April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
CATHOLIC EDUCATION
IT'S A SIGN: Schools use lawn signs to boost enrollment
Nowhere is that more true, apparently, than in the Albany Diocese: For several years now, Catholic schools have been taking advantage of parents' and parishioners' lawns as free advertising space for signs touting open houses and enrollment signups.
"The only requirement is a lawn," declared Sister Patricia Mary Lynch, RSM, principal of Blessed Sacrament School in Albany.
Sister Patricia said she noticed Christian Brothers Academy and the Academy of the Holy Names in Albany and St. Pius X School in Loudonville putting out lawn signs years ago and thought, "Oh, this [practice] is for us."
The principal offers both lawn signs and flyers to families at the school and parish; a notice in the parish bulletin pleads with people to pick up a sign "and place it in a prominent spot."
Signing up
Sister Patricia is able to give out 75 to 100 signs each time an open house rolls around. She knows the signs work because, when families sign in at open houses, they fill out a form on which they check off how they heard about the event.
"It's always, 'church,' 'friend,' 'sign outside,' 'lawn signs,'" she said.
St. Pius principal Dennis Mullahy is also a big fan of lawn signs. "They're really cheap," he explained. "They're about $1.50 apiece. If you get one person to register [as a result], you've paid for the signs 10 times over."
Mr. Mullahy asks his faculty and staff to put out signs on their property: "I've got a staff of 60 people right there."
Add to that the parents of students, alumni and parishioners, and St. Pius can easily cover all 30 school districts from which it draws students.
The school distributes about 150 signs for each open house. While Blessed Sacrament asks people to return the signs afterward, Mr. Mullahy actually sends people out to retrieve St. Pius' signs.
Signing out
There's some strategic planning involved in using lawn signs. Sister Patricia exulted about one particular homeowner near Fuller Road in Albany that she always hopes will agree to put up a lawn sign, since the location gets so much traffic.
"I have seen them on pretty busy streets, so that's good. If you get stopped for a light, you notice them," she said, noting that signs can't be placed on public property: "If you put it on a lawn nobody owns, the city will take it."
Mr. Mullahy said so many other schools have picked up on the practice that "you can't drive anywhere without seeing [a sign for] some school having an open house."
He thinks St. Pius' lawn signs also send a subliminal message to people already associated with the school. "Teachers and parents comment about them. It reinforces, 'Hey, my kids go to that school!' 'That's my school!'"
Not a sign
The lawn signs are simple paper or plasticized rectangles on thin metal stakes that can be poked into the ground - most of the time. Sister Patricia remarked that this past winter, the weather in the Albany Diocese was so bad that some icy snowbanks defied attempts to insert signs.
"We're stuck in the winter. We register kids in March; our open house is always the week after the Superbowl," said Mr. Mullahy. If he has to choose a venue for sign placement, "we'll take snowbanks over ice. Our maintenance man has had to drill holes into the ground sometimes to get them in."[[In-content Ad]]
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