Most St. Paul Schools to End Wait Lists: Option Helps Few, Complicates Placement of New Pupils

By Doug Belden, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

Apr. 7–Most St. Paul schools to end wait lists — For years, St. Paul parents stressed by the decision about where to enroll their child in school have had a bit of a security blanket: the waiting list.

If they didn’t get into their first-choice school, they always could get on the list and wait for a spot to open.

But starting this fall, wait lists for almost all St. Paul Public Schools will disappear shortly after school begins.

Administrators say wait lists don’t serve much purpose once the school year is under way, because few families switch their children in midyear. Also, school leaders prefer students don’t transfer once the school year has begun.

In addition, having wait lists in place makes it harder to find spots for families who want to enroll after the school year has started.

“We just can’t take them in time, so they wind up going somewhere else or staying put,” said Suzanne Kelly, chief of staff to Superintendent Meria Carstarphen.

A 40,000-student district that has been shrinking and is expected to lose another 1,000 students next year, St. Paul needs new enrollees more than it needs to preserve flexibility for current students to transfer internally, administrators said.

“People on waiting lists are kind of holding a spot they might not take,” said Jill Cacy, the district’s assistant director of student placement. “It was cutting down on the choice for the latecomers.”

A new family may find a school that works for one of its children but discover there isn’t room for the other

kids, Cacy said. It doesn’t make sense to stall that family while the district tries to contact a dozen people on the school’s waiting list, she said.

Officials hope the change also will help schools that have not had waiting lists fight the reputation of being “dumping grounds” for new arrivals. Under the new system, every school will be able to add students as the year goes along and spots become available.

Wait lists for fall will be in place during the summer and through the start of school. They will expire Sept. 15.

The new policy does not affect a handful of schools and programs that have special eligibility requirements and long wait lists. Exempt are: Capitol Hill Gifted and Talented Magnet, which uses a qualifying test for admission; Adams and L’Etoile du Nord elementaries, the Spanish and French immersion schools; and the district’s 4-year-old programs, many of which are targeted at low-income, special-education and English-language-learner students.

St. Paul is the state’s second-largest school district. The largest, Anoka-Hennepin, doesn’t use the same kind of extensive in-district choice system that St. Paul has, and it doesn’t have comparable wait lists. In Minneapolis Public Schools, the state’s third-largest district, parents who don’t get their first-choice schools can be put on a waiting list that lasts through the school year and into early May.

Doug Belden can be reached at 651-228-5136.

WAIT LISTS FOR ST. PAUL PUBLIC SCHOOLS

How many families got their first choice last year?

On-time elementary applicants: 89 percent

Secondary applicants: 96 percent

Which schools typically have long wait lists?

Elementaries: Battle Creek, Nokomis, J.J. Hill and Crossroads

Secondaries: Murray Junior High, and Central, Como and Harding high schools

Most of the movement off wait lists happens in June and August.

Since Sept. 15, the district has processed nearly 2,800 new students in grades K-12.

(Figures do not include the district’s two language-immersion schools and Capitol Hill, the gifted and talented magnet.)

Source: St. Paul Public Schools student placement center

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