Keeping the black belts at schools

[KevinHap]

In my opinion, one of the differences between "belt factories (or McDojos)" and quality schools is in how many long term students (black belts) schools retain. I think one of the problems with some large schools is that black belts end up teaching lots of classes and lose time to "work on their own stuff"... or that the master instructor(s) is (are) too busy teaching the lower belts and new students to pay proper attention to their longer term students.

Some students do see "black belt - 1st dan" as the "end goal" of their program. Others see it as merely the beginning of something larger and longer.

In your schools (or in others) what are some ways you have seen attention paid to retaining long term students? What are some ways to make sure your instructors and cadre continues to learn and train above and beyond helping out teaching newer students?

[SimonB]

open up a black belt only class which goes on seperately from the mainstream class. Thats what they do in tkd anyway.