Ann Arbor misses its Schools of Choice target
Ann Arbor schools fell about 40 students shy of meeting its goal for filling 2011-12 Schools of Choice spots, attracting 130 pupils for the 190 places opened for students who live outside of the district's boundaries.
Interim superintendent Robert Allen announced Friday that the empty slots will cost the district about $300,000 in anticipated revenue. The district had hoped to fill at least 170 of the open slots.
The total is more than the district filled in Schools of Choice openings in the 2010-11 school year, when 79 of 150 open slots were filled.
The district had hoped to fill more spaces for the upcoming school year due to greater flexibility in the grades that had spaces available.There were 60 spaces each for kindergarten and first grade, 5 spots each in second, third, fourth and fifth grades and 50 spots in sixth grade.
District spokesperson Liz Margolis said the window for applying for Schools of Choice openings in 2011-12 is now closed.
Margolis said part of the reason the district's goal was not met was families had trouble committing to an open slot if they had children in grades that didn't have available openings.
In addition, the district did not have any openings in any of the high schools, Margolis said.
Kyle Feldscher covers K-12 education for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at kylefeldscher@annarbor.com or you can follow him on Twitter.
Comments
BobbyJohn
Thu, Jun 23, 2011 : 8:55 p.m.
It is interesting that the school system has 2 years in a row OVERestimated the # of students transferring to A2 schools usually schools underestimate the # of students and try to be conservative rather than wildly optimistic.
Tony Livingston
Tue, Jun 7, 2011 : 1:51 p.m.
Lots of parent have their own "school of choice" system. They simply register their child with the Ann Arbor address of a relative and drive their child to the school bus stop every morning. This is pretty common in certain neighborhoods.
jns131
Tue, Jun 7, 2011 : 2:31 p.m.
I heard they are cracking down on this. You need three pieces of utility mail with your name and address on it. Plus a drivers license as well. Good luck with that idea. I have heard of this and do see it with Burns Park. This is why they are over crowded.
Dr. I. Emsayin
Tue, Jun 7, 2011 : 1:17 p.m.
annarbor.com posts stories about principal sharing and teacher cuts and elective cuts that make parents of private school children think twice about sending their students back to the public schools. There is such an aura of fear around cutting language, library and music plus the loss of busing that even if private school parents were considering sending their children to public schools, right at the decision making time, they get scared and stay in the private schools. Private school parents feel that their children are served better in private middle schools, so there is an area where AAPS might consider the rigor of the program. Private schools basically do 9th grade in 8th grade.
tim
Tue, Jun 7, 2011 : 11:07 a.m.
It would be pretty tough to be a school of choice parent unless you had the time and money to run a (sometimes full time) taxi service for your kids.
leaguebus
Tue, Jun 7, 2011 : 3:40 a.m.
Good old "dog eat dog" school economics. Rather than fix poorer non performing districts, the people that can transport their kids to AA will and those that can't stay in a district with less money and less chance to fix their programs and we wonder why our country is falling so far behind the rest of the world.
jns131
Tue, Jun 7, 2011 : 2:29 p.m.
Can we say AATA? Great way to transport children to and from school.
zeke56
Tue, Jun 7, 2011 : 11:29 a.m.
that was a decision in our house. fixing "poorer non-performing" districts is not nearly as easy to do as it is to type the phrase. i go back to things i've said before. cultural norms - don't need an education because my daddy will get me in on the line or why bother I can make money now. we ended up pulling our kids from districts based more on so many of their peers with that attitude and the academic performance that results.
DonBee
Tue, Jun 7, 2011 : 2:31 a.m.
Playing a zero sum game. The rich (AAPS) stealing from the poor (Ypsi, et al).
winner
Tue, Jun 7, 2011 : 1:57 a.m.
Might want to open up the high schools. that is where you will get big numbers. And after skyline is at capacity, won't the three schools all be below 1600. You could add 100 slots at each high school, and I bet you would have to go to a lottery. People would be knocking the doors down to get into our high schools. You can't find a better combination of academics, music and sports.
jns131
Tue, Jun 7, 2011 : 2:28 p.m.
They don't have a lottery for hi school. Never have. I had to intra district ours thru NCLB and Title 1 laws. Otherwise, I am not surprised the hi school is full. Everyone wants to get into a Class A school that is top 25 in the nation. I don't think they want to be at capacity either. Might run out of locker space?
snapshot
Mon, Jun 6, 2011 : 10:22 p.m.
Too little, too late, obviously lacking in planning.
jns131
Tue, Jun 7, 2011 : 2:37 p.m.
Nope, they started this 2 years ago and are still not getting the enrollment they want. They were short last year as well. So, this has nothing to do with poor planning. For some reason parents are realizing maybe Ann Arbor is not school choice after all? Heck, a Class A school system is my school choice.
local
Mon, Jun 6, 2011 : 8:09 p.m.
Would have had more if certain schools in the district weren't closed, only certain schools had space available. Are younger siblings guaranteed spots in future years at the schools in which the open enrollment occurred for this year? That could strongly affect family decisions.
keri
Tue, Jun 7, 2011 : 4:15 p.m.
As a parent who took advantage of AA's school of choice option last year (we are out of district), I believe there is no guarantee that my younger son will be able to attend the same school as his brother. I am hoping that the district fixes that issue before he will need to attend in two years. Even with the transportation issues, I have been very happy with our decision to go with AA schools. If sibling placement isn't promised, I may have to reconsider our options when we get to that point. I do not believe that AA has done an adequate job of promoting their SOC options to parents outside of the district. Ypsilanti is much better at providing information on their SOC program. While AA improved with their marketing effort for the 11-12 school year, it was still very quiet.
jns131
Tue, Jun 7, 2011 : 2:33 p.m.
Chelsea and Dexter don't want the problems Belleville is having when they opened their doors to school choice. They got the problems from Willow Run and now have to deal with the repercussions. Belleville was a nice school until they went school choice. Why do you think Ann Arbor is limiting what they get? They want to make sure the right ones get in.
treetowncartel
Mon, Jun 6, 2011 : 7:59 p.m.
Is this in addition to out of district kids that are currently in the school system?
Kyle Feldscher
Mon, Jun 6, 2011 : 8:04 p.m.
Yes, these would be new students they're anticipating bring in from outside the district in 2011-12.