History and Origins of Open Enrollment at Acton-Boxborough The origins of the Open Enrollment system are described in the December 1990/January 1991 edition of Educational Leadership (pp. 44-47), and is included as an appendix to this memo. Written as a somewhat complimentary overview of Acton’s experiment with the decentralized leadership of schools, it also offers some history of why it originally emerged in the community. The Open Enrollment system was first implemented in 1972 and involved the five (5) elementary schools that were part of the Acton Public Schools. Blanchard Elementary in Boxborough would not be incorporated into the enrollment process until full regionalization of the District in 2014 [more on that below]. Prior to Open Enrollment, a growing cohort of newer residents with school-aged children were advocating for elementary schools to adopt more progressive teaching and learning philosophies. The response to this demand was to create an alternative elementary school that would align with the interests of those newer residents. Residents who were not interested in the more progressive philosophies viewed this as a way to both appease the demands of this vocal cohort of families and protect the remaining schools from continued demands for change. This agreement to allow one of the elementary schools to serve as an “alternative” school is how the Merriam School emerged. A system of “open enrollment” for all schools then evolved within Acton. While the initial version was simply to direct a cohort of families to a separate option, the community began to embrace the idea of offering all families a process for choosing a school that may align with their philosophy of schooling. To that end, the five elementary schools were provided the autonomy to develop their own curriculum and instructional priorities, with an eye towards specific characteristics that could distinguish it from other schools and appeal to varying educational philosophies. A process for having families rank order the schools, and then for the District to assign each student to a school was then established. An important postscript to the establishment of the open enrollment system is when Acton and Boxborough fully regionalized its schools in 2014. Previous to full regionalization, Boxborough was its own school district, with Blanchard Elementary as the sole school in the district. Before regionalization, Boxborough was part of the 7-12 regional school district, where students from Blanchard would join the regional school system at the Junior High. As part of full regionalization, the District had to navigate the unique contours of Acton’s enrollment system and a strong desire by residents of both communities to preserve the right to attend a school, or in Boxborough’s case - the single school - within their town of residence. To meet this goal, the regional agreement includes the still in effect “ hometown guarantee ”. The hometown guarantee provides residents of Boxborough an assurance that their child will be placed at Blanchard if they so choose. While full regionalization added Blanchard as the sixth elementary school in the District, and an option for all families in Acton or Boxborough to include in their list of preferences, the hometown guarantee provides Boxborough families priority and a guarantee of placement at Blanchard. They can, as part of open enrollment, also select any of the five elementary schools in Acton as their preferred choice. It will be noted below the significance of the hometown guarantee in terms of creating a markedly different set of conditions for families who enroll their child after the Kindergarten lottery. While placement of students after the K lottery in the other elementary schools is dependent on the availability of open spots, a Boxborough resident has the right to
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