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Consultant pitches pay‑per‑student recruitment to Columbus City Schools amid funding squeeze
Summary
Quesa Public Strategy told the board its ‘student stabilization’ recruitment model can recover displaced pupils and boost district revenue under a no‑risk, pay‑per‑student contract; board members probed costs, caps, data privacy and grade‑level targeting.
Quesa Public Strategy LLC presented to the Columbus City Schools Academic and Facility Alignment Committee a paid‑per‑student recruitment and retention program it calls student stabilization, saying it will recruit, retain and re‑enroll students that districts have lost to choice programs.
Adrienne Bond, who described Quesa as a national student‑recruitment firm operating in 27 states, told the committee the firm guarantees districts pay only for students who register and remain through an agreed‑upon period. Bond said Quesa combines phone calls, texts, emails, digital advertising, community events and door‑to‑door outreach, and that the firm hires local staff for grassroots outreach. “We start recruiting on our own dime,” Bond said. “Districts only pay us for those students that we bring to the district.”
Why it matters: Enrollment drives state and local funding. Committee members opened the meeting by flagging possible state and federal cuts that they said could total in the low hundreds of millions, and several trustees framed recruitment as a way to protect district revenues.
Board members focused their questions on implementation details and risks. Bond said Quesa often partners with districts’ CFOs to demonstrate return on investment and that districts can cap the number of recruits the firm may enroll to control budget exposure. Bond described a past pilot that recruited 1,100 students in year one and about 1,300 in year two and cited an example where recruiting 500 students produced roughly $6 million in additional district revenue for that client.
On privacy: Bond said Quesa signs exhaustive data‑privacy agreements, carries liability insurance, uses secure FTP portals for data transfers and does not outsource its outreach operations. “We do not outsource any of our information,” Bond said.
On targeting and timing: Bond said competitors frequently target kindergarten and transition points; Quesa recommends beginning recruitment well before families make choices and running retention campaigns from February through summer to lock in commitments. She also said Quesa works with districts to produce school‑level “brag sheets” to surface programs families value.
Board members also raised concerns about local engagement and equity. Bond said the firm recruits locally—college students, retired teachers and PTA members—and tailors outreach to communities, including multilingual efforts in districts that require them.
What’s next: Bond offered to provide a scope of work and pricing for the district and said Quesa can run pilots or multi‑year engagements. No formal contract or vote was taken at the committee meeting.
Quote: “We start recruiting on our own dime,” Adrienne Bond said, describing the firm’s risk‑sharing model.
The committee then moved to other agenda items and later returned to district program updates.
