Last week, we held our seventh citywide community meeting on the principles of the unified enrollment proposal, this time in Allston. We continue to take and welcome feedback and input in this initial stage of the Mayor's proposal so we urge families and individuals to share input through our online survey. And we will continue to meet with families in the community to explore the ways that a unified enrollment system would contribute to more equitable, easier access to Boston's top-notch district and charter schools.
 
Through our citywide community meetings, we met with almost 170 people. A majority of those who attended identified themselves as parents or guardians of a school-aged child, while others volunteered that they serve our students and families through their work in Boston schools or community organizations. More than 40 concerned community members managed to attend two or more of our citywide community meetings.
 




We heard a lot of feedback both supportive of the plan and in opposition. We appreciated that even most of those opposed to the proposal stayed through the meetings to sit in small groups to more thoroughly consider the idea and improve upon it.
 
We're grateful to see that feedback continues to arrive via our online survey as well. Through that platform we're hearing that many families find the current enrollment system and procedures to be cumbersome and difficult to manage. We're also hearing that clear disciplinary and teacher selection standards that serve all students fairly are important to families. We encourage families, especially those who were unable to attend a meeting, to use our survey as a tool for sharing your input.
 
As we continue to seek feedback from families and education leaders around the city, we will at the same time grapple with the important questions that community members have articulated at meetings. We will work to develop answers that work for families and provide PreK-8 district and charter schools with one set of enrollment policies.
 
As we have in our past emails, we wanted to continue answering questions here:

Q. Would a unified enrollment system monitor student movement between schools (e.g. from a district to a charter or vice versa) as well as where students with special needs are served?
 
A. Yes, a unified enrollment system would provide enrollment information about all students in one place.  This would include both student migration between sectors as well as subgroups such as students with disabilities or English language learners.  
 
From the beginning of our partnership, it has been a belief of the Compact that when district, charter and Catholic school educators agree upon analyses of what is/not working, they can find shared solutions.  A centralized enrollment database could offer additional opportunities for building a shared understanding, addressing problems and sharing effective practice.
 
 As always, thank you for your continued dedication to the education of Boston children.
 
Best,
Rachel