Steps to consider before starting a vocational school

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Vocational schools serve a distinctive purpose as they provide short-term training that prepares students to enter the workforce in a field in demand in their local community or region. These schools are often referred to as technical schools and are usually fully accredited, which allows students to receive financial aid when attending if they qualify. If there's a need in your community or region for certain skills or trades that aren't currently taught, you can establish a school to teach them if you know how to start a vocational school.

Determine what programs you will offer.

‍One of the first things that you must do is establish what programs and classes you will teach at your vocational school. While you may have some notion of what you want to offer, it's always best to consult with local businesses to determine what programs they would find beneficial. Not only does this generate support for your vocational school, but some businesses may be interested in monetarily sponsoring a particular program since essentially it will be training their future employees.

Find a facility.

‍The facility size for a vocational school depends upon the number of programs and classes you will offer as well as how many students you will serve. Once you've determined what programs will be part of your school, you can then determine how much space will be needed to adequately teach and train students in each program. By adding the space for each program together along with space for the office and administrative sides of your vocational school, you can work out what type of facility to lease, purchase or build.
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Establish your school as a private or public institution.

Public vocational schools get funding from the local or state government to supplement the cost of their programs while private schools must raise the funds themselves. In order to be considered a public school, you'll need to get approval from the Board of Regents or other higher education authority in your state. Otherwise, you will be considered a private institution.

Hire staff and faculty.

‍A number of people will be needed to run and operate your vocational school as many tasks will need to be done on a daily basis. Faculty will be needed to teach in the classroom and in each program, while support staff will be needed to recruit students, help students with the financial aid process, collect payments, buy supplies, and much more.

Buy equipment needed for each program.

You will need to purchase equipment for the different programs you will be offering at your vocational school so students have the right tools to learn. For example, for an auto mechanics program at your vocational school you will need to provide car lifts, power tools, parts to repair vehicles and diagnostic tools.

Get accreditation.

‍It is important that your vocational school is fully accredited in order for your students to qualify for and receive financial aid. There are regional accrediting organizations throughout the United States that can accredit your school and your programs. Generally, the accreditation process is completed by three to five appointed individuals who come to your school, visit with students and faculty, and review the curriculum.

Advertise and market the vocational school. Once you've got everything in place at your vocational school, you can advertise and market the training and education you provide.‍
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These are some of the steps that I recommend:

Prepare Your Program Curriculum:

‍It’s not enough to have an idea and a general plan. To start a successful vocational school, you need details – lots and lots of details. Every week, every day, and every hour must be accounted for in your curriculum:

-What subjects are you teaching?

-What are the learning objectives for every subject and week?

-How are those subjects taught? (lecture, labs, a combination. What are the required learning materials?)

-How do you assess student progress?

-What’s the split between lecture and lab time?

-How is lab time credited and supervised by staff?

-What skills are tested as practical application vs. written?

-What’s the best order in which to teach all the topics? Why?

-How many total hours is the program? Is this amount enough to award a certificate or a diploma in the area of study?

-How does each subject you teach prepare graduates for getting and keeping a job?

All these answers are required for approval to operate as a school in most states, but drilling down the details also helps you get organized for when things start to get messed up – because, trust me, they will go off the rails a few times, especially with the first couple of start dates. The more organized you are with the Program Curriculum, the better prepared you’ll be.
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Prepare Your Business Plan:

The curriculum details what’s being taught, how you deliver it, and why it’s important to the students’ career path. The business plan is basically everything else: facilities, staffing, staff training, marketing, enrollment benchmarks (and how you’ll meet them), operational procedures, safety, growth and improvement plans, etc.

When starting a trade school, a good business plan will help you get funding as well as help you realize all of the things you haven’t thought about yet (I’m not kidding). You will need to plan for everything from desks to lab equipment; from phone lines to advertising copy; from spare pens to fire extinguishers. Some states require such plans be submitted for initial approval to operate, but if your state doesn’t, make one anyway. It will prepare you for the future.

When starting your own trade school remember: you will always forget something. That’s why you have to plan. Speak with people who run their own schools and ask how they got started, what did they learn, etc. An extra month or two of quality research will save you years of bad decisions.

Design Your Course Catalog

The course catalog is sort of the nightmare of all vocational schools. It contains not only program and curriculum information, but all of your academic, student grievance, and student conduct procedures. For vocational schools, it’s more than just a schedule of classes. It serves as both the information and rule book for students (schools are required to give a copy to all students when they enroll).

The standard operating procedures for vocational schools must be clear. And yes, creating them is very much jumping through hoops, but it’s a way for new schools to prove to the state and federal agencies that you’re serious about creating a good school and not just getting money from students. Creating your course catalog also forces you as a person starting a trade school to think about things you never do in normal life like what to do if a student disrupts class, dress codes, and what the procedure should be if a student has a problem with a member of staff.

Find Industry Partners.

You need industry partners for two main reasons:

1. Ensuring your curriculum is up-to-date and applicable to current practices.

2. It helps with job placement.

In most states, and for all federal accreditation, states are required to not only publish their job placement rates, but meet a minimum standard as well. If you don’t place your graduates, then the governing bodies assume you are not providing a quality education. I always categorized costs of working with industry partners as marketing, but it’s also a vital aspect of maintaining job placement for your graduates on an operational and student services basis.

Come Up With Your Start-up Capital.

This is true of almost all small businesses: they never start with enough money. Just because you open a school does not mean that all of a sudden you will have students. At minimum, I always recommend at least three months of market saturation to advertise a new school in a region: local papers, radio, TV spots, streaming media spots, search engine marketing, etc. You. Must. Advertise. If. You. Want. Students.

A huge percentage of your start-up capital should be going to marketing. No students = no school. If you don’t make yourself known as a new school… no one knows about you.

Once you’re up and running and have regular enrollments, then you can decrease to the more standard level of re-investing 12-15% of revenue into marketing.

Apply For a State License:

Most states require that a school’s curriculum, staff, and operations plan be approved by the applicable agency BEFORE the school opens. Some don’t even allow schools to advertise until they’ve been approved. Once your application is submitted there is generally a site visit to make sure your facilities are adequate, and, if there are problems, you can’t start classes, which is why a lot of the footwork mentioned above prepares you for getting approval from your state.

Once approved you always have to be re-approved, so this is a constant process that happens anywhere from every 2 to 5 years.

Additionally, this is not federal accreditation, which is what is required in order for your programs to be eligible for FAFSA funding. That’s at least two years down the road after you start your first class.

Here is a list of Required Documents by “New York State Education Department – Adult Career and Continuing Education Services” (ACCES):

Application Fees

Per NYS Education Law 101 all fees listed below are non-refundable.

• New school application fee $5,000 (LPCS and ESL)
• Candidate school application for an LPCS fee $5,000 (If you are filing to be a candidate school, you will need to file for candidacy at the same time and pay an additional $5,000 non-refundable application fee)
• 2nd School location application fee $2,500 (schools apply under the same ownership that has a valid certification or licensure only)
• Director application $100.00
• Agent application $200.00*
• LPC school only
• Teacher application $100.00
• Curriculum applications $100 – $250 (Additional fees may be required for external evaluations) see Part 126.4 of the Commissioner's Regulations
• ESL schools only
• ESL Teacher application – $0.00
• ESL Program application – $0.00

*A director holding a valid director permit or license is entitled to an agent certificate without incurring the agent application fee at the school their director permit or license is valid at. The director still must complete the agent application and satisfy the requirements for certification as an agent.*

Application Process

Step 1: As the applicant, you first need to decide what type of school you are going to apply for - ESL or LPCS - and review the registration and licensure requirements.

For LPC schools only: decide, in addition to licensure, if you are applying for a one-time-only candidacy. If you are applying for candidacy, please review the candidacy school requirements (in addition to the licensure requirements).

Step 2: If you do not already have a personal My.NY.gov account, you will need to create a personal account with My.NY.gov as shown in the application instructions.

Step 3: Locate the BPSS tab in My.NY.gov and register with BPSS as shown in the application instructions.

Step 4: On the public application screen, you will be able to file a new school application by selecting the “Apply for School Licenses” tab. You can return here to start a new school application or continue an application that is not yet filed.

Step 5:  Select the type of school (LPCS or ESL) and click "next".

Step 6: For LPCS only, indicate whether or not you are applying for candidacy.  Please ensure that you read the candidacy requirements and limitations before selecting “yes”.

Step 7: Complete the school information screen by adding the school information.  In the school name filed, you must use the name exactly as it is approved on the school ownership papers.

Step 8:  Add the school’s address information.  (LPCS applying for candidacy must complete this section). For all others, BPSS suggests that you do not lease a facility until you are close to being licensed. If you do, you will incur rent, but not be able to operate the school until it is licensed. The licensing process takes about eight months.  You do not need to have quarters to file the school application at this time, but if you already have them, please complete this portion of the application.

Step 9: Verification of your contact information. Please review and verify your contact information. If any of your contact information is incorrect, you will need to update/edit as needed.  For instructions on updating your information, click on the help link and select the “Update Personal Information” instructions from the dropdown.

Step 10:  Add ownership information.

Step 11: Add the stakeholders’ information. BPSS is often is asked if this information is required and the answer is “yes”. This includes personal information and social security numbers.

If your corporation has board members, please list the board members first.

If your business has more than eight owners, please list the top eight.

Step 12: The system will now display a basic list of required ownership documentation that will be uploaded on the next page.  If you have not already done so, please collect this information and make PDF files of those documents for uploading.

The original Secretary’s Certificate must be mailed to the Albany Bureau office using registered mail (i.e., USPS, UPS, FedEx or other) with a cover letter which states the name of the school under which you are filing.

Step 13: Uploading of ownership information. Please review documentation required for your specific type of owner listed below under "detailed information."

• Select the green "add files" tab;
• Select the ownership file on your computer that you want to upload and click "open";
• After you have selected the file, a category dropdown list will appear.  In that dropdown, select "ownership".
• A description dropdown box will appear.  In that dropdown, select the corresponding file name of the document you are uploading.
• Then click the "start" button to prepare the download.
• Continue to upload ownership documents as needed.
• Click "next".

Step 14: The system will now display a basic list of requirements for administrative forms, financials, quarters and personnel.  Please review and print if needed.            

Step 15: On the required school document page, please upload any and all required documents you have ready for review. Please review documentation required for your specific type of school, including templates, which are listed below under "detailed information".

• Select the green "add files" tab;
• Select the ownership file on your computer that you want to upload and click "open";
• After you have selected the file, a category dropdown list will appear.  In that dropdown, select "ownership".
• A description dropdown box will appear. In that dropdown, select the corresponding file name of the document you are uploading.
• Then click the "start" button to prepare the download.
• Continue to upload ownership documents as needed.
• Click "next".

Step 16: Answer the new school information questions.  Any answer of “yes” requires an explanation to be written in the explanation box.

Step 17: Attest to the application.

Step 18: Pay the new school application fee.  An evaluation cannot be made without an application and a non-refundable fee. Once the evaluation is performed, the fee is earned regardless of whether the application was approved, denied or withdrawn.

• ESL school application $5,000*
• LPC school application $5,000*
• LPC school application with candidacy application, total $10,000 ($5,000 for licensure and $5,000 for candidacy)

*2nd School location licensure application fee is $2,500 and can only be paid by voucher (schools apply under the same ownership that has a valid certification or licensure only)

Credit card: If you are paying by credit card, you can make a payment and immediately log out and back in to receive administrator rights to the school and continue the application process.

Checks: If you are paying by check, you will need to print a voucher at the end of the application and mail the voucher, with the check, to the address on the voucher. You will not be able to continue the certification or licensure process until the application fee is received and processed, this can take 2-4 weeks.

Step 19: After the fee has been processed, and you have logged out and back in, BPSS recommends filing of the school curriculum or program application(s) next.            

Please select your type of school for specific instructions related to your school.

LPC schools – Curriculum Requirements

ESL school - Program Applications

Step 20: Filling of School’s Personnel Applications.

All BPSS schools are required to have a director, agent, and teacher.  One individual can be the director, agent, and teacher, if they satisfy the requirements for each. The school could be required to have more than one. For example, if the school has two classes running at the same time, the school will need to have at least two teachers, one for each class.

To complete an agent or director application, the applicant will need your permission to apply. This permission is granted by you providing the applicant has an employee verification code that allows them to start an application under the name of your school.  Even if you are completing the application yourself, you will still need to create a code for each application. (Please note, teachers do not need an employee verification code.)

For instruction on generating an employee verification code for agent and directors:

· please login;

· select the "school administrator" role;

· Select "Generate Employee Verification Code";

· Select from the dropdown the type of application you would like an employee verification for and give that code to the applicant.

For an applicant to file an application, they will need their own My.NY.gov account. For more information, see "Qualifications, instructions, and personnel applications".

Please note, the administrative form catalog cannot be approved without the personnel listed in the catalog being approved first.

Step 21: Respond to requests for documentation and complete the licensure process in the time frame provided per Policy Guideline 3-0800.

Additional documentation can be uploaded under the administrator role using the "Manage Documents" and "Manage Enrollment Agreements" tabs. Detailed instructions can be found under the "help" link.