Wisconsin’s public school choice program called Open Enrollment begins next week.
Online applications for public school open enrollment for the next school year, will be available on the Department of Public Instruction(DPI) website beginning Feb. 5.
Open enrollment is when parents elect to send their students to a school district other than the one they reside in. Any student attending a public school is eligible to take part in Open Enrollment.
DPI spokesperson Tom McCarthy says if you do choose to send a student to another district, there will be some differences...
".... to a certain extent, yes, there are some things you normally would be accustomed to, the biggest one being transportation that are not as clearly provided. So if you're going to go to another public school district far away from you and you have no means of getting there. The likelihood of you continuing to go to that school is rather low...."
McCarthy says the reasons parents choose another district are many...
"...families where the matriarch or the patriarch are still working and they travel a long distance to work often find it convenient to travel to that school district. You also have the classic version of choice where the neighboring school district provides what you think would be the best suited learning experience for your son or daughter. We continue to it raise in popularity and more students take advantage of it...."
The state’s public school open enrollment program has been in operation since the 1998-99 school year. In the first year of open enrollment, 2,464 students transferred from their home district to a nonresident public school district. Last year, 58,347 students transferred through open enrollment.
