A new one-stop application process in Denver Public Schools to choose a school is underway.
The new choice form — a four- page application — is available online and will be sent to students in transition grades next week through the U.S. mail and weekly school communications in children’s backpacks.
“All students are still guaranteed a spot at their neighborhood school, but we strongly encourage all families to consider all their options,” said DPS marketing director Marissa Ferrari.
The forms, due Jan. 31, will roll together the former 62 processes that existed within the district.
Many charter schools required a separate form from district applications, had their own deadlines and may have used their own criteria to determine enrollment or lottery placements.
Now parents will only have to talk to the district for the entire process.
“Many families were spending days or weeks trying to navigate multiple deadlines and driving across the city to find different forms. And many other families didn’t participate at all,” said Amy Slothower, director of Get Smart Schools, who worked with DPS to develop the process. “We believe it will make it far easier for all families.”
The centralized enrollment process is groundbreaking because DPS was able to get all charter schools to participate. But magnet programs that have qualifying application processes were not required to change their deadlines or processes.
Those magnet programs — including Denver School of the Arts, the computer magnet program at Thomas Jefferson High School and the International Baccalaureate program at George Washington High School — will still be listed on the districtwide form for parents to fill out as well.
“Usually, it’s January when parents are scrambling to find a school to enroll their children, and it’s conceivable that for certain magnet programs the ship has sailed by then, but it has been the same each and every year,” said school-choice director Shannon Fitz gerald.
For example, the deadline for an audition application to Denver School of the Arts was more than a week ago.
Fitzgerald said it is each program’s responsibility to market and to ensure families are aware of deadlines.
“It’s not a real common occurrence to get calls of parents who didn’t know of the earlier deadlines,” she said.
The new enrollment process was created after a study group hired a contractor in 2009 to evaluate the district’s system.
Among the problems found were inequities and reporting flaws that left many students unaccounted for in published reports.
The evaluator — the Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice — then was hired to help correct the flaws with the new process.
The institute, a nonprofit consulting company based in New York, was paid $300,000 from the DPS general fund.
Yesenia Robles: 303-954-1372 or yrobles@denverpost.com
