The number of Colorado students attending school outside their home districts has nearly doubled in the past five years as families have jumped neighborhood boundaries in search of dual-language programs, safer surroundings or easier access to child care.
Colorado’s open-enrollment law took effect in 1991, allowing students to enroll in any public school – as long as there is sufficient space and students have their own transportation – transforming the landscape of traditional schools.
“Choice has really changed the meaning of community,” said Jane Urschel, associate executive director of the Colorado Association of School Boards, adding that Colorado was one of the first states to offer open enrollment.
When students choice out of a neighborhood school, “the people that you spend the day with and their parents really become your community,” she said.
During the 2005-06 school year, more than 130,000 students – about 17 percent of the public school population that year – attended a public school outside their neighborhood. That includes students who left their home district and those who stayed in the district but went to a non-neighborhood school, according to Colorado Department of Education figures.
The figures show that no longer are parents satisfied with attending their neighborhood school by default.
In Denver Public Schools, 37 percent of students attended district schools outside of their neighborhoods in 2005, said Amy Friedman, director of the School of Choice Office. A recent district analysis found that the use of choice was heaviest in northeast Denver, which has some of the lowest-performing schools in the district. The number of low-income families exercising choice has grown, and in 2005, black families exercised choice at a higher rate than whites for the first time, the analysis found.
School board member Kevin Patterson, who represents the northeast part of the district, said black families, particularly those in the middle class, are simply “looking for schools that are better meeting the needs for their kids, and they’re not always finding it in their neighborhood schools.”
Deborah Blair-Minter, principal of the Omar D. Blair Charter School in northeast Denver, said parents “are really saying, ‘I’m looking for the best educational environment for the child, and I’m going to interview the school before I decide.”‘
During the 2005-06 school year, the Jefferson County district took in 1,808 Denver students and shipped 922 to DPS.
Irene Griego, an assistant superintendent in the Jefferson County district, the state’s largest, said many Denver students come to take advantage of bilingual programs or what they perceive to be safer schools.
“It can be everything from test scores to where my babysitter (lives),” Griego said.
In the Cherry Creek School District, where 3,800 students attend district schools outside their neighborhood, “the No. 1 reason has always been child care,” said Angela McClain, who oversees admissions.
Perceptions about the quality of a school can also impact choices, said Pam Benigno, education policy director for the Independence Institute.
In low-income neighborhoods, she said, parents may feel that when “you have more poverty, you have more special-needs children. You have more English-language learners. You have children who are high risk.” Many families “are not comfortable with their kids” in such a school.
In rapidly growing Douglas County, state data show that during the 2005-06 school year, 2,194 students enrolled in schools outside district boundaries. Meanwhile, 772 students from other districts enrolled in Douglas County schools.
Brien Hodges, charter school liaison, said some families don’t like the district’s year-round elementary school schedule.
Denver City Councilwoman Jeannie Faatz, a former state legislator, penned the open-enrollment law more than 15 years ago. “The big result this has caused,” she said, “is for people to be more consumer-oriented.”
Computer-assisted reporting editor Jeffrey A. Roberts contributed to this report.
Staff writer Karen Rouse can be reached at 303-954-1684 or krouse@denverpost.com.
