A MIXED METHOD APPROACH TO STUDY THE PARENTAL SCHOOL CHOICE PROCESS IN KANSAS CITY APRIL 2017 2 Parental School Choice Process Parental School Choice Process 3 Executive Summary 04 Methodology 07 Data Collection Process 18 Data Collection & Analysis 19 Results 20 Recommendations 39 ABLE OF T CONTENTS 4 Parental School Choice Process PARENTAL SCHOOL CHOICE PROCESS IN KANSAS CITY EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In 2016, SchoolSmartKC, in collaboration with Show Me KC Schools and through the support of the Kauffman Foundation as a fiscal sponsor, contracted with Hazley and Associates, LLC (H&A) and the Kansas City Area Education Research Consortium (KC-AERC) to study the parental school choice process in Kansas City. Our team asked parents across Kansas City who live within the Kansas City Public School System (KCPSS) boundaries about their experiences navigating the school choice landscape. There are a plethora of schools in Kansas City leaving parents with the exciting yet daunting task of finding the best option. For example, the average kindergarten parent in Kansas City faces over 30 school choices. To learn about the Kansas City School choice process, our research team asked parents about information sources, driving factors, and obstacles that influenced their school choices. This report provides a summary of the findings based on 436 survey responses and focus groups with 103 parents. The synthesis of our qualitative and quantitative KEY FINDINGS results suggest that parents utilize a multi-step, multi-source process to learn about schools, yet • Parents engage in a multi-step process to learn they still struggle to access the detailed data they about schools. need to draw meaningful comparisons and • Parents value school tours and the opportunity conclusions about what school is best for their to see the teachers and classrooms in action. child. Moreover, the lack of a consistent process for learning about and enrolling their child • Parents struggle to understand the different makes the selection process particularly types of schools. challenging, especially for those parents who have limited time and financial resources. • Parents want timely and reliable information Schools, community organizations, and civic on academic characteristics of the school, leaders have the opportunity to improve the including academic performance data, teacher choice process by improving the quality, depth, quality, school safety, and curriculum. and comparability of resources available to parents. As a result of this data analysis, four • Parents express frustration with the strategies could be employed to improve the complexity and lack of information about the school choice process: 1) Create a consistent enrollment process. enrollment system strategy to reduce the barriers Teacher quality, parent involvement, and and stresses associated with the process and • academic performance are the top factors in eliminate some of the perceived inequities in the choosing a school. Yet, parents struggle to system; 2) Increase physical access to schools in make comparisons among schools, particularly addition to curriculum details and teacher and around academic performance and quality. performance data. 3) Implement a dynamic parent education and engagement initiative to • Show Me KC Schools is a valuable resource reduce the disparity in access to information and for parents exploring school choices. ability to positively impact schools. 4) Build upon the popularity and success of Show Me KC • KCPSS would benefit from a coordinated, up- Schools, enhance and leverage its brand to-date, detailed information system for recognition. parents navigating school choice. Parental School Choice Process 5 Parents engage in a multi-step process to learn resources, but parents noted that school and state about schools. Survey and focus group results websites were difficult to navigate and the indicate that parents utilize multiple sources of academic data was challenging to interpret. They data to learn about schools, typically combining wanted a comparison table that included the online research, word of mouth and school tours factors that were relevant to their child. or information sessions. Parents describe it as a multi-step process in which they weigh the Parents express frustration with the different sources of information against each complexity and lack of information about the other over a period of time. In terms of relative enrollment process. In the focus groups, parents usefulness, parents appear to value and trust in- expressed frustration with the lack of timely person communication (teachers, other parents, information about enrollment procedures for community members) slightly above other some schools, including application deadlines, sources of information. financial aid policies, wait list procedures, and lottery practices. They also described unclear One key finding in our study is that parents and conflicting admission guidelines across and struggle with the school choice jargon, especially within school systems in Kansas City. Parents the differences between a signature, pointed out that school applications are due in neighborhood, charter, and immersion school. different months, admission decisions are made at Efforts to clarify what the school types mean (and different time points and sometimes admissions don’t mean) would greatly contribute to guidelines change during the admission process. dispelling some of the misconceptions about This problem leads some parents to enroll in schools. multiple schools, which lengthens waiting lists Parents value school tours and the opportunity and leaves parents without a clear answer until to see the teachers and classrooms in action. the last days before school begins. 70% of parents found school tours extremely useful and parents consistently cite school tours Teacher quality, parent involvement, and as a critical source in their decision-making. academic performance are the top factors in School tours may help parents get a sense of the choosing a school. When asked to identify the school “climate” which seems to be embedded in top three factors influencing their school choice, parents desire for safe schools that are parents identified teacher quality, parent academically rigorous. As one parent noted, involvement and academic performance. Parents “Visiting allows you the option of seeing how the elaborated on the importance of teachers in the classrooms are structured; how things work. focus groups, describing the importance of That’s the biggest thing because who knows having teachers who emphasized rigorous what’s best for your child better than you?” academics, who were open and inviting to However, 35% of parents reported that access to parents, and who created a safe, positive learning school tours is an obstacle. Focus group environment in the classroom. Although not participants cited several reasons for not being cited as frequently in the survey data, able to attend school tours, including timing of transportation and diversity were discussed as tours, schools not being open to informal visits, meaningful factors that weighed into the school and schools not allowing visits to parents who choice process. were not official residents yet. The openness of schools to offer tours, particularly informal tours, Show Me KC Schools is a valuable resource appeared to vary considerably across schools. for parents exploring school choices. Slightly over half of parents in our sample were familiar Parents need more timely and comparable with Show Me KC Schools’ resources. Parents information on academic characteristics of the found resources useful, particularly the organized school, including academic performance, school tours. One of the unexpected teacher quality, school safety, and curriculum. consequences of the focus groups was that When parents were asked what information they unaware parents learned about Show Me KC would like but were not able to get, parents cited Schools and the resources available, especially more detailed academic data. Focus group parents the website’s capacity to compare schools. shared their frustrations about getting access to Word-of-mouth appears to be a promising teacher quality information, curriculum, strategy for expanding Show Me KC Schools’ disciplinary practices, and school improvement coverage. plans. Much of this information can be found on websites and through other 6 Parental School Choice Process ABOUT OUR TEAM Hazley & Associates, LLC (H &A) is an H&A is led by Dr. Melissa Patterson Hazley, a educational consulting firm that specializes in proud native of Kansas City, Missouri and a research, evaluation and strategic planning. It product of the Kansas City Public Education offers innovative, comprehensive solutions to system. Dr. Hazley obtained her Bachelor’s education and community engagement problems. degree in Political Science and the Master’s in This firm has a strong community focus, energetic Higher Education Administration with an problem solving approach, and a diverse talent emphasis in Student Affairs from the University pool that is culturally and generationally sensitive of Missouri Kansas City, as well as the Doctorate which makes it an ideal partner for this research in Educational Psychology from the University of study. Nebraska, Lincoln. She worked at the college level as a campus administrator for several years KC-AERC is a consortium of researchers before beginning a teaching and research career. from four regional research universities—the