Sam Duell is the Policy Director for Charter Schools at ExcelinEd.
Last week, ABC News reported that hundreds of thousands of public school students are missing from school rosters. In Florida alone, there are 88,000 missing students and an estimated 3 million missing students nationwide. Why have students not come back to school? There could be several correct answers to that question.
Lately, people have been writing about trust. For example, The New York Times quoted Farah Despeignes, a Black mother of two, as saying, “I’m not going to trust somebody else to keep my children safe.” NPR quoted Randi Weingarten, the leader of a national teachers’ union, as saying that trust was key to reopening. Paul Hill and Ashley Jochim of CRPE wrote that, “Trust, a societal resource that has been steadily bleeding away, is indispensable for schooling.” Harvard wrote about it. USC’s graduate school of education did too. Not to mention the Chicago Sun Times and the Pew Trusts.
But trust is a tricky thing. Entire books have been written about it. How can public schools build trust?
As my parents used to tell me, “whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much.”
Today, ExcelinEd is releasing a new model policy that suggests one way districts can build trust with families one step at a time and one course at a time. It is a part-time enrollment policy. If adopted, it would allow families to enroll their students part-time in public school.
This is another tool in the policy toolbox that could provide a win for students, for parents, and for school districts. Students receive the courses they need from the provider that makes the most sense. Parents have an increased amount of flexibility. And districts could see a funding boost from an increased number of students along with all kinds of opportunity for partnering with community organizations.
