Career Center

Located in the beach city of Santa Monica, CA, Crossroads School for the Arts and Sciences, an independent, K-12, co-educational school of nearly 1,200 students, seeks a highly motivated professional to serve as the school's Director of Enrollment Management (DEM). Reporting to the Head of School the DEM serves as the school’s strategic enrollment leader and the point of integration for recruitment, admissions, financial aid, information management, reenrollment, and retention functions of the school.  

Crossroad’s Director of Enrollment Management serves on the senior leadership team and plays a collaborative role with? or on? the advancement, marketing, academic and financial operations teams. The DEM plays a key role in articulating the strategic enrollment management philosophy of the school and is essential to executing strategic development of an advanced, integrated enrollment practice, collaborating with other departments in its execution.  The DEM leads the admission and enrollment process and sets the tone and vision for attracting, enrolling, and retaining a strong, diverse, mission-appropriate student body, and is supported by an admission staff of 8.

Reporting to the Head of School and serving on the Senior Leadership Team, you will provide input on school-wide decisions.  You will lead a personalized admission and enrollment process, and play a vital role in the school community, expanding the community’s understanding of enrollment management through implementation of positive engagement, recruitment, and retention practices.  You will provide input to drive decisions in support of marketing, academic, and student life programs and develop productive partnerships with internal school-wide departments and key external referral sources (parents, alumni, consultants, etc.) to achieve annual enrollment goals and implement growth strategies to meet future enrollment targets. In addition, you will...

• Work with the Head of School and Chief Financial Officer to create and oversee the school’s enrollment and financial aid budgets and strategies. And communicate regularly to the Board of Regents about strategy and progress on these goals.
• Direct and organize the distribution of funds dedicated to financial aid according to the school’s mission.
• Implement a wide variety of marketing initiatives, including events, personalized outreach and community and parent engagement, in collaboration with the Director of Communications to ensure consistency and alignment in messaging as well as to capitalize on opportunities to co-lead projects and initiatives.
• Formulate an annual Admission and Enrollment Action Plan with measurable goals and objectives for both boarding and day student recruitment and retention.
• Build sophisticated data models and statistical information regarding the School’s enrollment trends and utilize them in decision-making about enrollment strategy, resource use, and planning efforts.
• Steward relationships with on-campus partners and current parents, and develop connections with prospective families; engage advancement, alumni relations, faculty, senior administrators, and the Head of School’s office as appropriate; execute an all-school enrollment management model.
• Understand and inform the admission staff and community about research and demographics and admission and enrollment trends, ensuring that changes and challenges are anticipated, understood, and addressed.
• Manage a professional, strategic, efficient, fast-paced, nimble, creative, and above all, welcoming office with a well-trained staff of 8.

You love challenges, thrive in a collaborative environment, and balance the challenge and joy of working in a K-12 school.  You have broad based experience in all aspects of enrollment management and can look outside the box to address challenges and issues in the market.  You have a growth mindset, and you have excellent people skills as well as strong communication and public relations skills, both written and spoken. You have a personal and professional commitment to the dignity of all persons and have experience creating an inclusive admissions process.  You bring creative ideas for enhancing the admissions process and have experience reducing barriers to access. You are facile with data, comfortable thinking strategically, and possess strong interpersonal, organizational, and managerial skills.  You have a high level of energy, creativity, flexibility, and a sense of humor and have outstanding judgment and maturity.  You can lead and have a proven ability to work with colleagues and stakeholders at all levels.  You possess at least 5 years of enrollment management experience in an independent school setting, have a demonstrated ability to grow sustainable enrollment and market demand, and possess knowledge and skills associated with the strategic principles of enrollment management. Communications and marketing experience is a plus. You also must possess a bachelor’s degree and preferably a master’s degree too, in education or a related field.  You are someone who will enhance the philosophy of inclusivity and awareness articulated in the Crossroad’s diversity statement.