Choose your school — if you can get there

By Emily Richmond

Monday, Jan. 14, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Yet another plan to improve education and offer more school choices for families is being unveiled.

And once again, the Clark County School District doesn’t have enough money to fully execute it.

Beginning with 2008-09, the district’s northeast region will offer “open enrollment,” allowing children to attend any public school in the region that has room. The policy is expected to improve campus programs as principals become competitive.

But because of the money crunch, the district won’t offer bus service to the other schools, meaning open enrollment applies only to families that can provide their own transportation.

“It’s not as open as I would like it to be,” said Marsha Irvin, the northeast region superintendent. “Participation may be lower because of that.”

Irvin and Clark County Schools Superintendent Walt Rulffes said it’s better to move ahead with at least part of the initiative than to give up because of a shortage of money.

“We have to grab every opportunity we can, even if it’s a more limited pilot (program) than we first envisioned,” Rulffes said. “I don’t want to deny access to some people solely because we don’t have the money to offer it to all people.”

Bill Ouchi, a management professor at UCLA who has researched the roots of successful public school reform nationwide, agreed

“I’d say a half a loaf is better than no loaf,” Ouchi said.

Other financially pinched districts have found creative ways to offer open enrollment, Ouchi said. One solution is to allow individual schools to control at least some of their transportation dollars and offer stipends to help students offset their costs.

“Even a small amount might be helpful to students and make it possible for them to take advantage of the choice option,” Ouchi said. “There may not be an efficient way to do it from the central office standpoint, but it’s usually not complicated if you let the school handle it.”

There is “some irony here,” Rulffes said. For the past few legislative sessions, lawmakers have toyed with the idea of requiring open enrollment in the state’s largest school district. But when Clark County devised its own version, requests for financial support were rebuffed.

Rulffes compared the groundswell of the new initiative to the district’s “pay to stay” full-day kindergarten program, which began as a pilot program at a handful of schools and is now offered at nearly 50 campuses. After failing repeatedly to win additional funding from the state to expand full-day kindergarten classes beyond schools with at-risk students, the district tested offering tuition-based classes at a handful of schools. Parents pay $300 a month to have their children stay for the extended instructional day. During the 2007 legislative session, the district offered the popular program as evidence that families think the extended instructional day is a worthwhile expense. The Legislature ultimately authorized more full-day kindergarten funding for at-risk students, but those dollars are expected to be part of the governor’s proposed 4.5 percent cuts to K-12 education.

If the open enrollment pilot program is successful enough to win financial support from lawmakers next year, open enrollment could be expanded to other regions.

In the meantime, open enrollment will help cultivate “the entrepreneurial spirit among our principals,” Rulffes said. “They are not going to want to lose students to another school that is perceived as having a better program.”

Parents will be provided a list of schools with available seats and the specialized programs and services they offer.

If one school receives more applications than it can accommodate, the district’s central office will conduct a lottery.

Principals in the northeast region are embracing open enrollment, developing brochures highlighting their campuses’ special programs, services, awards and honors in hope of recruiting students.

“We’re not trying to steal each other’s students,” said Rick DiTondo, principal of Gwendolyn Wooley Elementary School. “But at the same time, we’re trying to show parents we’re something special. You can still have camaraderie in a competitive mode.”

Another reason principals like having students seek out their schools: They and their parents tend to become more committed and involved in the school’s affairs.

Even if fewer families than expected participate in open enrollment, creating school promotional materials has been worthwhile, DiTondo said.

“It’s a great way to share what we’re doing with our parents and community members,” said DiTondo, who was co-chairman of the principals committee that developed the brochures’ format. “You have a chance to highlight your specialties and also look at what other schools are doing.”

And parents who might have thought of seeking another school might decide, after comparison, to have their children stay put.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires districts to give students at failing schools the option of attending another, more successful campus and provide transportation. Although tens of thousands of students in Clark County qualified for school choice last year, fewer than 800 families opted to transfer.

The open enrollment plan will be outlined for the Clark County School Board during a work session today. Community meetings will follow.