A family’s level of engagement with their child’s school is a critical piece of the independent school student recruitment and retention puzzle. More than one third (33%) of SAIS enrollment management professionals claim attrition rates of 10% or more in 2025, up from 28% in 2024, and nearly half (46%) state that they did not meet their enrollment goals for this year, up from 33% in 2024 (September 2025 Pulse Survey). According to the May 2025 SAIS Pulse Survey, 53% of school communications offices depend on word-of-mouth marketing from satisfied current families to help spread the word to prospective mission-fit families. Nearly one-third (28%) of advancement professionals cite parent engagement as a primary challenge in securing annual fund and capital campaign support (May 2025 SAIS Pulse Survey).
To better understand your parent community, Davidson Day – located in Davison, NC, and serving nearly 520 students in early childhood through grade 12 – attests to the importance of surveying, listening, and responding to the needs of your families. Megan Gray, director of marketing & communications, shares that as the school approached its 25-year milestone, it intentionally turned its attention toward understanding what motivates the families who choose Davidson Day, how those motivations evolve over time, and what that means for aligning mission, culture, and parent partnership.
Understanding Why Families Choose Your School
To dig deeper into parent motivations, Davidson Day employed the Jobs-to-Be-Done (NAIS) framework to outline a structured means of ascertaining the “job” parents have “hired” the school to do. The school’s leadership team held their own assumptions about why parents choose the school, such as a focus on social and emotional development with early childhood and lower school families (“Focus on my child’s social and emotional development first and foremost.”) or upper school families leaning into college readiness (“Help me realize my plan for my talented child with strong college outcomes.”).
Yet, by surveying their families, Davidson Day gained new insights. The majority of families across all grades held different aspirations for their partnership with the school than what leadership anticipated (“Help my child fulfill their individual potential, mature wisely, and be prepared for whichever college they determine is the best fit.”). Additionally, many families, especially those with middle schoolers, wanted specific assistance (“Help me help my child overcome obstacles.”).
“That double surprise was humbling,” shares Gray. “Families weren’t just hiring us for social-emotional learning or college readiness. They were trusting us to help them raise balanced, courageous, empathetic young people—and in some cases, to provide the stability and support their child needed to thrive.”
Defining Parent Engagement & Parent Partnership
The survey results helped Davidson Day redefine what parent engagement means for their community. “Before, we equated engagement with attendance. Now, we define engagement as partnership,” says Gray. “Are families aligned with us in raising well-rounded young people? Are they modeling service, leadership, and empathy alongside us?”
By reframing engagement from counting heads to measuring alignment, parents are now truly part of a partnership with the school, which is described by Head of School Andrew Bishop as “co-creators of the environment our children grow up in.” This was exemplified during the school’s Hurricane Helene relief efforts in October 2024. Parents went beyond dropping off supplies during carpool. Instead, they modeled courage and service by organizing supply drives, managing logistics, and even traveling to affected communities. Students saw first hand that adults were living out the values of impact and empathy.
For Davidson Day, the ripple effect of this parent engagement on the community was immediate. Students began proposing their own service projects, recognizing that school and family were working together toward something larger than themselves. Student empowerment was one of the most inspiring outcomes of what was otherwise a terrible event for the state of North Carolina.
Since then, the school has worked intentionally to maintain that momentum by creating more opportunities for students to take the lead in service and community engagement. When they see their parents deeply engaged, it reinforces the idea that their voices matter and that they can take meaningful action. In this way, family partnership impacts both parents and students, rippling through the entire school community by empowering the next generation of leaders.
Refining Mission to Build Stronger Partnerships
Each family brings their own aspirations for their child(ren) to their school community. Successful schools recognize that families have different needs and then tailor communications and programs to each audience. In an early childhood to grade 12 school such as Davidson Day, parent concerns run the gamut from safety and academic stability to global impact or social-emotional learning. Balancing different expectations takes thought and care, but it also illustrates the need to help families understand they are part of one school community.
The Jobs to Be Done work was one of several means through which Davidson Day began to see that its mission statement and core values no longer reflected who they were as a community. “The language of our old mission didn’t fully capture the diversity of ‘jobs’ our families expected the school to do, nor the natural evolution of those priorities as children grow,” says Gray. “What this process clarified is that we are not interested in being a school that tries to be all things to all families. Rather, we came to understand that there is an age-appropriate shift in what matters most at each stage of a child’s development. We needed to acknowledge those shifts honestly, which gave us the clarity and urgency to refresh both our mission and values so they more truthfully describe who we are today—and who we aspire to be moving forward.”
When the school rolled out its new mission and C.O.R.E. values (Courage, Ownership, Resilience, Empathy), it went beyond announcing them to include parent engagement. Students were encouraged to share their courage commitments written with their Patriot Pals – a program pairs young students with older students. Families were asked to find ways at home to discuss how they would commit to showing courage and to then share those commitments with the school. This engagement allowed parents to experience first-hand that Davidson Day was delivering on the promise of raising well-rounded, empathetic leaders. “The survey reminded us that parents want more than academic outcomes – they want to know teachers are partners in shaping character and community,” shares Gray.
Indeed, faculty play a key role in shaping school culture and encouraging parent engagement. From the moment new faculty are onboarded at Davidson Day, the importance of communication with families is emphasized, especially the need to communicate both a student’s celebrations and concerns clearly and empathetically. This message is reinforced by division heads throughout the year. The school also celebrates examples of strong parent partnership, which signals to faculty that this isn’t “extra work” but is instead part of how the school lives out the mission together with families.
Using Feedback to Inform Strategy
Reviewing and acting upon parent survey data can have an impact on how to better engage with families, particularly in areas crucial to the school, from communications to the admissions process, retention programs, parent education programs, and philanthropy. For example, in the area of communications, Davidson Day discerned from parent feedback that parents didn’t want more communication; rather, they wanted purposeful communication that would reinforce and help parents to feel confident that the school was delivering on the job it was “hired” to do.
With this insight, Gray and team streamlined messaging into predictable rhythms, became more transparent about decision-making, and began framing communications around the “why.” For some families, that meant highlighting stories of balance, growth, and leadership. For others, that meant being clear about safety, learning support, and individualized attention. Both messages needed to be heard, but the survey results helped the school tailor and personalize messaging for each audience.
As one parent shared, “While we value a college education and hope our child will have their choice of colleges, ultimately we want to set them up with every holistic benefit they can have to be well-rounded and successful along their chosen life path.”
Says Gray, “That’s the story we want to tell every time.”
Ideas Into Action
Davidson Day Director of Marketing & Communications Megan Gray shares advice for encouraging parent engagement through feedback that the school acts upon with intention.
Related Resources
The School Community Feedback Survey is a comprehensive assessment tool designed specifically for independent schools to gather meaningful insights from parents, staff, and students. This survey captures feedback across all critical aspects of the school experience, providing actionable data to drive continuous improvement and strategic decision-making.
