Some parents attending the meeting applauded when school board member Julie Phillips said the school board shouldn t get things too set in stone too quickly. She compared a quick approval of the new policy to the Palm Beach County, Fla. presidential ballots that officials approved but did not work well when they were used. School Board President Stan Garnett said he was not sure the board could know all of the details that could hurt the new policy. The devil is in the details on this, Garnett told the board Tuesday. The results if this doesn t work wouldn t be catastrophic, but they would be closer to it than I would like to think.
State law requires school districts to offer open enrollment to all students.
However, school districts can create their own policies regarding how students open enroll. The University of Colorado recently released its results on a open enrollment study based on the Boulder Valley School District. The study found that open enrollment encourages white flight, a trend that shows white parents leaving their minority neighborhoods for other schools. The study also found that open enrollment creates competition among schools, a factor many schools already face through Colorado s standardized testing laws. For many parents, including Ten Eyck, this competition is good.