regions with the highest potential for enrollment growth.
Options leadership observed declining year-over-year enrollment growth and high rates of student attrition — a challenge inherent to charter schools as students graduate or reenter traditional school settings. Efforts to increase enrollment were complicated by uncertainty about family priorities, lack of granular market data, and an increasingly competitive charter and virtual school landscape.
School leaders knew they needed to precisely target and retain a stable student base but didn’t have the internal resources to conduct the level of analysis required to identify the key factors influencing student enrollment and retention or to map which regions had the highest potential for enrollment growth.
With plans underway to invest in work with a K-12 marketing agency, Options’ leadership faced the additional challenge of interpreting and presenting findings in a way that would effectively inform campaign strategy and ensure a strong return on investment. To tackle these challenges with methodological rigor, Options turned to Hanover’s team of experts.
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To uncover how Options could address their cyclical loss of students and stagnant enrollment growth, Hanover developed a series of custom research projects using a mixed-methods approach.
First, Hanover experts completed a comprehensive analysis of statewide enrollment data focusing on patterns in charter, virtual, and public school enrollment, transfers, absenteeism, and demographics. Then the team administered a survey of Options’ current community to understand the key factors influencing student enrollment and retention, discover outreach channels most likely to reach parents, and identify Options’ core brand strengths, which included:
Hanover experts then completed an analysis focused on pinpointing geographic regions with the highest potential for student recruitment based on characteristics of the student profile most likely to benefit from attending Options.
This series of projects paved a clear path forward for Options to effectively allocate their marketing resources to the largest, most relevant market opportunities.
“Hanover Research was recommended to us due to its strong track record of providing thorough data to schools. For Options, Hanover was able to develop a rigorous study to help us solve our enrollment challenges, helping us inform future enrollment decisions and giving us a way to measure success.”
— Jake Brandau, Vice President
Hanover’s analyses resulted in a transformative approach to Options’ student recruitment. The charter school now has a full suite of tools — including interactive dashboards, executive summaries, and geographic visualizations through the Hanover Digital portal — to equip school leadership with a clear, data-driven roadmap for an improved K-12 recruitment strategy.
These deliverables enabled a shift from broad outreach to a resource-efficient, precision-targeted recruitment strategy focused on at-risk students in high-opportunity regions across Indiana. Crafted to empower Options’ work with a K-12 marketing agency, the in-depth insights that Hanover delivered formed the foundation of a six-month digital campaign aimed at increasing enrollment.
Already, Options has seen remarkable results from the new recruitment strategy. Enrollment grew by 7% in the implementation year, more than tripling the prior year’s 2% growth rate. Options’ results demonstrate how precise, evidence-based decisions can deliver measurable enrollment improvements.
By emphasizing their core strengths in outreach communications to untapped markets where prospective student needs align with the school’s expertise, Options is now positioned to restore stalled enrollment growth to previous levels while operating in a competitive landscape.
“At the end of the day, it can be hard to allocate funding to data and research. But I’m glad we invested in Hanover. The data we’ve received from Hanover helped us make better and more efficient decisions that will benefit our schools in the long run.”
— Jake Brandau, Vice President
enrollment growth after implementing the new K-12 recruitment strategy
of parents use search engines as a primary source when researching school options
of parents prefer to receive school communications via email
of survey respondents cite mental health concerns as a reason for leaving their last district
Options Schools
Carmel and Noblesville, Indiana
Addressing stagnant enrollment growth with a targeted K-12 recruitment strategy