Value & Values: How Parents Experience the Process of Choosing a School

Abstract

The goal of this capstone project is to help an organization solve a problem of practice. We partnered with Southfield School, an independent elementary and middle school, struggling with increased attrition rates as the problem of practice. Our research goal was to provide solutions that may aid in both decreasing student attrition and increasing retention by assessing the ways parents select schools for their children and determining best practices based on comparable models. We examined empirical research to identify factors that have previously been correlated with parent decision making around school choice, conducted independent research using the jobs-to-be-done framework to determine specific factors associated within the context of this school, and developed solutions based on our findings.