Sign Up For Our Newsletter

Choice Process Goes Virtual in Nashville

“Parents can log on, pick Nashville school of choice”
by Lisa Fingeroot
The Tennessean
November 6, 2012

Submitting a school choice application to Metro schools is becoming a little easier this month with the launch of an online process designed to get more children enrolled in the school they want, an education official said.

The biggest change in the application process is that it can be done completely online for students who are already attending a Metro school, said Meredith Libbey, assistant to the director of schools and part of the communications team involved in designing the process.

In the past, parents had to physically obtain information from one school and deliver it to another. The parents of children who do not attend Metro schools must still hand-deliver an application to the main school office because the child has not yet received a student identification number, Libbey said.

The second change is that families are being asked to rank their choices in order of preference and may have seven selections.

Previously, parents could request as many schools as their child was eligible to attend. Some parents would select every school of choice on their child’s grade level in hopes of getting into one, Libbey said.

A lot of time was wasted keeping up with waiting lists, phone numbers and changes of address only to have staff members call parents who said they had forgotten they even applied to the school that had an opening.

In the new process, a student is either accepted into one of his school choices or put on a waiting list. There is no juggling of spots and holding them open while a family makes a decision, Libbey said.

About 15,000 applications were submitted for schools of choice for the current school year, and about 70 percent of the students received at least one of their choices, Libbey said.

She is not sure how that number will change with the new process but anticipates that more families will get a slot in at least one school on their priority list.

“We believe the result will be that more families get the choices they want,” she said.

Each of those 15,000 applications does not represent a different child because last year, separate applications had to be made for schools with academic requirements, she added.

Five of the school system’s 19 magnet schools have academic requirements. Those schools are Martin Luther King Jr. middle and high schools, Meigs Middle School, Hume-Fogg High School and the Nashville School of the Arts high school, which also requires an audition.

This year, students can apply to academic magnets and themed schools of choice with a single application. Charter schools still require separate applications.

Only hours after the site launched Thursday, mother Leslie Richter quickly chose three top choices for her daughter, who will be entering kindergarten in the next school year, and was comparing information to determine a fourth-place preference.

“I want to get her into the best school,” Richter said.

The redesigned “school options” section of the school system’s main website at www.mnps.org is interactive so parents can key in the information most important to them and compare choices side by side. The school system will accept schools of choice applications for the 2013-14 school year until Nov. 30.

“We want to raise awareness,” Libbey said. “We want people to know they have choices and if they choose to go to their zoned school, that school at the end of the yellow bus route is better than you may think.”

Parents can use their own computer or use one of several computers set up in the lobby of the school system’s main office at 2601 Bransford Ave. Help is available there.

The website also contains a list of visitation hours for each of the schools so parents can go and see it for themselves.

A school “has to be a good school for your child and your family, and the best way (to make sure) is to do homework,” Libbey said. “We need to get all hands on deck and help parents understand.”