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Pasco outlines open-enrollment windows, choice outcomes and customer-service metrics
Summary
District staff reported open-enrollment dates, acceptance/offer rates by grade band and customer-service results: April and June choice windows, varying offer/acceptance rates across elementary, middle and high school, and a call to better track why families decline offers.
District staff presented a detailed update on school choice open-enrollment windows, application outcomes and outreach work.
"The window will run through 4:30pm on April 17, with notifications of the lottery outcome going to families on May 18 and a deadline to accept an offer if received of May 22nd," said Kristen Ingold of the Office of Innovation, Advanced Studies & Choice, describing the April timeline; a final June window and associated notification and acceptance dates were also provided.
Ingold summarized application volumes and outcomes: a little over 3,200 kindergarten–fifth-grade applications in January with 50% pending acceptance and 74% acceptance of offers; roughly 2,000 middle-school applications with 45% pending and about 83% of those accepting; and more than 3,000 high-school applicants with 62% offered and 80% of offers accepted. Staff also reported more than 3,000 customer-support tickets during the outreach window, an average ticket age of three days (and in later remarks 0.3 days was cited for one metric), and 297 positive feedback notes.
In response to board questions about declined acceptances, Ingold said some declines are trackable (for example, when a student is zoned for the requested school or has a prior choice approval) but the district does not currently capture every reason families decline offers and welcomed ideas for better feedback collection. Board members also asked whether families who accepted early-window offers but later face transportation changes (such as a bus-hub lottery) would have an appeal pathway; staff said some of those logistics would be handled by the transportation office and that the procedural interaction would need further clarification.
Staff also briefed the board on a PASCO Pathways pilot to brand neighborhood elementary schools; results showed 80% of pilot schools reduced zone students choosing out and some schools increased choice-acceptances. The update was informational; board members asked staff to explore improved ways to capture family decisions and to coordinate on transportation-related appeal pathways.
