Evening or Weekend Chinese School in Bay Area faces uphill challenges on enrollment. That is undeniable. And school boards need to manage the trend of reduced enrollment year over year. The reality together with the pessimistic mindset create a very grave situation.
At the macro-level, the post-1997 reduction of immigrants from Hong Kong and the offering of Mandarin in Day School are among the obvious factors of whittling down demands for evening Chinese (Cantonese School). On the other hand, due to the prosperity of China, ability in Chinese language become a skill in demand; most evening Chinese school does not seem to have benefitted. The enrollment challenge goes beyond the macro-trends, there are apparent engagement challenges.
Success criteria of a business includes Revenue, Growth, Customer Retention and Customer Satisfaction. For school, those can be represented as student enrollment, % of students return next year; and satisfaction of existing parents and students. Existing customers could make one of the best advocates for new customers, reverse is true and they can demotivate potential customers.
What are the signs of students+parents satisfaction to school?
– are students happy to be in school or are they there because their parents insist for them to learn Chinese?
– are the teachers creating interests and motivations for the students? are the content of education motivational?
– do the students feel that they are learning something and have a sense of achievement?
– do parents participate in helping out school events with enthusiasm? what are the attendance rate in annual meetings?
High school requires students to have some years of second language to graduate, most students seem to enjoy learning the second language. What could be the differences?
oliviatamccue 
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