Model program: Unionville High School, Kennett Square, PA: we ... make the conscious decision to market Tech Ed at every opportunity--both in and out of the school building.

Publication: The Technology Teacher

Publication Date: 01-APR-08

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COPYRIGHT 2008 International Technology Education Association

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About seven years ago, we attended a conference session about marketing and were inspired to start our own marketing program for our technology education program here at Unionville High School in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. When we started, we had no idea how much that simple marketing program would pay off.

Over the past seven years, we have increased our student enrollment by about 30%, raised $130,000 for our department, started a TV studio, written and started teaching three new courses, and made a tremendous amount of capitol investment in the form of a CNC router, 30 computers, a vinyl sign cutter, and much more. We attribute all of this success to our marketing program.

It is very important to note that we are not doing anything in the form of marketing that other teachers can't do. We have taken a very simple approach, but always make the conscious decision to market Tech Ed at every opportunity--both in and out of the school building.

We strongly believe that marketing is the key to sustaining or increasing your enrollment, getting the funding you want, earning administrative support, and if you teach elective courses like we do--keeping your job.

Our marketing program focuses on the following five major groups:

Students

As all Tech Ed teachers know, nothing boosts student enrollment like exciting, high-profile activities that are fun as well as educational. These projects need to spill out of your lab into the rest of the school building so that the entire student body can see what you are doing. Generating excitement for your activities just takes some simple consideration.

We also try to display a lot of student work at every opportunity, not just in the Tech Ed department, but also...

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