New schedule reflects recommendations of consultant hired to re-evaluate Champaign Unit 4 Schools of Choice process; further changes expected in 2022-23
Families: Mark your calendar for March 3, virtual information night
by Laura Weisskopf Bleill
The Champaign Unit 4 School District will open its kindergarten registration process in late March, chambanamoms.com has learned.
For the 2022-23 school year, the schools of choice registration window will be March 21-April 30, 2022, a district spokesperson told chambanamoms.com. A virtual Choice Informational Night will take place on March 3. Due to Covid restrictions, the district spokesperson said, there will not be in-person open houses or building tours.
The registration schedule change marks a significant departure from years past, when parents were able to fill out the paperwork as early as the first week of January with the registration period closing in late March. With the new schedule, families won’t find out placements until at least mid-May.
“Historically, a large number of families do not register during the traditional kindergarten registration time frames (January-March) for a variety of reasons so we decided to push back the timeline to allow the District to complete targeted community outreach,” wrote Stacey Moore, Champaign Unit 4 School District Chief Communications Officer in response to emailed questions.
A Board of Education meeting in late January featured an update from a demography consultant, Cooperative Strategies, hired to review alternative options to the current student assignment process in response to the district’s strategic plan. That plan — adopted in Fall 2020 — includes a goal to pilot and scale changes to the Schools of Choice Program to “promote desegregation and increased access to rigor across schools.”
According to Moore, the decision to delay the registration window was made by the district in conjunction with the recommendations of Cooperative Strategies.
The rolling out of the Schools of Choice timeline – which according to Moore will be available online on Feb. 18 — is welcome news to parents and guardians who have been waiting and wondering about the status of the registration window for their students, who will enter the district’s kindergarten classrooms in Fall 2022.
“This overlaps with returning student registration, and we hope this will increase the number of families registered to improve the fidelity of the Choice process,” wrote Moore.
Unlike a traditional neighborhood school assignment model, families in Unit 4 are able to choose a school regardless of their address. The district asks families to rank their top five schools. A computer software program designed to process the applications then makes assignments.
The history behind why Champaign Unit 4 has Schools of Choice is a long and complex one. Its goal is to foster socioeconomic diversity across the 12 elementary school buildings. The formula gives weight to certain factors for each student including proximity and socioeconomic status. (For more on the ins and outs of Champaign Unit 4 Schools of Choice, see our past article on this topic; we will update this article for 2022 after Unit 4 releases the specific timelines.)
A few other departures from years past: notification will not be done by mail, but by digital means. In addition, the waitlist for transfers to other schools will expire at the end of the first quarter versus the end of the first semester; transfers will only be accepted for documented safety concerns or for siblings.
Families are encouraged to join the virtual Choice Informational Night scheduled for March 3, 2022, where principals will be available to answer questions.
“There are videos available that describe all 12 campuses on the Choice webpage,” Moore wrote.
For tips on how to navigate the Schools of Choice process, head to our past article on this topic.
**This is a developing story. Stay tuned for more information about kindergarten registration in Unit 4 and other districts across Champaign-Urbana.**
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February 18, 2022 at 11:14AM
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