Districts supporting neighborhood schools should plan for continually shifting student populations and mobility-driven capacity demands¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The report's closing recommendations for district leadership highlight that neighborhood schools serve any students in their attendance zone, taking in students at all times of year, so they have less certainty about who they will serve. It identifies "a substantial challenge is to develop the capacity for staff to be ready to serve a continually shifting population of students that may have different needs from one year to the next." Districts should therefore build staff capacity for enrollment churn and recognize that low performance ratings can push families toward schools outside the neighborhood, working against cluster models.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Staff development capacity that can flex to serve a continually shifting student population
• Awareness that performance ratings interact with enrollment choices in neighborhood cluster models

Constraints¶

• For schools with historically high student mobility and families with fewer economic resources, it will be difficult to show strong performance ratings relative to schools serving families with more resources
• For outcomes strongly associated with student economic backgrounds, such as test scores and college enrollment, the resources required to produce equitable outcomes are likely considerable

Target Learners¶

• Students in neighborhood attendance-zone schools serving high-poverty, high-mobility populations

Target Learning Goals¶

• Sustaining school improvement and equitable outcomes despite enrollment instability

Related Strategies¶

• Design large, contiguous, heterogeneous attendance zones with equivalent programs and limited transport time

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Elaine M. Allensworth and Andrew Zou. (2020). Supporting Neighborhood Schools from Pre-K through High School: Successes and Challenges of the North Lawndale Cluster Initiative. UChicago Consortium Research Report. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/supporting-neighborhood-schools-from-pre-k-through-high-school