Designing Diverse Schools to Serve Neighborhood Needs

Over the last decade, Denver Public Schools increased enrollment by more than 20,000 students, a gain of more than 25%.  Dozens of new schools were opened to serve these students across the city and using different governance: district-run and charter.

To help inform the new school approval and location processes, we were able to move past unreliable "intent to enroll" forms that rarely translate into actual enrollment demand or community meetings that brought in families from the far side of the city because they attended a separate campus of a district network or charter management organization. 

Instead, we were able to rely on existing SchoolChoice data in targeted neighborhoods based on how families were choosing different program models and waitlists for other nearby schools.  This is the equivalent of inaccurate polling ahead of Election Day versus using actual voting data.   The result has been smarter new school introductions that have strong demand and fit into a regional portfolio to give families access to different options.  So instead of building a Starbucks across the street from a Starbucks, we are thinking regionally about program needs that are missing and opening up access for students.