SCHOOL CHOICE: WHAT DO PARENTS IN DUVAL COUNTY THINK?
Duval County Public Schools is a geographically large school district that serves over 125,000 students. As a district, it offers a variety of school choice options for its students including its nationally acclaimed magnet schools, special transfer option, charter schools, No Child Left Behind transfer option, McKay Scholarship Program for Students with Disabilities, and the Opportunity Scholarship Program. In addition, there are special academic programs such as International Baccalaureate, Advanced International Certificate of Education, Early College and Career Academies that accept transfer students on a space available basis. During the 2007-2008 school year, 37,103 (30%) of Duval County’s students participated in some type of school choice option offered by the district. The array of school choice options offered by the district is intended to serve at least two main purposes. First, the district values diversity and strives to have all students exposed to a diverse learning environment. The Magnet Program, the largest of the district’s choice programs, uses a targeted recruitment campaign each year to foster this goal. Second, the district uses its choice program as one of its strategies to balance student enrollment throughout the district. As with many large school districts, population growth has not always occurred where there are available seats in schools. Consequently, the district struggles between competing interests of whether to build new schools where the students are or whether to try to bring students to where the schools are. With over 14,000 open seats, there is plenty of argument to support the latter. Currently, 46 schools in the district are over 105% of their capacity while 80 schools are below 95% of their capacity. Although the district has never instituted a controlled open enrollment plan, it does acknowledge that such a plan would have the potential to assist in the more even distribution of students among its 165 school buildings. But, recognizing that a controlled open enrollment plan would likely be a difficult sell for a city that serves such a large geographic area and for a city that is fond of its neighborhood school concept, the District has never really seriously considered this option. Instead, it has relied on boundary changes, magnet programs and other choice programs to move students from over crowded schools to those that are less crowded. However, with 14,000 empty seats, the district is more willing than ever before to consider new and different options. To try to understand what the public would support, two strategies are being employed. First, a large scale community involvement process has just begun to seek input from stakeholders on strategies to balance enrollment across the District. Known as ACE (Academic and Community Excellence), a series of informational sessions followed by small planning meetings is being conducted in each of four areas of the city. Second, a School Choice Survey was conducted. The purpose of this report is to report on the findings of the latter. School Choice Survey Methodology The survey was mailed in June 2007 to 8,000 randomly selected parents of students enrolled in a Duval County Public School according to the following criteria: (1) parents of choice participants (5000) vs. non-choice participants (3000); (2) parents of Black (3641) vs. non-Black (4359) children; and (3) parents of elementary (4665) vs. middle (2123) vs. high (1212) school age students. A self-addressed, stamped envelope was included with the survey and parents were asked to return the survey by July 20, 2007. Parents were promised that the results would be posted on the district’s choice website: www.duvalchoice.com. Results There were 1,535 surveys returned by the requested date which represents an overall return rate of 19%. The survey respondents are as follows:
The student population of the school district is 44% Black and 56% Non-Black. The table above presents detailed results of the randomly selected survey participants and respondents. The following points are noteworthy:
Question 1: Which of the following statements best states your opinion about where children should go to school?
A majority of survey respondents indicated that parents should be able to choose the school their child attends. Over 80% (1236) of the parents indicated this response including 61% (275) of those parents not currently participating in a school choice option and 86% (434) of the 504 Black respondents 78% (802) of the 1031 Non-Black respondents. Among the grade levels, there was also great support for school choice with 689 (80%) of the 865 parents of elementary age children favoring choice; 385 (84%) of the 461 parents of middle school students; and 162 (78%) of the 209 respondents at the high school level. Question 3: In your opinion, the opportunities for students to attend a school of choice should be:
There were 1449 parents who responded to this question. By far, the majority of the respondents (87%) indicated that they felt that the current menu of school choice options in the district should be expanded. Only 71 parents (5%) wanted the school choice options to be eliminated completely and 120 (8%) thought the number should be reduced. Of the 504 Black parents who responded to the survey, 451 (89%) favored expansion as did 807 (78%) of the 1031 Non-Black parents. Expansion was favored among the grade levels as well with 702 (81%) of 865 elementary parents agreeing; 397 (86%) of the 461 middle school parents; and 159 (76%) of the 209 high school parent responders. Both those already participating in choice and those not currently participating in choice favored expansion of the school choice options. Nearly 91% of those participating in choice and 77% of those not in choice stated that school choice options should be expanded. Question 5: In your opinion, is it important to make sure that all existing school buildings in the district are filled to capacity before building a new school?
There were 1538 parents who responded to this question (3 parents checked both responses). A great majority of parents do not believe it is important to fill existing schools to capacity before building new schools. This is confirmed by the fact that 1100 (72%) parents responded “no” to this question. This number includes 310 (62%) of the 504 Black respondents and 790 (77%) of the Non-Black parents. There were no differences among the grade levels regarding this issue with 72% of elementary parents checking “no” and 71% of middle school and high school parents indicating the same. Question 8: Some school districts use “open enrollment” instead of “school boundaries” to assign students to schools. This means that all students apply to three schools and are assigned to one of the three schools based on certain stated criteria. The schools are usually located close to one another.
There were 1478 responses to this question and over two-thirds (1015) of the responses indicated that the district should consider the idea of an open enrollment plan. Those favoring the idea include 371 (78%) of the 477 Black parents who responded and 644 (64%) of the 1001 Non-Black parents who responded. Among the various grade levels, 590 (68%) of the 863 elementary parents, 300 (71%) of the 422 middle school parents, and 125 (65%) of the 193 high school parents who responded thought the district should consider open enrollment. More parents of students already participating in a school choice option 749 of 1060 (71%) tended to favor open enrollment than parents of students not participating in choice – 266 of 418 (64%). Conclusions
However, when asked about the importance of filling existing school buildings before construction new schools, parents supported the concept of building new schools first—apparently missing the value and prudence of using existing facilities. Article Submitted By: Sally Hague, Director School Choice Sally A. Hague, Ph.D., Director |
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The Florida Legislature recognizes the value of an educational system that provides numerous and meaningful school choice options for students and their parents. Florida Statute 1002.31 requires that each school district develop a plan that allows parents to indicate a preferential school choice assignment for their students. Each district may offer controlled open enrollment within the public schools in addition to the existing choice programs such as magnet schools, alternative schools, special programs, advanced placement and dual enrollment. Instead of being assigned to a public school based on attendance zones, controlled open enrollment allows parents to choose a school anywhere within the district, or, if not geographically feasible, from within established zones or boundaries within the district.
