Board discusses open enrollment
Administration proposes 75 new open enrollment slots. Policy committee debates revisions.
In 1975, to decrease racial segregation in schools, the Wisconsin Legislature passed Chapter 220, a voluntary cross-district transportation program to bus Black children in the city of Milwaukee to the outlying, predominantly White, suburbs and vice versa.1
In 1984, Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) sued the outlying suburbs and said they weren’t trying hard enough. More suburban districts signed on to accept Chapter 220 students and those that were already participating agreed to take more. Some districts set goals to have a minimum percentage of minority students. Some progress in racial integration was made but not much.
In 1998, the Open Enrollment program was passed to allow any student (not just minorities) in any district (not just those in or near Milwaukee and Madison) to apply to attend school in another district. There weren’t specific integration goals, no busing was provided, and receiving schools got less funding for Open Enrollment students than they did under Chapter 220. But it was open to anyone. In 2011, about 6,000 MPS students used open enrollment to attend school in another district. However, 60% of those students are White and only 24% are Black.
The Chapter 220 program ended in 2015, and despite much effort, school districts are still pretty segregated. In 1972 Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) were 30% Black and 66% White. By 2010, they were 57% Black and 12% White.
I mention all this, because two things happened with respect to open (also called non-resident) enrollment in Wauwatosa over the last month.
The first is that the school board’s policy committee, comprised of board members Jessica Willis and Jenny Hoag plus Superintendent Demond Means and a NEOLA representative who's name I keep forgetting (sorry), met before Christmas on December 19th and this week on January 3rd to discuss revisions to Policy 5113 on open enrollment and Policy 5120 on district assignment.
The second is that, according to an email from the school district on January 6th, the district “will recommend that the Board of Education approve a total of 75 Open Enrollment seats” for the next year. At the same time, it said, a total of 157 non-resident students are expected to graduate in June 2023 which would mean a net decrease in the aggregate number of non-resident students in the district. The board will hear the proposal on January 9 and approve final numbers on January 23.