Number of Students Seeking Most Popular Schools Far Exceeds Available Seats
NEW ORLEANS, La. -- The Recovery School District today announced an unprecedented number of families applied to the Main Round of the 2018-2019 OneApp, the unified application New Orleans families use to transfer or enter local public schools of their choice. Nearly 17,000 families submitted an application for the upcoming school year, up from 15,000 last year.
"In New Orleans, students are assigned to schools through a process that ensures every student has a fair shot at any open seat at any school city-wide. Every year, the number of students seeking seats at our most sought-after schools far exceeds the number of available seats," said Kunjan Narechania, CEO of the Recovery School District. "The city has made tremendous progress in improving its schools to make them more desirable for families. As we transition school oversight to the Orleans Parish School Board on July 1, we will look to their leadership to ensure continued growth."
|
School Year
|
Total # of Applicants
|
INF-PK4 applicants
|
K-8
|
9-12
|
|
2018-2019
|
16,931
|
5,749
|
6,963
|
4,219
|
|
2017-2018
|
15,099
|
4,993
|
6,002
|
4,104
|
The surge in applications can be largely attributed to three new schools--Edward Hynes Charter School, Audubon Charter School Uptown and Audubon Charter School Gentilly--joining the OneApp process this year. These schools had among the highest demand of K-8 schools in the city. The overall percent of students matched to a school of their choice in New Orleans is 75 percent for the 2018-2019 school year, but in the city's highly sought-after schools, where demand far exceeds the number of seats, this rate is much lower.
|
School/District
|
Total # of PK4 -
8 Applicants
|
Total available seats
|
Percent of applicants matched to school
|
|
Hynes
|
1,448
|
100
|
7%
|
|
Alice Harte
|
1,180
|
88
|
8%
|
|
Ben Franklin Elementary
|
1,281
|
173
|
14%
|
|
Mary Bethune
|
426
|
63
|
15%
|
|
Bricolage
|
646
|
121
|
19%
|
|
Morris Jeff
|
551
|
162
|
27%
|
|
Audubon Uptown
|
607
|
209
|
29%
|
|
Audubon Gentilly
|
483
|
153
|
32%
|
Today's announcement follows the release of match results last week. Among the key takeaways:
- Sixty-seven percent of PK4-12 applicants were matched to one of their top three choices in 2018-2019. The overall percent of students matched to a school of their choice in New Orleans is 75 percent and 91 percent for applicants who listed four or more schools.
- Eighty-seven percent of students from schools closing due to low performance were matched to one of their top three choices for the 2018-2019 school year. OneApp gives priority to students from closing schools. This year, 94 percent of students enrolled in closing schools in grade K-7 were assigned to a choice school, 87 percent were assigned to one of their top three choices, 62 percent were assigned to their top choice, and 69 percent of assigned closing school applicants were matched to an A, B, or C-rated school.
- The rate of eligible high school applicants matched to a school remained high at 92 percent. This year, 3,244 rising ninth grade students submitted an application through OneApp. This number remains steady compared to previous years. Their match rate for 2018-2019 is 92 percent, a slight increase from last year's 91 percent.
- All kindergarteners who applied to their siblings' schools were matched with their siblings. That is in addition to 89 percent of sibling-applicants across grades PK4 and 1-12 that matched into the same schools.
- One hundred percent of seats set aside for geographic priority in our most sought-after schools filled with students who live in the geographic zone. Two years ago, new geographic priority zones were adopted. While the new zones are smaller and more intuitive, they did not result in increased in-zone choices. In fact, 65 percent of all K-8 choices were made outside of applicants' zones.
For more information about EnrollNOLA's OneApp, click here.
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