New School, (International School of Georgia) is one of the leading private schools in Georgia. Founded in 1999, New School is the first and only school in Georgia fully accredited to offer all three International Baccalaureate (IB) Programmes (Primary Years, Middle Years and Diploma Programmes) for pre-school through grade 12 to both Georgian- and English-speaking students.The private school market is becoming increasingly competitive in Georgia. In recent years, New School found that parents of a large number of 8th graders chose to switch to another international school before starting grade 9. In some years, parents of 70 percent of students chose to switch schools.New School commissioned TBSC to help reduce the number of students changing schools after the 8th grade. We first investigated the root causes of students changing schools; we found a very specific primary issue plus some secondary issues. We then developed recommendations to solve the primary issue and mitigate the secondary issues. Finally, we develop an action plan to implement the recommendations and we helped New School during implementation.Recommendations were implemented in early 2015 and the percentage of 8th graders changing schools was reduced from 70 percent (in recent years) to less than 10 percent.
