Registration: What’s the big deal (part 2)

As I was preparing another post on this topic, I heard two stories of new families who will be going through the registration process (aka, “Schools of Choice”, “Kindergarten Lottery”, et al) soon and have almost no idea of what is going on. In both cases, these two families speak English as a second language and are (or at least were) not yet fully aware of online blogs or even the Unit 4 Family Information Center – they have only recently learned of this thing called a lottery and they have to somehow register their child. If I had to put myself in their shoes, I would probably be blissfully ignorant until I arrived at the FIC to fill out a registration form, and then my heart would sink as I was presented with 11 schools to choose from and confusing terms like “Proximity A” and “Magnet programs”.

How would Unit 4, and particularly the FIC, best serve families in this situation? I am not even sure how to answer that question.

One thing that might be really helpful is a large posterboard (at least 3 feet by 4 feet, preferably larger) of a map of the school district with all the schools clearly marked and pushpins so that a parent can find their address and see approximately how far they are from any given school. That was the impetus of my googlemap/javascript project. If you know nothing about the schools, at least you can make a determination by the schools that are closest to you. And since you get 5 “choices” this year (opposed to 3 “choices” in years past), there is an exceptionally high chance that you get at least one of them. Even if it is your last choice.

I would also love to see a directory of “walking miles” from each and every address to each and every school. Yes, that is quite a lot of information to print and consume; roughly 45,000 addresses x 11 schools = 495000 possibilities. But that information is very static – only has to be updated when a school changes location. You could even cheat a little bit and introduce some error by calculating at the block level; an average of 25 addresses per block would give you a mere 1800 entries to comb through. I am told that the bus garage already has something like this, but I am met with a Stonewall Jackson every time I ask for it. Sure, Unit 4 does not want to put personally identifiable information online, but how hard is it to strip out names and leave simple addresses? The beauty of doing all addresses indiscrimantly is that it totally ignores whether or not a child is in school – viola, no way to personally identify anyone.

Sorry, I totally digressed on this topic. I spoke with an acquaintance about Unit 4; this person has a lot of experience with communication, and basically summed up the Unit 4 Administration of being guilty of misinformation by omission. They basically have a really hard time getting helpful information out to the public. I can only hope that changes. And I will do what I can to encourage it.

In Conclusion: When you register for Kindergarten in Unit 4, you have an opportunity to rank-order your top 5 choices for a school.

1. Use all 5 choices.
2. If you can, do some research prior to filling out the form to get an idea where you want your child to go
3. If you cannot, find the schools that are closest to you
4. Do not leave any choice blank.